Some images stick in the memory. It was a freezing cold day at Kew Underground station in west London and as usual the train was delayed. We stood on the open platform banging our feet on the ground, trying to keep the blood circulating. When the train finally arrived, passengers sat with their hands stuffed inside their pockets, especially when a slightly dishevelled woman walked through the carriages with her hand outstretched.
Her hands were pink and puffy from the cold and she wasn't wearing a coat. A scribbled note on a piece of browning cardboard asked for money for food for her and her young child.
One day soon, under British government plans announced last week, if this woman is convicted of aggressive begging and is at the same time seeking asylum in Britain, she could be sent to a detention centre for refugees near Cambridge.
At the former RAF base at Oakington, which has been transformed into a sparkling detention facility, she will sleep in a dormitory with other women while Immigration Service officials fasttrack her asylum claim within seven to 10 days.
If officials deem her claim to be bogus - and the Home Office estimates that at present seven out of 10 asylum applications are unfounded - she will have three weeks to appeal before facing deportation.
The irrational and repetitive response from sections of the British media towards aggressive begging in recent weeks has fed the public debate.
In Tony Blair's Britain, getting tough with asylum-seekers, bogus or not, appeals to voters. The policy is particularly welcome when voters read stories claiming the majority of asylum-seekers - there were 71,160 fresh applications last year - are economic nomads, flooding into Britain for social security handouts and free houses.
But remarks by the Sun, which recently described Gypsy beggars as "the grasping nomads of eastern Europe", while offensive, nevertheless reflect the feelings of sections of the British public.
As Tony Blair and William Hague argue over the essence of Britishness and the effects of devolution, some British people are identifying themselves with a Britishness many hoped was forgotten. The British bulldog is puffing out its chest, not with pride as a safe haven from persecution but with racist indignation. In some areas of Britain, it is alleged, the British bulldog is wearing a National Front badge.
Some, such as a large number of people in the port town of Dover, in Kent, feel they are at the sharp end of the asylum debate in Britain.
Many thousands of the 20,420 asylum-seekers granted leave to remain in Britain last year entered the country through Dover. At present there are about 700 asylum-seekers living there, waiting for their claims to be assessed, including Romas from the Czech Republic and refugees from Afghanistan who have fled the Taliban regime.
Last year, gangs of local youths clashed with asylum-seekers at a funfair, but it is the decision by Kent county council this year to increase the council tax bill by £3 to pay for housing the refugees that has incensed locals.
Fourteen hundred people have signed a petition in protest against the rise, citing reasons that expose the breadth of ignorance and racism among the citizens of Dover. For example, one of the reasons, which was quoted in the Guardian this week, read:
"Pregnant refugee mothers only want brand-new equipment for their new offspring. Are these infants now entitled to hold a British passport to success now that they have been born in our local hospitals?"
There are problems also for the refugees when they go into local shops. Many live on vouchers and attract ridicule and sly glances when they buy their goods. Moreover, they have little cash for important things, such as telephone calls to legal aid solicitors dealing with their applications. They also face abuse, physical attack and being uprooted from one city to another as the government attempts to implement its dispersal policy.
Allegations that a group of refugees in Hastings was responsible for the rape of a local woman increases the fear and loathing of local communities toward refugees. In Rotherham, in the north of England, plans to build a centre for young male refugees is being opposed by the residents of a nearby old people's home.
The asylum debate arouses strong feelings in Britain. The asylum system has been described as chaotic and a shambles - there is a backlog of more than 100,000 cases - and in the meantime ignorance spreads.
Some people feel as if they are under siege. Others lament the lack of understanding. One Dover resident quoted in the British press this week said he felt "ashamed" to be British. "People will tell you the refugees are all thieves . . . I think Dover has something to be ashamed of. I don't know what kind of noose we're making for ourselves."