There’s a grey area between truth and lies. You know, those statements that may be completely true on their own terms but, in the wider context, amount to a pretty major distortion of what’s actually going on.

Let’s start with the Home Office’s insistence that “there is no limit on the number of students who can come here to study”. This came in response to concerns raised across the FE sector about the impact of including students in the government’s targets to reduce net migration. When you look at the college figures for 2016 - an 8 per cent drop in non-EU applications, and a staggering 83 per cent drop in applications from non-EU students attending colleges to extend their studies - it’s easy to see why the colleges currently engaging in this potentially lucrative but precarious market are worried.

We have a scenario where the prime minister is dead-set on including college students in the overall immigration targets - quite against the advice of experts, not to mention plenty of people sitting around the Cabinet table. So the Home Office may technically be correct to say that there’s no limit on student numbers per se; the fact students are included in overall migration targets means that, really, whichever way you want to cut it, there is.

If the government really is serious about demonstrating that “Global Britain” is open for business after Brexit, it has a funny way of showing it.

@stephenexley