The first group of asylum seekers arrived in Britain from the Sangatte camp

The first group of asylum seekers arrived in Britain from the Sangatte camp today under a deal between the Government and France. The coach then came through the Channel Tunnel by train.The group is the first of 1,200 asylum seekers, 1,000 Iraqis and 200 Afghans, Britain has agreed to accept before the Sangatte centre closes on December 30.They are to be allowed into the UK on four-year work visas, rather than as asylum claimants, and will be helped to find jobs.Today’s group was driven to the Home Office processing centre. “Sangatte has acted as a magnet to the 67,000 illegal immigrants who have passed through since it opened. Two stowaways, aged between 12 and 14, were found dead at Heathrow Airport in the undercarriage of a plane from Africa.. When Tony Blair arrived in Downing Street in 1997, he had won a landslide victory after issuing a “pledge card” with five simple manifesto promises, his self-styled “contract with the people”

It seemed a good idea at the time.

The official number is 130, although that figure excludes some of Labour’s goals.Some targets served a real purpose. David Blunkett is adamant that the literacy and numeracy targets he set while Education Secretary were crucial in sending a signal to schools – and the wider world – of the Government’s intentions.Frustrated by the slowness of the government machine, Mr Blair believed that fixing targets would help crank it into action But many targets were not thought through. Some were dreamt up by spin doctors for an easy headline, rather than mapped out by Whitehall policy experts. In the heady days of power after 18 years in the electoral wilderness, it did not seem to matter. But as time passed, the chickens started coming home to roost. Targets set for three or four years ahead were suddenly no longer on the distant horizon.

Alarm bells began ringing in ministerial offices throughout Whitehall when they realised that many of their goals would not be met.There are now real fears that the targets have become a liability. Having tried to roll forward, obfuscate or even deny some targets, ministers have begun to admit openly that some will never be met. On Tuesday, Mr Blunkett, the Home Secretary, abandoned three of the four key aims of the national drug strategy, admitting they were “not credible”. He had already ditched plans to remove at least 30,000 asylum-seekers from Britain each year.There is growing concern among ministers that failure to hit so many targets will undermine Mr Blair’s central objective of turning round failing public services. After pumping billions of pounds into them, he is desperate for voters to see results before the next general election. But the lengthening list of missed targets is now providing precisely the opposite kind of headlines.Some aims have proved so embarrassing that, until the recent outbreak of glasnost, ministers had tried to wriggle off the hook. In June 1997, John Prescott, who was Transport Secretary, set himself the target of reducing car traffic.