webofevil | Strength of character

They’re talking about asylum seekers being held in detention centres. It’s well documented that these holding tanks are prone to riots and suicide attempts, sometimes due to the living conditions and sometimes due to our attempts to send the inmates back to the countries that tortured them in the first place. The Minister, Lord Bassam, is looking on the bright side.

Lord Bassam: The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, raised the issue of mental health. I accept that that is a proper concern about detainees but, interestingly, an audit completed by doctors in 2006 found a very low level of incidence of mental ill health problems—lower, in fact, than one might expect to find in the community generally. In a way, one can understand why that might be, because these particular people have had great strength of character in getting themselves to the position that they have.

So fleeing torture and risking never seeing your family again is character-building and leads to robust mental health? I don’t like where this is going. Especially after Lord Bassam let slip his support for the Omega Project.