When governments fail to act, we must

The response of European governments to the refugee crisis has been a complete mess. It has ranged from the pragmatic and laudable, such as in the case of Germany and Austria, to the absolutely appalling, such as in the case of Hungary, and yes, the UK. Hungary's Viktor Orban has expressed his concern about the refugees' Muslim faith - as if out of the script-book of the neo-Nazi PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident). And the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has had to be pestered by his own cabinet ministers, who are by no means open-minded about immigration, to announce that Britain will accept 20,000 Syrians... over five years. This only a month or so after referring to the refugees as a "swarm" of migrants. Even Germany's Angela Merkel, who has emerged out of this as a lone example of a politician capable of human empathy, has said that Germany was expecting 800,000 asylum requests, not that Germany was thrilled about the whole thing.

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