'It's a shambles': data shows most asylum seekers put in poorest parts of Britain

More than five times as many destitute asylum seekers live in the poorest third of the country as in the richest third, according to a Guardian analysis, which has prompted leading politicians to call for a complete overhaul of the dispersal system.

MPs have labelled the way asylum seekers are distributed around Britain “appalling”, “dreadfully designed” and “a deeply unfair shambles” because of the way it disproportionately houses people in poor, Labour-voting areas in the north of England and Wales, as well as Glasgow.

Kenney rebukes newspaper, lectures reporters on ‘incomplete’ work

The Conservative government has taken “the unusual step” of publicly challenging a newspaper report and reminding journalists across the country that it’s their job to get both sides of a story before racing to publication.

In an open letter, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the ministry wasn’t approached about an article that appeared in Montreal’s La Presse on June 11, about a Colombian woman facing deportation.

Harper's Davos speech, fiscal profligacy and economic growth

The Prime Minister's speech at Davos was, I would bet, written by Stephen Harper himself. It bore the stamp of his long-standing contempt for the European welfare state.

He all but said that the Europeans had brought the crisis on themselves through trying to live beyond their fiscal means:

"As I look around the world, as I look particularly at developed countries, I ask whether the creation of economic growth, and therefore jobs, really is the number 1 policy priority everywhere?

"Or is it the case, that in the developed world, too many of us have, in fact, become complacent about our prosperity, taking our wealth as a given, assuming it is somehow the natural order of things, leaving us instead to focus primarily on our services and entitlements?

"Is it a coincidence that as the veil falls on the financial crisis, it reveals beneath it, not just too much bank debt, but too much sovereign debt, too much general willingness to have standards and benefits beyond our ability or even willingness to pay for them.