It's in case they come back. As British citizens they are entitled to.

I have misjudged you, BW. I thought that you would be overwhelmed with sympathy for these poor people, driven from their homelands by 'so-called' IS men with guns.

Instead, I find myself agreeing with every word you have said. We do not have the power to solve their problems, nor should we be expected to do so.

As long as they take their NINE children with them, the British born disaffected are welcome to go. They might even apply themselves in teaching their fellows on how to run a country so that it is fit to live in.

I clearly haven't been writing as I used to in recent times Temp, so you've forgotten that I am a Witch of the World, who has travelled widely (and we don't do 'tourist things' but look at the 'real world' that many countries would rather you didn't see), am very curious, read widely, and worked with the complete range of people in society (children and parents, from all different social and religious backgrounds)... I might just write a post sometime soon about the influences that have brought me to where I am.

I too am utterly sick of people who have no grasp of social, economic or political reality thinking we can solve all the problems of the world by opening our borders, or chucking huge amounts of money at foreign countries. Didn't we learn anything from the times of The Empire?

I am not unsympathetic to the plight of many of the peoples of the world - but, there are many, many people whose everyday life is at least as bad as those upon whom the media are currently focusing.

We are not the world's social worker, any more than we should be the world's policeman.

Debster - if that's the reason, then the answer is simple. Change the law! Other countries manage to declare people they consider dangerous (for whatever reason) stateless...

The child benefit is the reason the police have to spend so much effort Witchy. Govt systems are so badly developed and labyrinthine that it's cheaper to spend half the police budget on retrieving the families than working out how to stop the payments.

Seriously.

NiC, I'm almost tempted to believe you...

I've long said that entitlement to child benefit should be linked to registration at a school and regular school attendance, or registration of education 'other than at school' (which should be officially checked - it used to be, I know, I was the person who did the checking when I worked in schools in the SW).

Children would then be less likely to be out of school, and LAs would not have to spend thousands of pounds trying to persuade the unpersuadable of the value of education, or the need for family support for issues of school refusal/phobia etc etc.

The law cannot be changed. Otherwise suppose YOU had gone to Turkey and were not allowed back to the UK? It's a fine line to tread.

The law cannot be changed? I think the anti-terrorism legislation makes anything possible... and indeed it's already happening,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21783475 (past cases)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34568574 (today's news)

Now let's see the government show some teeth for once and apply it.