Four million terrified refugees and one missed haircut

Adam Holloway, the Conservative member for Gravesham in Kent, doesn’t speak in Commons debates very often. As he happens to be my MP, I’ve occasionally wondered why. Yesterday I think I found out.

The Commons was holding an emergency debate about the refugee crisis. Mr Holloway was eager to catch the Speaker’s eye. He had an important point to make – one which, unaccountably, no other MP had yet considered.

It was this. An asylum seeker had made him miss his hairdressing appointment.

“We have people in this country who have come here, have claimed asylum, and then go back on holiday to the places where they’ve claimed asylum from,” he complained. “I couldn’t get my hair cut the other day for that reason.”

Sadly Mr Holloway did not elucidate; perhaps he finds talking about it difficult, because his disappointment about the missed hairdressing appointment is still so raw. But, if I understand him correctly, he was telling the House that his hairdresser is a former asylum seeker, and this hairdresser postponed Mr Holloway’s appointment in order to make a trip to his or her presumably now peaceful homeland.

My fellow Gravesham dwellers will be pleased to learn that this was not our representative’s sole contribution to the debate. He also called the Germans “completely bonkers” for taking in so many refugees, and then meandered off on a vaguely dreamy tangent about “lean men with suntans and biking moustaches” and “big boys’ toys”. I think he was referring to the military, rather than the Village People, but I couldn’t say for certain.

I’m afraid I was somewhat distracted by the laughter from the Labour benches. It was terribly unkind.

Otherwise, the debate was naturally grave, although at times it served only to highlight our own puniness in the face of so gargantuan a problem. Since the start of Syria’s civil war, four million locals have fled. The Government is proposing to take an annual average of 4,000.

Yvette Cooper, speaking for Labour, said it should take 10,000 immediately.

To put it another way: the forest is ablaze, and the Commons is arguing about whether to put out the fire with a pipette or a water pistol.

But then, what else to do? What would the right number be? Where exactly would the refugees be housed, and where would that housing come from?

This last question, in particular, is one that the speeches and debates on this crisis have addressed in scant detail. The argument has been almost entirely about how many refugees to admit. There has been little talk, so far, about how to help them once they’re admitted.