I refer to the United Kingdom's recent threat to impose visa requirement for Malaysians.

The Malaysian media's attitude toward the UK government in covering this exercise has been servile to say the least, even after discounting the power of the public relations spin.

This towards a government symbolised by royalty that are likely to refer to Malaysians as ‘little Pakis’, or ‘slit-eyes’ or ‘golliwogs’.

But coming back to the visa thing. In 2006, about 100,000 Malaysian visitors are believed to have spent more than half a billion ringgit in the UK.

Malaysians spend hundreds of millions of ringgit at UK universities and have invested big in UK property and gaming sectors.

The reported 1,500 committing crimes like overstaying, working without permit and credit card fraud is surely a to-be-expected tiny percentage of Malaysians visiting?

Malaysia hosts some 250,000 visitors from the UK annually and they certainly include some undesirable elements.

The solution is that the British immigration authorities need to be more vigilant. They should earn their salaries, not slap restrictions.

Not only are visas a costly bureaucratic hurdle to free travel, the UK faces growing competition for its tertiary education, business and leisure.

Its economy is in recession and heading for depression. These are not the sort of conditions likely to attract illegal job seekers.

Malaysia’s unemployment rate is much lower than the UK’s and most of those who travel overseas have jobs and families to return to.

I have been to the UK thrice in 30 years and have always been happy to leave behind London and its immigration officers.