50 Years On

On 7 December 1959 I arrived in Kobe, Japan, for the first time: with a tourist visa.
If you wanted to change your visa status you couldn't do it in Japan - you had to leave the country and apply for it outside Japan - usually Hong Kong or the Republic of Korea.
Such is not the case with the UK.
Foreigners (from outside the EU) who arrive with tourist, student, work (there are more than 80 different categories, according to former Home Secretary David Blunkett), other, or no visa are legally able to continue to live in the UK after their time limit.
The Government's Migration Advisory Committee has (belatedly! - 4 December 2009) recommended that the concession that enables foreign students with low qualifications to stay on and work, be ended.
Even if the Government does that, these students will still be able to employ the well-worn ruse that everyone knows - marriage.