All those people need houses, schools and hospitals, and there is no-one else going to provide them.

The trouble is Steve that the developed countries can only provide them through economic policies that rely on ripping off the less developed countries. Those people (and the millions from Bangladesh) also need feeding and several developed countries (including the UK) only feed their people by buying food from abroad. Some of it from countries with lots of people who would rather be here and so joining us in ripping-off their own countries.

Bad times ahead indeed. I wonder if one way of making it less bad would be development (and overseas aid) polices that might make some would be economic migrants think that, in the long run, it might be better for their children and grandchildren if they struggled on at home.

Refugees is obvously different and a few million more in Europe probably wouldn't make much difference. My cynical view of Cameron's line of taking them from the camps is that those people are more likely to provide us with cheap labour than the better off and better educated ones who have made their way to Europe.