Paxo Stuffing

Blair was asked EIGHTEEN TIMES how many illegal immigrants are in Britain — but refused to give a straight answer. Asked to reveal the number of failed asylum seekers, the PM insisted it was “pointless speculating.” Paxo doggedly refused to let it drop, asking for a “rough idea” — then demanding: “Is it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands? Millions?” Blair floundered: “I’ve said, I don’t think there’s any point in speculating. I . . .”

Paxman: “But you have no idea.”
Blair: “Well, it’s not a question of having no idea.”
Paxman: “Prime Minister . . .”
Blair: “. . . and what is the backlog, and we are dealing with all of those issues.”
Paxman: “Prime Minister, you have really no idea of how many failed asylum seekers there are illegally in this country.”
Blair: “I can’t . . .”
Paxman: “You don’t know.”
Blair: “. . . because people are here illegally . . .”
Paxman: “You don’t know.”
Blair: “. . . it is difficult, for the very reason that . . .”
Paxman: “You don’t know.”
Blair: “Hang on, for the very reason that the previous government gave, you cannot determine specifically, how many people are here illegally.”
Paxman: “You have no idea.”
Blair: “What you can say is, here are the number of people that are actually currently applying for asylum . . .”
Paxman: “Yes.”
Blair: “This is the backlog of claims that you’re dealing with. And these are the people who are being removed from the country.”
Paxman: “Do people not come to you and say, we think Prime Minister there may be 100,000 or 200,000 or 50,000 or 500,000.”
Blair: “We . . . it, they, they don’t come and say that, what they . . .”
Paxman: “So you have no idea.”
Blair: “ . . . do say is. No, hang on a minute . . . ”