Mark Townsend and Gaby Hinsliff, writing in today's Observer, claim to find more evidence of fear-mongering in Conservative Party leader Michael Howard's efforts to turn the May 5th general election into a referendum on immigration and asylum. Could the tide be turning in favor of Labour, they wonder?

In England the battle will continue between those who rail at Britain's borders being 'out of control' and those, maybe an increasing number, who don't believe a word of it.

Nothing worse than filing a story and having it immediately rubbished by breaking news.

A leaked Home Office study, commissioned by Blair himself in response to last year's asylum crisis, has established that the number of illegal immigrants in Britain is much higher than the government has so far admitted. As today's Times reported:

THE government has secretly calculated there are about 500,000 illegal immigrants in Britain despite repeated claims by ministers that they do not know the scale of the problem.

The figure has been compiled by Home Office officials. Yet one of its ministers told MPs in February there was “no official estimate”.

The research was ordered by Tony Blair more than a year ago “as a matter of urgency” following a Downing Street summit on immigration, a confidential Whitehall memo reveals.

However, in the face of a political controversy over lax controls at Britain’s borders, experts involved were told not to reveal the figure. It includes not only migrants who have illegally entered Britain to work in the black market but also failed asylum seekers who should have been deported.

The estimate — equivalent to the population of Sheffield — is far higher than previous figures from campaigners such as Migration Watch UK and is likely to intensify the row over immigration.

This latest news comes just days after it was revealed that the man who killed police officer Stephen Oake in last year's ricin investigation was himself a failed asylum seeker.

All of a sudden, pretending that nothing's wrong -- Tony Blair's preferred strategy since first taking office in 1997 -- has gotten a lot less plausible.