Philippe Legrain

Immigration is inevitable, so instead of trying to ban it, which causes huge problems, governments should legalise and regulate it instead. That is the gist of my article in today’s FT. Click here to read the full article

Financial Times, 25 April 2007. It is time that Europe’s politicians admitted to voters that governments cannot stop people moving across borders. If open borders are politically unacceptable, Europe should create a legal route for people from developing nations to come and work, regulated through an extra payroll tax on foreign workers.

I debated the merits of immigration and the government’s proposal for a new Australian-style points system with David Conway of Civitas on BBC Radio 4′s PM programme on 18 April. Listen here

Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers has long been shockingly inhumane. But prime minister John Howard’s latest policy twist is truly despicable: he plans to "swap" would-be refugees held in the country’s illegal offshore detention centres with Cuban and Haitian detainees the US is holding in Guantanamo Bay. People are to be treated as chattel, shipped [...]

- Garry Kasparov on the beatings of peaceful pro-democracy protesters by Putin’s riot police

So much for the pretence that Putin is a democrat.

I’ll be speaking about Immigrants in London at an event at Demos on Monday 16 April (ie, this Monday). I’ll be joined by an expert panel including Baroness Lola Young, Kenan Malik, Nick Johnson (Commission for Racial Equality), Ben Page (Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute) and Dr Catherine Fieschi of Demos. More details here

I appeared as a “witness” on BBC Radio 4′s Moral Maze on 4 April. The topic was what to do about asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected, but are living in the UK destitute and without the right to work. Listen here

My good friend Evan Davis, the economics editor of the BBC, has started an excellent new blog.

Dutch journalist Paul Scheffer, who shot to fame by sounding the alarm about what he sees as the dangers of multiculturalism in Europe, has reviewed Immigrants in NRC Handelsblad. The review is in Dutch, which I unfortunately don’t understand, so I can only guess what it actually says. Dutch speakers can check it out here

MX magazine, a daily free-sheet published in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, have published an interview with me about my new book. You can read it here

The US’s most significant "free-trade agreement" since NAFTA, the first with an Asian country, with "state-of-the-art" chapters and "unique" provisions – the embattled Bush administration was wheeling out the superlatives to describe the bilateral trade deal clinched with South Korea this morning.

Ian Buruma writes in today’s FT about the elusive quest for a European soul. He remarks: The most inspiring thing about the EU is the mobility of its citizens, the way Europeans can live and work anywhere they want in Europe. Let there be more Polish builders in Paris, British designers in Berlin, French entrepreneurs [...]