Successive governments have trained their sights on any number of targets in the bid to cut immigration and it appears they have a new one: students.

Or more particularly, international students who are now caught in the crosshairs of the latest offensive to curb immigration numbers by the Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who coincidentally studied for an MA in law at the University of Paris.

She is said to believe that if she curbs the numbers, it will help the government’s wider efforts to crackdown on immigration numbers.

The figures do suggest there has been a sharp increase in the number of foreign students coming to study in the UK, rising to 476,000 in the year to September - with 116,000 dependants coming, too.

It is a fatuous policy, based on crude political arithmetic, which will presumably involve Home Office officials scouring campuses looking for anyone they can remove from the UK.

Does anyone really believe that the international student population is the right target?

In the main, most foreign students pay - heavily in many institutions - to study in the UK and are not on some kind of free ride when they come here to take courses.

If implemented, any such proposal would certainly take its toll on the University of Kent, where there are students from 158 different nationalities and where 41% of its academic and research staff are from outside the United Kingdom.

And oddly, the government set a target three years ago to increase the number of foreign students to 600,000 by 2030.

So, one government department wants less, another wants those they have already to stay and for more to study.

It is an illustration of the contradictory nature of government that different people - ministers - argue over whether less is more.

The obvious solution to the problem is to take foreign students out of the immigration figures. Unfortunately, that is probably too simple a solution for a politician to grasp.

Instead, we will be treated to endless reports and recommendations, debates and votes - that some day will probably be the subject of a student thesis.

LOVE him or loathe him, is the former UKIP leader Nigel Farage about to re-enter politics? If he does, Kent may not be the Brexit battleground it once was.

If he decides to resume his involvement in the Reform Party, which is seen as partly a movement and partly a party, the focus is said to be more on the red wall seats in the north, former Labour-held seats snatched by the Conservatives in 2019.

But if small boats and dinghies continue crossing the Channel bringing in more would-be asylum seekers, he would find it hard to stay away.