The article complains that 'They hail from the land of the free, the home of the brave, a place where it is said anyone can prosper regardless of colour, creed or religion. But dozens of Americans have tried in recent years to gain asylum in the UK'. These 45 applicants attempted to claim they have a 'well-founded fear of persecution' if returned to the US. A further 15 applications came from Canada. All 60 applications were turned down by the Home Office.

I guess we'll never know if the 45 who applied survived the final years of Bush's reign of terror. But we do know that of 132,640 asylum applications to the UK between 2004-2008, US citizens make up 0.03% Furthermore, all of these asylum claims were turned down. So of 132,640 applications, the Home Office decided that exactly 0% of them would face persecution if they were returned to the US. That's what the Guardian deemed worthy of a story.

And the Daily Mail gets called sensationalist.

The Guardian runs a quote from Liza Schuster of City University, saying: "I don't know the details of those cases, but assume the US citizens are deserting before being sent to somewhere like Afghanistan." Evidence for this provided by the Guardian? 'On various online forums, people claiming to be American refugees have outlined their cases. One Texan hoping to be allowed sanctuary in Scotland claimed he had been "persecuted as a political dissident against US government war-mongering."'

So we don't know the facts, but let's be sure to assume it has something to do with US foreign policy.

If, then, we are allowed to deal in speculation, I will do some of my own. I'm not sure where the other 132,580 claims came from, but I would wager that more than 'dozens' came from Muslim-majority countries run by despotic lunatics. I'd also wager that many are accepted into the UK because these countries genuinely are unsafe for those who speak out against the authorities.