PETER HITCHENS: Why do refugees drown? Because liberals like Dave keep starting wars By Peter Hitchens for The Mail on Sunday Whose fault is it that so many of our fellow creatures have drowned in the Mediterranean on the way to Britain? Whose fault will it be when many more do so, crying out for help that will not come, in the future? As usual, I first wrote about this subject long before it was fashionable to do so. The great migration of the poor and desperate towards the rich north is one of the most troubling and frightening things happening in the world today. Migrants who were rescued off the coast of Sicily while trying to enter Italy from north Africa If all those who wanted to enter the rich world managed to do so, they would destroy the thing they sought. We cannot let them all in. If we did, our economy and our society would collapse under the strain, and so would most of civilisation. So only the stupid and self-righteous - usually people who live far from the areas where mass immigration has changed our country - can pretend that border controls are somehow wicked. The only real question is how strict they should be. One thing is quite certain. Completely avoidable actions have made this crisis much worse. Surrendering our border control to the EU was one. Destroying parental authority and wrecking our state schools was another. By making so many of our young people unemployable, we created huge numbers of jobs for hungry, self-disciplined migrants. But in many ways the worst action of all was the unforgivably stupid decision by David Cameron and others to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi's state in Libya. I am still amazed that this blunder did not destroy Mr Cameron, as it should have done. Like all shallow modern politicians, he wanted a cheap and victorious war to make him seem more important than he is. Libya and its people were the unlucky victims of his childish vanity. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was overthrown in 2011 and then died Not only did this bird-brained action turn Libya into a hideous, bloody chaos without hope, it removed the single most important barrier between Europe and the Third World. Without Gaddafi's stringent control of his coastline, the economic refugees of the whole of Africa and much of the Middle East (many of them fleeing wars and conflicts begun or encouraged by us) can clamber into coffin ships and set out across the Mediterranean. Their normal lives are so terrible that the danger of death seems worth it to them. Their poverty is so great that our threadbare welfare state glitters on the horizon like a mythical city of gold and jewels. As long as they think they can get here, they will risk death. And those who have failed to discourage them in their crazy quest will be to blame for those deaths. It is as simple as that. Liberal vanity kills and goes on killing. And it is all the worse because the culprits continue to have such high opinions of themselves. Pied piper who peddles poison Russell Brand promoting his new book 'Revolution' last month Societies at the ends of their tethers follow strange leaders and have peculiar heroes. Having been brought up in another age, I'm immune to Russell Brand. I don't think he's funny, and he is not as clever as he believes he is. I've had a couple of clashes with him, in which he was first evasive and pretentious, and then insulting. He dislikes being subjected to the mockery he happily inflicts on others. On one occasion he threatened to kiss me (no kiss took place). But there's also no doubt he has a potent effect on women - I watched him, in less than a minute, charm two pretty young Olympic medal winners into taking off their medals and draping them over his scrawny, naked chest. The sad thing was that they acted as if they were the ones being honoured by the encounter. And he has the automatic adulation of student audiences. Watching the Pied Piper dance away with the children of Hamelin must have been something like watching Mr Brand, left, run away with the hearts and minds of so many people. Magic isn't always benevolent, and charisma is seldom given to good men. Since we can't leave a memorial to the British dead in Afghanistan itself, I suggest a looming granite pillar, deeply incised with the names of the dead, in the middle of the House of Commons. It's sad to learn that starlings are suffering from antidepressants, apparently because they eat sewage-farm worms that have ingested the drugs from human waste. But isn't it rather more important that so many people are still being persuaded to take these dubious, risky tablets - increasingly linked with inexplicable suicide? Hated - just for telling the truth on drugs Every single part of the latest row about drugs is phoney. The Tories are no better than the Lib Dems on the subject - their supposed "firmness" is an empty pretence, concealing the laxest drug regime in the advanced world. Laws that are not enforced do not exist. This has been the trick worked for years by Britain's active and skilful pro-drug lobby, much of it based in the Home Office itself, where senior civil servants have long favoured the soft option. They realised that Britain could continue to fulfil its treaty obligations by keeping harsh laws on the statute books, while encouraging the police not to enforce them. This ploy also fools much of the electorate, who constantly see Tory and Labour politicians make grim-faced declarations that they have no plans to repeal the drug laws. They don't grasp that - at the same time - the police and courts are not applying those laws. There is no "war on drugs." There hasn't been one for 40 years. It is taboo to say it - for daring to do so I have been permanently taken off the invitation list of at least one major radio programme, and will never be able to publish another book. That is because our political and media elite are themselves hopelessly corrupted by widespread illegal drug abuse - by themselves and their children. I experience a great deal of personal hatred for saying unpopular things, and am used to it. On Thursday night I was screamed and sworn at, at one of our ancient universities, for daring to dissent from the conventional view of Russia. But the special loathing I encounter for telling the truth about drugs is so virulent that it sometimes comes close to frightening me. This is an enormous campaign for selfish pleasure. If it succeeds in achieving the legalisation it dreams of, and which is the real aim of this relentless lobbying, there are gigantic profits to be made and huge taxes to be raised. So you can see why businessmen and politicians might want it so much. It's a pity about the rest of us, who will have to live with all the ruined lives that will result. This winter, industry may well be paid to shut down factories to avoid power cuts. This is the sort of madness you might expect in a crazy country such as North Korea. When will we see that green dogma is as barmy as communism? Too late, I suspect.