Bribery run amok
This week’s festive edition of You Couldn’t Make It Up comes from an ostrich farm in Iran and is brought to you as part of a £36 million sponsorship deal with the Government.
That’s how much ministers have spent so far bribing illegal immigrants to go home.
Failed asylum seekers are being given grants of £4,000 each to help them set up businesses in their country of origin.
As well as the aforementioned Iranian ostrich farm, British taxpayers are also bankrolling a beauty salon in Zimbabwe, a car dealership in Kenya, an Islamic dress shop in Sudan, a ferry in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a hotel in Nepal, a shoe factory in China, a market stall in Jamaica and an internet cafÈ in Ecuador.
Oh, I nearly forgot the fish farm in Angola and the Albanian vineyard.
A Sunday newspaper reporter turned up at the Home Office-funded International Organisation of Migration posing as a bogus refugee from India.
He said had been living here illegally for 11 years and had most recently been making a living selling drugs.
He told his case officer that he wanted to return to India to open a travel agency to help more illegal immigrants come to Britain.
Despite his admission of criminality and the dubious nature of his alleged enterprise – which would actually make illegal immigration worse – the official drew him up a business plan and promised him a grant of £4,000, enough for an airline ticket, rent, a car, office equipment and three months’ money for two members of staff.
So far, more than 23,000 people have taken advantage of this ludicrous scheme.