The controversial decision by the Home Office to use advertising vans to intensify an already very active debate on illegal immigrants has inevitably cause a great deal of distress to many people including those whose families have been resident in the UK for many generations. These people understand what the sharp end of racism feels like in a way that most Civil Servants cannot and the Home Office Ministers, Theresa May, Mark Harper, James Brokenshire, Damian Green, Jeremy Browne and Lord Taylor of Holbeach clearly don’t.

It is amazing how people who could otherwise be intimidated by such a campaign and who might get angry, decide that humour is the best medicine. People such as Pukkah Punjabi who wrote this humerous piece for the Guardian. That they can retain their sense of humour when others such as the six Ministers mentioned above have clearly lost sight of their humanity is a real credit to people like Pukkah. Sadly some of the other victims of this strategy are the civil servants who are expected to deal with the phone calls such as the one that Pukkah made. It is inevitable that some of these people will be as angry about the policy as Pukkah is and the civil servants are the people who have to deal with the humour and inevitably the abuse that others will have meted out. That they are being paid to do this work is no reason for their paymasters to waste their skill and expertise on such a poorly thought through endeavour. Its vital that this abuse of power and threat to our community cohesion is not overlooked, just because it is the Summer when everyone is too hot to focus on the pages of their newspapers.

Perhaps a policy that is good enough for those who break our immigration rules is equally suitable for those break other laws. People whose actions are just as unpopular. Perhaps the DWP could follow this approach in dealing with some of our tax dodgers. This idea was suggested in a blog by the Political Scrapbook, presumably the place for these vans to circulate is the City of London?

As well as tackling those who have failed to pay taxes, perhaps there could be a campaign against the men and women who have broken the law, despite working in the Palace of Westminster. The Government agency IPSA could sponsor a van that is positioned on Parliament Square throughout the first week back of our MPs after their Summer break. The design could include an image of a duck house and a moat that is freshly cleaned with a suitable helpline for these abusers of public money to hand themselves in. Of course there will be no such campaign and if there was these men and women would be a great deal less good humoured about it than Pukkah was in yesterdays Guardian.