Our needs can wait – but the refugees cannot

The dreadful image of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy who was washed up on the beach in the Turkish resort of Bodrum on Wednesday, will live long in the memory of anyone who has seen it. Dressed in his T-shirt and blue shorts, Aylan could have been anyone’s little boy.

But for his place of birth, he would have been playing on a beach like thousands of other children each year. And ...