ACCORDING to the Border Force agency they do not: “Routinely comment on individual cases,” and therefore won’t explain why British taxpayers must pay though the beak to fund the incarceration at Heathrow Airport of a Bournemouth parrot called Becky.

Presumably they believe this will stop Becky’s distraught owners from pursuing them through the courts and newspapers – which love a parrot story above all others – and from asking them even more questions.