This graph makes it crystal clear how disproportionately low our exposure to asylum applications is when compared to nearly all of our European Neighbours. One of the few positive outcomes from the many debates taking place yesterday is that our Government along with France finally wants to open up discussions across the EU on how the combined nations should respond to migration, rather than solely blaming the French for not doing a better job in Calais. It would clearly have been a bit more encouraging had that desire for a strategic discussion happened when the Italians were attempting to pick people out of the water with no help from the rest of us. It is desperately sad that this Government and indeed the Labour opposition have both focused so hard on the pain that immigrants have caused to their political strategies, rather than the reality of the human suffering taking place beyond European shores. Having said that it is clearly time for our Government to re-evaluate its approach to how we apportion responsibility for migrants to local government. At present we have Kent taking a totally unreasonable level of responsibility, at other times West Sussex has been the first port of call to those arriving through Gatwick. Its vital that we plan for and organise our response to challenges like the migrants in Calais. As unpopular as it might be, how much better would it be to open the tunnel and allow all 5,000 refugees and asylum seekers into the UK? That would be much more dignified than spending Millions on fences and dogs to no real purpose. The fact that the two main parties and all of the major newspapers appear to agree on something, does not make it right. We need a much more open and inclusive discussion based around some real facts such as the ones behind the graph above.