"Not the Ideal Home Show"

1.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 2nd Oct 2005

Colin Ross at the UNHCR's "Not the Ideal Home Show"

At the recent Liberal Democrat Conference I recently visited the "Not the Ideal Home Show". The "Not the Ideal Home Show" was the UNHCR's stand at the Conference, It was UNHCR's first ever time at a political conference.

I was pleased to visit the UNHCR stand and support their campaign the highlight the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK and abroad. The stand was a canvas tent airlifted to the UK from one of UNHCR's relief operations and refitted to resemble a typical paint-peeling bed-sit normally used in Britain to house asylum seekers awaiting decisions on their asylum claims.

Only a very small fraction of the world's refugees and asylum seekers, barely 2 percent, come to the UK, mostly, they come here when they can't get the protection and assistance they need close to home, but all too often their predicament is misunderstood.