Immigration detention is a clear example of the gap between toughness and effectiveness. It's not too late for the coalition government to take on the extremely expensive pain of the wholesale detention of migrants
The UK is almost alone in Europe in detaining migrants indefinitely. The cost to the taxpayer does not come cheap. The costs to detainees are incalculable. But in the long term, the most serious damage may be to the British tradition of defending civil liberties from arbitrary state power.
