Chris Mason: The challenge of closing asylum loopholes while protecting genuine cases

A perceived absence of either, let alone both, is potentially toxic and particularly so around issues as salient and often divisive as how many people, and who, should be invited to live here and remain here - and on what basis.

In other words, while plenty, outwardly, has changed, there has been a stickiness to the electorate's concern about these issues and, it seems reasonable to deduce, a persistent sense of governments, plural, failing to grip them.

Folk in government tell me they were aware of this cheating and point to a change in the law coming next week that, they claim, will make it easier to withdraw support and accommodation from claimants who can be proved to be fraudulent and after that they would face deportation.

In response to the BBC's investigation, Reform UK have said that if they were in government they would make facilitating a false asylum claim what is known as a "strict liability offence", meaning there would be no requirement to prove intent in prosecutions. Ignorance, in other words, would not count as a defence.

Plus, crucially, can this government and its successors, in their management of immigration and asylum, demonstrate the necessary fairness and control?