As part of the ongoing efforts by the Home Office to make life in Britain as difficult as possible, it emerged two weeks ago that the department under Theresa May had shredded thousands of landing cards proving the right to live here of most of the Windrush generation who came to the UK between 1948 and 1971.
The argument for their disposal was that the slips were no longer needed, and were in violation of data protection legislation. But there is another much older piece of paper that the Home Office have clung onto.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
