Ministers have perfected a patter when talking about immigration. “We’re sorry – we’ve made mistakes, but we’re now getting it under control with our new, tough, Australian-style Points Based System”, they say. Last week, in his first speech on immigration in two years, Gordon Brown trumpeted the merits of the Points Based System (PBS) for immigration and citizenship. He claimed that “together they constitute a fundamental reform of a decade’s old system – a reform founded on the British values of personal responsibility and civic duty.”

The Future of Student Visas
Executive summary Getting immigration under control must be the first and main priority of any new government. The problem now lies not merely in illegal

