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‘Is it safe?’ asked Smith

Excellent news for Mehdi Kazemi who’s been given a (quite literal) stay of execution by the Home Secretary. Was it pity or compassion that touched her cold heart? Was she shamed into it or did she simply want to get him off the telly and out of the papers where he was making her look bad?

The 1,400 asylum seekers that Jacqui Smith wants to return to the newly ’safe’ Iraq should take heed. They should get organised, start queueing outside the Home Office, and get themselves on the telly like Northern Rock pensioners.

It’s a double-pronged attack. The asylum seekers get to demonstrate their embrace of British values by showing how much they love a good queue. The government get to demonstrate their embrace of public relation values by showing how much they hate a good queue.

No doubt Ms Smith took an evidence-based approach in making her decision. Let’s look at some of the evidence she must have considered when declaring herself the new Safety Elephant.

As Bookdrunk points out, the Ms Smith’s colleagues at the Foreign office judge the situation in Iraq as:

…highly dangerous with a continuing high threat of terrorism throughout Iraq, violence and kidnapping targeting foreign nationals, including individuals of non-western appearance.

Iraq is so safe, that earlier this week, as Philip says, Defence Secretary Des Browne had to be smuggled into Basra in a ’surprise’ visit. Surely he should have announced his intentions in the tabloids with a ‘Hey! I’m off to the new safe Iraq! Who’s with me?’

And that’s before we point out a new rise in the death toll across the country. And the fact that northen Iraq, controlled by the Kurds, and previously judged safe enough to return asylum seekers to (with precautionary helmets and flak jackets), has just seen an incursion by the Turkish military.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Jaqui Smith considered all this in making her decision. It’s just hard not to have the feeling that her conclusion was pretty much, ‘meh‘. Judging by the lack of coverage, let alone outrage, in the British media over all this, who can deny that her’s was the correct response?