Alex Massie Alex Massie

Let Tesco Run the Border Agency

Lord knows Heathrow airport is usually a pretty hellish place even on its better days (another reason, incidentally, for starting again on the Thames Estuary and building houses for 150,000 people at Heathrow) but, at the risk of seeming simple this stramash over lengthy queues at LHR’s immigration seems laughably simple to resolve: deploy more Border Agency officers to check passports or, if you prefer, check only a random sample of passengers. Either will do, both will prevent people – especially those from outwith the EU – from spending hours for the joy of entering a country enduring, with no more than the usual level of grumbling, the wettest, coldest drought in recorded western european history.

Instead, however, we have ministers making pointless “fact-finding” trips to Heathrow and everyone insisting that it’s “more complicated” than simply hiring more staff.

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