A great country to live in

Those who think Britain is no longer a great and decent country should consider the events of the past two weeks: an alleged Islamist plot to attack airliners has already led to the charging of 11 suspects; our airports have been in turmoil; there is a furore over the effectiveness and propriety of ethnic ‘passenger profiling’; the Home Secretary warns that there are ‘dozens’ more terrorist plots under investigation.

Yet — in the midst of all this — the country is finally embarking upon a long-needed debate on immigration, and doing so (with a very few exceptions) in a calm and pragmatic fashion. Elsewhere in the world, such a conjunction of events would have led to inflammatory rhetoric by politicians and widespread social disorder. It is a tribute to the common sense of the British that the real target of abuse has been not immigrants or ethnic minorities, but the government.