My battle with Britain’s mean, ineffective immigration system

When I first came to this country nearly a decade ago, Britain wanted immigrants like me. Back then you could get a visa just for being creative. It was called the ‘Artist, Writer, Composer Visa’ — a Blairite flight of fancy if there ever was one — and all you had to do was fill out a form proving that you’d made a name for yourself in your country of origin in one of those three disciplines. The application, as I recall, made a point of including conceptual artists and sculptors. I’d published a novel in Canada, so I was in. It was that easy. Thinking about it now makes me want to weep.

Back then, Britain was more upbeat. There were jobs in the media and journalists still had expense accounts. Pizza Express was a place in which you might like to eat a pizza. The super-rich hadn’t yet bought up every last lush bit of west London, so when you walked through Holland Park during the day you might see mothers with their children, rather than lonely Filipina servants feeding ducks.