I beg to differ about having space. We are far too dependent on imported food and need to reduce our population and free up more land for agriculture. We also need to get British people to eat locally caught mackerel and herring rather than expensive imported cod and haddock and cure our addiction to bananas and citrus fruit.

As to 'refugees', these people aren't setting up camps at borders and waiting until it's safe to go home. They're trundling across entire continents looking for a better life, which makes them migrants. I certainly wouldn't object to your idea as long as it was understood that the residents were going to return home as soon as things settle down there. Though that would, of course, involve the international community getting off its collective arse and making sure things do settle down! That's what things like the United Nations are supposed to be for: acknowledging that it's everybodys' responsibility and acting together to put an end to conflicts, preferably by diplomacy, or if not by bombing both sides flat and putting somebody new in charge! And no more whingeing about 'internal matters'! A civil war in one country causes problems in all those surrounding it and the ripples spread across the entire world.

Also - and call me old-fashioned if you like - but any healthy man of military age fleeing a war in his home country is not a 'refugee'. Refugees are women, children, the old and the sick. Healthy young men are at best draft-dodgers, quite probably deserters, invariably cowards and at worst, spies. I'm 64 years of age with a bad chest and a trick knee, but if we were invaded, under threat of invasion or in a civil war, I'd certainly send my wife, daughter, daughter-in-law and grandchildren to safety. But I'd stay put, doing my Captain Mainwaring bit, and I'd expect my son to stay as well!