Britain is still able to take a refugee to its heart. Is that the lesson we take from the outpouring of affection and hope that has followed the heart attack which felled Bolton Wanderers midfield player Fabrice Muamba?

It was pleasing to see Hammersmith and Fulham Refugee Forum mentioned positively in a new London-wide report on advice and support for migrants but, sadly, most of the report makes the point that there is very little to be positive about overall, especially given the Government’s planned cuts in legal aid and local councils’ ongoing reductions in grant funding.

The controversy over the lack of passport checks at UK airports which has created a major political storm around Home Secretary Theresa May was never going leave asylum seekers unaffected.

Right wing newspapers have used the row as a further excuse to trot out their familiar line attacking migrants, foreigners in general and, of course, the easiest target of all; asylum seekers.

Results from a recent survey by Oxford University show how woefully ill-informed is the British population on the vexed topic of immigration. No surprises really, given the constant diet of misleading headlines from the usual right-wing newspapers.

The most worrying aspect in all this is that 60 percent of those polled believed that the main reason people came to the UK was to claim asylum. On the basis of that mistaken belief 56% wanted to see a cut in asylum seeker numbers.

Despite it being the 60^thanniversary year of the United Nations Refugee Convention the problems facing those forced to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution or natural disaster continue to grow. Despite the blurring of the difference between refugees and ‘immigrants’ in much of the national media, the fact remains that fewer and fewer asylum seekers are presenting themselves to the UK authorities. We are not being ‘flooded’ with asylum seekers.

Should we be alarmed that the Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that Hammersmith and Fulham is regarded as one of 25 terror hotspots in the country? The expression ‘terror hotspot’ comes from the Evening Standard newspaper, not the Home Office which, instead, refers to them as ‘priority areas.’ All of these will receive extra funding as part of the government’s ‘Prevent’ strategy to counter extremism.

There was a passage in President Obama’s speech to the UK Parliament that had a special resonance for refugees and migrants. This part of it has been quoted in many press reports and picked up as a soundbite by the broadcasters:

“ … it's possible for the sons and daughters of former colonies to sit here as members of this great Parliament, and for the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British Army to stand before you as President of the United States.”

Given the fact that Britain was one of the movers and shakers behind the UN resolution that set up the no-fly zone over Libya, and that British forces have been actively involved in military action there as a result, one would imagine that the courts and the immigration authorities in the UK would be aware that there is a bloody civil war being fought there at present.