Anyone who has met refugees sees the ordinariness of their hopes and dreams. If we reject their humanity, how can we be proud of ourselves?

No one in their right mind thinks accommodating asylum seekers in hotels is a good idea. No one in their right mind thinks we should just live with undocumented, life-threatening migration routes into the UK. And no one in their right mind thinks the experiences endured by most migrants could be a rational choice for anyone. Forget for a moment the ludicrous, inflammatory posturing of many who should know better; we ought to be able to begin from these shared acknowledgments.

Using hotels for housing vulnerable migrants is the equivalent of what prison reform campaigners have long called warehousing – make sure a problematic group is simply corralled somewhere more or less secure, and hope their issues will somehow sort themselves out. The chaos and under-resourcing of the legal processes involved and the shocking levels of delay mean that the conditions are created for maximal insecurity and rootlessness – at worst, resentment and criminality. And we have to face the fact that, so long as safe and legal routes for asylum seekers are inadequate, we are colluding in the flourishing industry of lethal and illegal systems whose effect is to create communities for whose safety and integration government is unable to plan, and who are trapped in a situation both dehumanising for them and challenging for localities where they are placed.

Rowan Williams is a former archbishop of Canterbury

The group’s campaigning single Free Satpal Ram, about a south Asian man jailed for murder after an alleged racist attack, led me to become an activist – with their lead singer as my mentor

It wasn’t New Labour, my politics A-level or the Tipp-Exed Woody Guthrie slogan “this machine kills fascists” on my friend Simon’s bag that set me on the path to activism. It was a CD single I found in a west London record shop, which I only picked up because it was by a bunch of brown guys.

It was the summer of 1998, and I was 17 years old and browsing records in the Harrow Virgin Megastore, when I came across Free Satpal Ram by jungle-punk-rap band Asian Dub Foundation – a buzzing, brilliant, ramshackle protest song about a south Asian man who had been sent to jail after defending himself in an alleged racist attack in 1986. While at an Indian restaurant, Satpal Ram was stabbed with a broken bottle, and retaliated by stabbing his attacker with a penknife; the man later died. Ram was convicted of murder the following year.

When Kathleen Richards rented a room at 25 Cromwell Street, she quickly realised the couple who owned it had a dark side. But even after their arrest, there was something about her 15 months at the house that she could never tell anyone – until now

Kathleen Richards knows how lucky she is to be alive. In 1979, she woke up in bed to find the serial killer Fred West on top of her. It was by no means the first time West had assaulted the 17-year-old, but it was the last. This time, she managed to escape from the room she was renting at 25 Cromwell Street, perhaps Britain’s most notorious address, where Fred and Rose West raped, tortured and murdered so many girls and young women. Fred West took his own life in January 1995 while on remand, charged with 12 murders. Rose West was convicted of 10 murders later that year and is serving a whole-life sentence.

In her own way, Richards has also been serving a life sentence. Today, she is a youthful, likable and traumatised 65-year-old. How could she not be damaged by all she experienced? Although she gave vital evidence at Rose West’s trial that helped get her convicted, she never told the police what Fred had subjected her to. Nor did she tell her nearest and dearest. She couldn’t. She didn’t know how to. Now, almost half a century later, she has written a memoir, Under Their Roof, that does so much more than chronicle her time living with the Wests. It’s a desperately sad insight into what makes someone vulnerable to abusers, and why victims are often abused multiple times by different people. But ultimately, this is a book about the triumph – however painful and even fluky – of good over evil.

A handful of returning locals and adventurous tourists are breathing new life into Nyksund, a remote coastal outpost in Norway’s wild northwest

We land on a white sand beach under jagged black mountains. A sea eagle, surprised to see humans, flaps away over the only house with a roof on it – the rest are in ruins. “Hundreds of people used to live here,” says Vidar. “In the days when you had to sail or row, it was important to be near the fishing grounds. Now there’s just one summer cabin.”

Jumping out of the boat, we walk along the beach. My daughter, Maddy, points out some animal tracks. “The fresh marks are wild reindeer,” says Vidar. “The older ones could be moose – they come along here too.”

NHS vouchers and employer subsidies are available for some, while online retailers offer great value for money

At the age of 39, I’ve been told I should start wearing glasses when working or driving.

On finding out, I suddenly faced a world of decisions – and they all involved a cost.

Choice of finish can cause headaches down the road, with a huge difference in repair costs and resale value

Black means safety, blue is calming and red equals strength – the colour you pick for your new car is supposed to be a reflection of who you are. But it could cost you more than you expect.

UK “75” number plates are being rolled out from Monday and “new reg day” is traditionally a busy time for car dealers. Depending on the make and model you are buying, picking a blue paint job rather than red or a matt instead of a metallic finish could add thousands to the cost of a new vehicle.