While we rush around our homes checking for dripping taps, the water companies also have some work to do, putting their own house in order.

'THREE MEN AND THREE WOMEN came to our house at 5.30 am. My wife started to cry. They took first my wife and my son, and then me and the two children....

‘You can be a child living with a family member and still be completely alone.’ This conviction is what drove Camila Batmanghelidjh to set up the charity Kids Company's therapy centre under a pair of derelict railway arches on a deprived south London estate near Brixton eight years ago.

On 1 May, the European Union will have 75 million new inhabitants—and ten new member nations, bringing its total to 25. The ‘rich man’s club’ is opening its doors to its less wealthy neighbours—amid muttering from many of those already ensconced in its comfortable armchairs. It may seem strange—even presumptuous—for a publication based in the UK to welcome the new arrivals. To the rest of Europe, Britain has sometimes seemed an awkward member of the club, carping about the rules, resisting change and casting aspersions on everyone else. Although our government championed the enlargement, the prospect has sparked a xenophobia in some quarters which is matched only by attitudes to asylum seekers and refugees.

Over the last six years, the Asylum Seekers Centre in Melbourne, Australia, has distributed over A$250,000-worth of aid.

These people—often whole families fleeing oppressive regimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere—risked everything to reach our peaceful and democratic land.