You may have read about the 3 Russian asylum seekers – mother, father, son – who jumped to their deaths from a high-rise block in Glasgow on Sunday. Their asylum application had recently been rejected, but they had not been served with any deportation papers.

The family had arrived in the UK in 2007, travelling via Amsterdam, Bremen, Frankfurt and Barcelona… all after leaving Canada, where they already been granted asylum some years before.

I know Britain is perceived to be a soft touch, but it’s a bit much when you have asylum seekers trying to get in when they’ve already been granted asylum in someplace like Canada.

It makes a mockery of the term "asylum". Why weren't they turned round in 2007 and put straight back to Canada?

Perhaps they were seeking asylum from Canada. It's a tough place to live, you know.

Maybe he was a KGB agent like that russian bloke living in a church somewhere around Vancouver (I assume he's still there).

Having just read some of the headlines its been reported that the older man was somewhat delusional and believed he was a Rssian spy trying to save the queen.

Perhaps there was another sort of asylum he should have been seeking.

Yeah, was something in the news saying that he he had accused the Canadian gov of using 'psycotropic' (?) weapons on his family. Obviously in dire need of help.

Looks like he got it. Problem sloved.

Many asylum seekers have been granted refugee status and European passports in Scandanavian countries and Holland, only to fly to the UK literally within days of receiving passports.

Okay, I say many but I don't know how many were given refugee status. I just know that we used to get quite a few presenting themselves at the DWP(DSS) I was working in.

They had all been in the the other countries for a few years, kids in school there, health care established, they were housed and had been given house set up loans once refugee status was granted (we confirmed this with the authorities there) and they left all that behind (including the debt) to come to the UK.

If I had to live in the Red Road Flats, the idea may well have crossed my mind too...

sausages, cheese, no cheap wine.

I will cite those very reasons when I apply for political asylum in the UK.

I am afraid your screwed my friend...you have a command of English....

@BristolUK: Wow...
That is utterly bizarre. I suppose compared to Scandinavian countries the UK cost of living is probably slightly lower.

However considering they were coming in to the DWP/DSS and trying to claim welfare, that does suggest they simply came to the UK to take advantage of the soft-touchness. They then become hooked on the welfare state and vote labour in the next GE!

I suppose the english language thing might be another reason behind it, but it's likely that other countries just don't make it quite so easy to sponge off the state.

Getting a lot of that through the port at the moment. Asylum seekers who claimed in other European countries resettling to the UK due to the better benefits.

I believe that a lot of the pull factor to the UK, is the english language, family/support communities and under the table work. I don't think our welfare is sufficiently generous (certainly compared to scandanavian countries) to be the only reason.

I know that in recent years, a lot of Somali's with dutch passports have moved to the UK (Leicester in particular I've heard). A lot have cited racial, integration and language problems in the Netherlands and a lot have extended family in the UK.

Sometimes, the devil is in the detail. i.e. were they Cdn ppt holders? Did they destroy their documentation? Perhaps the information about their Cdn status only came out after they applied for asylum. It's a long process mind, with lots of appeal avenues. You can hardly argue that the UK is a soft touch in this case, when they rejected their application, and Canada had accepted them for asylum status.