The Government's decision to perform a 180 degree U-turn on asylum centres is both welcome and baffling.

Welcome because it is a tacit recognition that the policy was wrong from the start, both for people living near the centres and the asylum seekers themselves.

Baffling because the one planned near Bicester is technically still going ahead -- in direct contradiction of the Government's shiny new 'no asylum centres' policy!

The reason given is that it was the only one which had obtained planning permission, so it might as well proceed.

As Magnus Magnusson might say, they've started so they'll finish.

But will they? Banbury MP Tony Baldry thinks not and believes that the Bicester centre will quietly go the way of the others.

We hope so. Because people living nearby will not take kindly to having the only centre in the country -- and one that the Government now admits is not even necessary.

Thousands of local people fought a long campaign against the proposal.

Now that asylum centres have been discredited, they should be given their victory.