Cameron's student visa policy is a disastrous own goal

The prime minister's careless immigration pledge is putting off some of our brightest visitors and damaging Britain

Stupid. Incoherent. Short-sighted. Cack-handed. Intrusive. Counter-productive. One thesaurus is not enough to describe the folly of the British government's policy towards foreign students. Working in a British university, I see its dire effects every day. Kafkaesque, intrusive bureaucracy. Everyone treated as a suspect. A high-flying Singaporean civil servant turned down on the grounds of inadequate language skills (Singapore's administration works in English). Daughters and sons unable to go home to visit their aged parents because the dysfunctional UK Border Agency hangs on to their passports for months. Talented, idealistic students packed off back to India or America the day after their courses end, though they are exactly the kind of creative yeast we need in this country's dough.

And that's not counting the ones who have been deterred from applying to study here in the first place. According to official Home Office figures, student visas from India were down 24% in the year to the end of September 2013, on top of a decline of over 50% during the preceding year. Yet the British government has made relations with India one of its top external priorities.