The day the goon squad came for Newbury's illegal immigrants When we moved, 30 years ago, to the foot of Watership Down, Newbury (four miles away) was a quite handsome and still noticeably historic market town. There were 17th-century merchants" houses with rosy-red, tile-hung fronts, and across the canal bridge there was a Victorian department store called Camp Hopson (less Camp than Hopson, I remember) and buildings with Tudor dates carved into their lintels that had become wet-fish shops, greengrocers and pork-butchers. It was nice shopping in Newbury. But those terms all sound distasteful, and the Government (any government, I reckon, not just this present one) dislikes causing too many people to feel distaste. I felt distaste myself, in Camp Hopson's car park in Newbury, with its nice view of the park and the footbridge over the canal. The car park attendant said: "They got a load of people in Thatcham last week. Rounded "em up." But who are they going to round up outside John Lewis, I asked him. He giggled. Thursday clearly wasn't to be a big round-up-followed-by-enforcement day in Newbury. Nor had it been much of one in Thatcham, either. A mobhanded Home Office putsch led to two workers being removed from a little Chinese restaurant. And what further news this week from the Immigration Enforcement Directorate? (Directorate! Honestly, those blokey goons in blue uniforms are run by a "directorate"? Of all the poncy names for a bunch of civil servants.)? Anyway, the news was that out of 48,000 tip-offs reported to the directorate by the public, 2,700 have been investigated. From which the directorate has enforced a grand total of 660 repatriations. Which pathetically small number makes me oddly pleased. Because you always know that the government takes your money and wastes it flagrantly (because it thinks it's theirs). And sometimes, although you know billions of pounds have been wasted, you are not clear how, exactly, they've wasted it. But I've seen it now, outside the back door of John Lewis in Newbury: new vans, new uniforms, new procedures, plenty of petrol, nice sunny day, taxpayers" money running out of their ears - anyone fancy a Chinese? It is ridiculous.