What would happen to von Trapps?

TALKING about immigration and asylum seekers can be compared to that moment when you open the microwave after 30 minutes at 1,200 watts - you can expect the ultimate hot potato!

- Robert Lloyd

Experience has taught me to do a swift audit of the political opinions of 'present company' before venturing an opinion on the matter.

Those of us who remember walking the tightrope of Brexit can still recall how friendships and family relations could be scorched in the white heat created by opposing views.

For reasons I can't quite fathom, a party with four MPs has been dominating the news agenda this week.

Four MPs! That's 68 less than the Liberal Democrats and just equal to what Plaid Cymru and The Greens have in Parliament.

At this point, you will have to remind me as to the last occasion when The Greens or Plaid were able to dominate the news agenda in the UK.

In an attempt to mitigate the risk of juggling the hot potato, I won't go into too much detail about the Reform UK plan to deal with immigration and asylum seekers.

But... I will (with thanks to a barrister friend who sent me the following) paint a short picture.

Remember The Sound of Music? The escape of the musical von Trapp family from Salzburg, Austria, to Switzerland.

For film reasons, the escape wasn’t quite accurate.

What DID happen was that the family pretended to be going on holiday to Italy and never came back.