The longest standing member of the House of Commons is known as The Father of the House. It is currently the Conservative member Kenneth Clarke, and he recently said that this is the maddest parliament he has ever known. Last week demonstrates why.

The start of the week was dominated by the bombing of Syria’s chemical weapons capability. A huge issue, the Prime Minister was rightly held to account for her actions on Monday and Tuesday with a total of two debates and one set of urgent questions. The second debate was led by the opposition, but in a bizarre twist, Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs to vote against his own motion, thereby ensuring that he has voted against every leader of the Labour party, including himself!

We also had an incredibly emotive debate on antisemitism where, again, Labour MPs lined up to denounce their own leadership and the problems of antisemitism in the Labour Party.

The government lost a significant vote in the House of Lords on Brexit and our membership of the customs union – a problem for the government to be made trickier by a further, non-binding, debate this Thursday in the Commons. And in wider news, the debacle of the Windrush generation unfolded.

Whilst much of the action last week is the stuff of political enthusiasts, the Windrush issue is one that affects real lives. It is right that it has gained the headlines it has and it must be dealt with. Indeed, it first came across my mailbox in 2012, but in all honesty, I failed at the time to appreciate the problem properly.

The Windrush generation were invited here to help rebuild the UK after the war and they were, and are, very welcome. For many, proper paperwork was not created but this was not a huge issue for them until the government hardened up the rules to bring illegal immigrants to count.

Illegal immigrants are in the country illegally and there are a whole host of reasons why we need to identify them – including when they may be modern slaves. But in tightening the rules, the threshold for proving you are British passed beyond where many people could account for themselves.

That was a bad – indeed terrible – thing to happen and should never be allowed to happen again. In the meantime, the government must sort out this mess and do it quickly and with compassion.