As more and more people land on our shores illegally (and we cannot even decide what to call them, irregular, illegal or just plain unwanted), and the debate rages on, only two points of view seem to be aired.

Those who are totally pious about the situation and describe people trying illegally to get into another country as victims of war, hunger and oppression, and those who are being portrayed as totally racist who are expressing views, in private at least, that make Norman Lowell seem rather tame, but are essentially about going back to where you came from.

With close to 2,000 apparently unwanted visitors here, what is this island going to do? Perhaps sensing the public’s mood of near unified anger on this issue, the Libyan ambassador was apparently summoned and urged to call on his government to stem the tide. Yet Libya clearly already has taken in more than its fair share and probably cannot police better without a lot more help.

What happened to that idea of having camps where applications could be sorted out of the North African coast so that the genuine could get through and those with a simple desire to live a better life would have to be turned back?

Many pious people thought these would be reminiscent of WWII camps but is it any better to have young men, women and kids hanging on to dear life in a boat, hoping to land in Italy and coming into Malta by mistake?

There are, I believe, close to 2,000 here or coming through. Does government have a number at which it will say no, or could it be 5,000 or 10,000 or whatever, within the next five years? Where will these people live? Where will they work? And how prepared are we for a massive cultural change that this will bring?

The general profile of these visitors is of a young man – so you have to ask, who will they partner, who will they marry and how will their kids cope, and which culture will predominate?

Recent events in London have not helped the cause of many who are genuine refugees. The very idea that suicide bombers could be the kids of those the UK accepted as refugees simply makes a lot of people’s hair stand on end.

After all kids of refugees, brought up in a climate where they feel useless and alienated are not going to feel grateful for any country's social security safety net, are they?

One of the most worrying surveys of British Muslims I saw on Sky News in the wake of the London bombings was the one where five per cent of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims apparently felt sympathetic with the motivations of these bombers. Less than one per cent would be understandable but a full five per cent of British Muslims is pointing to a time bomb which has already exploded and will continue to explode.

It is simply too late for Britain now. Deporting 10 or 20 or 50 radical clerics is not going to stop anything if tens of thousand of British Muslims feel that essentially Britain’s invasion of Iraq explains young men killing themselves and injuring and killing hundreds of others in a Tube train.

What are we doing to be culturally prepared for the changes that even a few thousand immigrants more are going to bring to Malta?

There are already many Arab Muslims marrying Maltese girls and our laissez faire approach may be regretted in years to come. What will have priority? Muslim rules or the Maltese way of life for the many Muslim Maltese children we will have, particularly for the girls? Are our girls going to face the same pressures as so many Asian British girls face caught between the demands of two cultured? The new visitors in boats are not all going to remain in camps for ever are they? Many will stay here.

How are we going to not be embarrassed to say we have a way of life here and you are welcome, but our way predominates. You need to adapt to us too. We need to say and implement this in policy terms without the fear of being called racist.

Britain is today full of areas where as a woman you feel like an alien even walking down the streets in jeans and a crop top (weather permitting). We must also think of this aspect too.

But of course we cannot shoot them in their boots or do any of the other nasty thoughts and deeds that people are talking about.

We will have to take in our fair share as will other European countries.

But we have to be more prepared. We have to help them integrate to our way of life and not maroon themselves in ghettoes. In other words we have no choice but to overcome our strong racism in the short-term to protect our way of life in the long-term.

We, the whole country, have to be less racist to defeat those who are being over pious and impractical about this whole issue.

We are not doing this. Right now we are just behaving like the rabble who thought they could storm Bastille and make everything better. But neither can we be too pious like Marie Antoinette and pretend, via few pieces of cake, that we can make this island a massive reception centre.

We must find the middle way between the pious and the racist. The majority are racist. The pious minority have no solutions either apparently. Where are the middle men and women who are going to protect our way of life while offering a home to those who cannot go back ... Or is it just beyond us?