If you’ve spent any time propping up a bar in Britain recently, you’ll have heard the gospel according to pint-fuelled patriots: asylum seekers are living in luxury hotels, being served three-course dinners, each armed with a shiny new iPad and a bottomless pint of lager all on your hard-earned taxes. Of course, none of this is true. But when did truth ever get in the way of a story told between mouthfuls of pork scratchings?

Who’s Really Cashing In

The reality is far more mundane and far uglier. The hotels aren’t run by asylum seekers or by some shadowy EU plot to bankrupt Britain. They’re run by contractors. Huge outsourcing firms like Serco, Mears, and Clearsprings Ready Homes, the same companies that botch prison contracts, screw up housing, and got fat off Covid handouts. These giants pocket the big money, then subcontract down the chain for food, cleaning, and security. The goal isn’t “luxury.” The goal is profit. And if shaving costs means feeding people inedible slop or leaving broken boilers unrepaired, so be it.

Behind the Hotel Doors

Conditions vary, but here’s the picture: families crammed into single rooms, food that is often little more than reheated mush, broken facilities, and hotels stuck miles from schools, doctors, or communities. What should be “temporary” accommodation has turned into months, even years of limbo. Depression, anxiety, and self-harm spiral. The only “luxury” on offer is the luxury of despair. The profits go to CEOs and offshore accounts.

The Impact on Communities

Meanwhile, the myth persists that “migrants bleed towns dry.” In reality, the real bleed happens when contractors fail to talk to councils, leaving GPs, schools, and housing services blindsided. Yes, that creates strain, but there’s also an upside: hotels that would otherwise sit empty get steady income, and corner shops do more business. But none of that nuance fits neatly into the pub rant about “foreigners stealing your future.”

Why the Lies Stick

The lack of transparency from the Home Office leaves a vacuum — and vacuums suck in lies. Far-right groups fill the gap with YouTube rants about PlayStations and lobster dinners, and before long the bloke in the corner of the Dog & Duck is swearing blind that he saw an Afghan ordering Dom Pérignon at Wetherspoons. It’s nonsense. But repeat a lie enough, and it becomes gospel for people who’ve never once questioned where their “information” comes from.

The Blame Game

And when things go wrong, the blame game begins. The Home Office blames Serco. Serco blames subcontractors. Subcontractors shrug. And who’s left stuck in the middle? The asylum seekers, the very people who get painted as freeloading parasites while the real parasites cash government cheques.

What’s Worth Getting Angry About

It’s fine to debate asylum policy. It’s fine to argue about numbers, resources, and responsibilities. That’s democracy. What’s not fine is peddling lies about iPads and luxury hotels. What’s not fine is pretending your local Premier Inn has turned into the Ritz for Albanians. What’s not fine is stirring up hate while ignoring the fact that the only people bathing in money are the same contractors who also happen to bankroll your favourite politicians.

Next Time You Hear It

So next time someone in the pub tells you asylum seekers are living better than King Charles, ask them when they last visited one of these hotels. Ask them how they know. Ask them if they’ve seen the cockroaches, the cold dinners, or the children going quietly mad in limbo. Because the truth is boring, depressing, and very far from luxurious. Which is exactly why it never makes it onto the bar stool lecture circuit.

If your average barstool bullshitter thinks that’s luxury, they must have had a shit life…which is also probably true. Most of them have one goal.

To make yours shit as well.