Britain needs leaders who will look on asylum seekers from Africa with 'compassion', the Bishop of Manchester has said. Rt Revd David Walker said there was a ‘political rhetoric that characterises them as wilful criminals rather than helpless victims’. Writing for the Observer newspaper the bishop said migrants are attempting to come to Europe through desperation and not want. ‘They are pushed, not pulled, towards the EU, forced out of their homelands by war, terrorism and the persecution of minorities,’ he wrote. Bishop David said: ‘Twenty-first-century Britain still aspires to be an international player. The moral cost of our continual overseas interventions has to include accepting a fair share of the victims of the wars to which we have contributed as legitimate refugees in our own land,’ he urged. Just days away from the General Election Bishop David said he wanted a government that looked upon refugees with compassion.