At the Council we were discussing a moral hazard question. A boatload of refugees from Africa had been left to starve in the Mediterranean between Tripoli and Malta. No one went to help them because they and their country would be responsible.

Clearly the right thing to do is to pick up every boatload but then there will be more and more boatloads. What is the answer?

My answer was that they should all be picked up, helped, fed, and given water, and then towed back to Tripoli. Is this a Christian response or merely a pragmatic one? Anyway, it didn’t go down very well in public at least.