None of the 1,300 asylum seekers at France's Sangatte refugee camp should be allowed to set foot in Britain, Iain Duncan Smith has said. In his strongest comments on the issue so far the Conservative leader said Britain was losing its battle against rising numbers of asylum seekers. Writing in the Daily Mail, he claimed the system has buckled under the strain and Sangatte has become a "staging post for people waiting to break the law and enter the UK illegally".
Meanwhile International Development Secretary Clare Short has ridiculed details from a leaked Downing Street report, which propose to tie some countries' aid to the number of refugees they take back.