I watched Extreme Beachcombing last night, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It’s one of those small, perfect films that sneaks up on you — quiet, deliberate, full of texture — until you realise it’s saying something enormous about the world and what we leave behind.

Our family’s story is in today’s Liverpool Echo — Thursday 25 September. On the surface, it is about one household in New Brighton — me, my wife Jana, and our three boys — but it is really the story of thousands of families across the UK. Families who came here in good faith, followed every rule, paid every fee, and are now being told that they may not belong.

Falling in love should never carry a price tag. Marriage, family, the decision to build a life together—these are meant to be the foundations of joy, not a bureaucratic punishment. And yet in Britain today, love itself has been monetised. Falling in love with someone from outside these shores is no longer a simple act of union, it is a transaction, a test of wealth, a prolonged ritual of anxiety.