The area around where I work is not the nicest part of town. When my wife and I lived there for a while, it was next door to a man who once held a policeman at knife point on his roof. About five years ago a policeman was stabbed a couple of streets away. It's not exactly the mean streets of Chicago, where they will gun you down and then perform a catchy musical number explaining themselves, but as far as my quiet little town goes, it's not very nice. Most recently of all there was what the police described as a 'violent assault' on a local member of the homeless community. That was pretty bad. Then it got worse. He died.

Another interesting thing about the area I work is how ethnically diverse it is for such a small town. Strolling along one street you will see evidence of Polish, Muslim, afro-Caribbean, Portuguese and Chinese communities, with their separate shops and restaurants. The reason I mention this in the context of the recent tragedy in this same street is to point up a simple little fact: When the man was murdered nobody blamed the foreigners.

Well alright, I can't complete prove that to be true. But my point is that it wasn't the centre piece of the press and it wasn't what you saw at the scene. What you saw at the scene were flowers, notes, and several rows of votive candles, marking a touching memorial in a grubby little corner to a man of no fixed address. So why the hell am I bringing race into an area where it never was?

The reason is that while a violent death can take place in an ethnically diverse street in a small conservative little town and cries for the head of every neighbouring Muslim are a barrage of no noise at all, our esteemed Government is more than making up for it. They started off with their 'go home' vans, driving around North London urging illegal immigrants to return whence they arrived. Fair enough, you might argue, the vans are only asking people who have broken the law to stop breaking the law. It's sort of the equivalent of vans driving around with 'thieves – put it back' written on them. The obvious similarity is that it's pretty unlikely either group will take much notice of the big scary billboard vans. The obvious difference is that while there is a clear public perception of the difference between thieves and non-thieves, there is a nasty blurry line between illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, legal immigrants and, in some cases, foreigners generally. While the Home Office have not overtly stirred up racial tension they should be far more sensitive than they evidently are to the fact that they will do, whether they meant it or not.

The Home Office weren't done though. Having been apparently blissfully ignorant to the impact of their billboard vans, they then moved on one step. They went on a campaign of arresting immigrants they suspected of being here illegally and detaining them. Fair enough, that's a standard and reasonable way to respond to suspected law breakers. Or it was, right up to the point when they started tweeting photos of the arrests. Seriously. They actually did that. And bear in mind, these people are ''suspected' illegal immigrants. Hard as it may be to imagine, the Home Office might be wrong.

So what am I saying? Well basically it's this:

Dear Foreigner. Our Government may have accidentally given the impression that we don't like you and we don't want you. Well in the bit of the world where I live, a bit where we voted for a man who is part of the Government, we do. There are, I can't deny it, some nasty people. But you can come to this country knowing that a small street in an area just a stone's throw from a beach you'll find your shops and your cafes and your business are welcome and unmolested. And when a seemingly anonymous homeless man dies in a street fight, you won't find us parading around with banners blaming you. You'll just find some candles and flowers that people put down to say that they're sorry he died. Welcome to Britain.

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benjaminpmoore

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