Sad sign of how far state has drifted from its people

THERE'S a special kind of madness that only the British state can produce.

- Esther Krakue

This week, a High Court judge ruled that the Bell Hotel in Epping can continue to house asylum seekers despite fierce local opposition and the council's attempts to stop it.

This is the same hotel that dominated headlines over the summer: the one that housed Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the town. He was later released by mistake from HMP Chelmsford, spent days wandering around London, and eventually chose to self-deport after being given £500 of public money to do so. Even by this Government's standards, that sequence of blunders is extraordinary. If there was ever a case study in state incompetence, this is it.

Epping Council argued that turning a hotel into long-term migrant housing breaches planning rules. The judge even agreed there was “a reasonable basis” for that view. But he refused an injunction, ruling that it wasn't a “flagrant or persistent abuse of planning control” and that, effectively, locals should put up with it.

It’s hard to overstate how outrageous this is. I can't turn my garden shed into a quaint B&B without planning permission, but if I promised to cram it with asylum seekers and send the Home Office a bill, I'd probably get a government grant. That's where we are.