Denis McShane, the very man that wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian last week calling for 'A non-toxic immigration debate', "one that must be reported sensitively, not sensationally", has just called on Iraqi asylum seekers in the UK to 'go home'. "The successful election that has just been held in Iraq suggests that we may now be moving towards a more stable Iraq. Yes, there will be violence and explosions but the British Isles have known plenty of those in the past 30 or 40 years."
So we are talking about a country where there are currently 3.5 deaths a day from gunfire/executions and 6 per day from suicide/vehicle bombs, and where 91 people have died in the past 7 days (22-28 March) from terrorist/insurgent violence are we? Or are we talking about the British Isles where 52 people have died from terrorist/insurgent violence in the past decade? Or the 800 or so killed in the UK since 1970 (including deaths in Northern Ireland and the Lockerbie bombing)? This is about a sixth of the total civilian deaths in Iraq for the whole of 2009 (4,644).
Is this really the sort of "sensitivity and balance" that he claims he wishes to see in the immigration debate?
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