Loose talk helps no one.

They say a photograph is worth a thousand words.  I am sure like me you recall pictures that have transformed your understanding of a situation.  The man in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square.  The napalmed girl in Vietnam.  And now we have the picture of a little boy being cradled in the arms of a policeman. That picture in time too may come to define our understanding of the current refugee crisis.  

But as in all such situations there is often the spectacle of people throwing figures around.  Blame being attached.  This one is no different.

One report today claimed that Britain has accepted a mere 216 Syrian refugees.  The tweet by George Eaton, the political editor of the New Statesman magazine, has gone has gone viral on social media.  Like so many things floating around the internet it’s taken as being true. No one bothers to check the facts.

So for clarity, here they are.

 

Official government figures show that the UK had 1,688 asylum applications from Syrians in 2014, and a further 2,204 in 2015. The grant rate of 87% suggests some 3,400 Syrian refugees have come to Britain in the last two years, with around another 2,000  being accepted in 2011 and 2012. 

So today we had a number of politicians jumping on the bandwagon.  I found the First Minister of Scotland’s intervention somewhat disingenuous.  You would think we in the UK were doing nothing.  It was political point scoring at its nastiest. In a more reflective moment I hope she will realise it was a rash thing to say.

The offerings from Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham were not much better.  Hardly of the quality you would expect from a potential future prime minister.

Love him or loathe him, George Osbourne actually got it right.  And Ms Sturgeon doesn't have a monopoly on tears.