The last Labour government advocated the same migrant dental checks that have caused so much outrage among the Twitterati today. Back in 2007 the then immigration minister Liam Byrne said that dental checks had to be considered to prevent abuse of the system:

“If it is true that a dental x-ray is able to establish within a more precise range an individuals’ age than any other form of determination then I think we have really got to look very hard at that evidence. We cannot have adults in the children’s system. Adults in the children’s system, I believe, pose a serious threat to our obligation to protect children effectively.”

A great find by Miles Goslett. As you can see above, this was covered by the BBC at the time. The David Davies proposal that is causing so much outcry was originally proposed by Labour nine years ago…