Those sneaky immigrants. They’ve found a new way to cheat our system. Steve Lee, 36, and his girlfriend Rong Yang, 28, from Redhill, Surrey, were convicted last week of using sophisticated surveillance equipment to help foreigners cheat their way through the British citizenship test. And they were charging as much as £1,000 for their 007-style scam.

What isn’t clear is why anyone was prepared to pay so much in the first place. For half the £1,000, you could have had sufficient one-on-one English tutoring. For less than a tenner, you could buy a crib book by one Henry Dillon. Haven’t heard the name? Well, let me tell you, Dillon is perhaps the single greatest threat to our borders since Hitler. He is the man single-handedly responsible for making our citizenship test much more passable.

Unbelievable? Look at the figures. Since the test was introduced in 2005, Dillon’s publishing company, Red Squirrel (note the name, after a British woodland creature now all but wiped out by foreign invaders), has sold 250,000 study books. Dillon claims that 90% of those who use his book pass first time. The national pass rate is just 66%.

“It’s not cheating,” explains the seemingly affable 32-year-old New Zealander when we meet for a good, honest, British-made coffee. “I’m just trying to help people . . . ”

Why’s it called Red Squirrel, then? “We wanted to choose an animal that had connections to Britain. Red Squirrel seemed to fit.” A likely story.

Dillon’s tale is a sordid one, as you’d expect of an immigrant. He was first let into our great country as a traveller but after securing a flashy dotcom job (these Kiwis, coming over here, stealing our jobs) decided he wanted to hang around indefinitely (typical). His application for citizenship coincided with the introduction of the Home Office test. He swotted. And he passed.

Then his South African friends asked him how he did it. He typed up some sample multiple-choice questions for them, all based on his swotting-up of Life in the United Kingdom, the Home Office text on which the official exam is based. They passed. So he put his questions and some coaching notes on his blog and lots of people started using them. They passed. So he published a book that now outsells a Clarkson. Damned successful foreigners. With their brains. And their ingenious ideas.

His books, he tells me, are not popular with the Home Office. If candidates turn up at an exam clutching a Red Squirrel publication, they are informed that they have been using the wrong material. Clearly, the civil servants are unhappy that someone is attempting to make sense of their test. Until Dillon came along, they had refused to publish any sample exam papers. When he published 400 of his own questions, which proved uncannily prescient, their shroud of mystery was lifted.

I don’t know why they were worried. Anyone willing to suffer the eyewatering tedium of learning the required text should be allowed in on compassionate grounds. I know, because I’ve spent the week flicking through Dillon’s latest book, the impertinently titled How British Are You?. It contains the 400 questions used in the original study guide, but it’s presented in a nice stocking-filler format aimed at those of us who already assumed we were British. Let me warn you now: this will be the most depressing present you’ll get this Christmas.

I’ve done half the questions and got fewer than half right. Given that you need to get 18 out of 24 right to pass the real thing, this is not good. I am clearly not very British (I blame my Armenian grandmother). But I’m not the only one. In a pub quiz last year, 100 good, honest, hard-working Brits took Dillon’s mock exam. Nobody passed. And when the scoundrel released a similar quiz on Facebook, the British came sixth. Yes, we were sixth-best at being the type of British the Home Office wants us to be. The Poles were most British. Not Poles coming over here, stealing our etc, etc, etc. They were Polish Poles living in Poland. The Americans came 16th.

There are two possible conclusions we can draw from this. One, British people aren’t British. Or two, the test is stupid.

The Life in the United Kingdom handbook was first published in 2004 and revised in 2007. You need to know nothing beyond the text but everything in it.

In the 24 questions, you may be asked when the Northern Ireland parliament was established, the ethnic make-up of London and how you should react to children on Hallowe’en. If you know what age pupils in Scotland go to secondary school, you get points. If you know how a British person reacts when someone treads on their foot (by apologising profusely, of course), you don’t.

The extent to which civil servants revere the letter of the text is clear when Dillon talks about errors. The figure quoted for the national minimum wage, for example, was out of date. In his book, he too has the wrong figure. On purpose. When customers pointed out the error, he told them it tallied with the text, which, unfortunately, was more important than it being right. The same goes for the cost of NHS prescriptions in Wales and the smoking laws. Stick to the text, not the truth, and you’ll be fine.

Which text, though? Between the first edition of Life in the United Kingdom, written by Professor Bernard Crick, and the second, published last year, the civil servants have got at it. First edition: “Everyone has the right to religious freedom.” Second edition: “People are usually very tolerant towards the faiths of others.” Edition one describes the police as “there to be helpful”. Edition two says: “All good citizens are expected to help the police.” Scary.

Buy Dillon’s stocking-filler. Sure, it will help make the dratted Kiwi a million, but it’s the quickest way to find out whether you are anything close to approximating a British person as defined by our beloved government. After that, you will reevaluate why you ever wanted to be British in the first place. You may even be tempted to leave this bureaucratic, hectoring, health-and-safety-obsessed nanny state to the foreign cheats and Dillon’s army. If you are, Dillon has also just published Australian Citizenship Test: Practice Questions. He gave me one as a present as we said goodbye.

Now, repeat after me: Abel Tasman discovered what is now known as Tasmania in 1642.

A sample Dillon quiz

1. What are you called if you need to stay overnight in a hospital?

a) An out-patient

b) An inpatient

c) A day patient

d) A night patient

2. What is the maximum number of hours that a child may work before taking a one-hour rest break?

a) 10 hours

b) 4 hours

c) 6 hours

d) 8 hours

3. All dogs in public places must wear a collar showing the name and address of the owner.

a) True

b) False

4. Borrowing money from banks to pay for cars and holidays is more common in the UK than in many other countries.

a) True

b) False

5. Everyone in the UK is allowed to work.

a) True

b) False

6. What is the second largest religious group in the UK?

a) Jewish

b) Buddhist

c) Sikh d) Muslim

7. What is housing provided by local authorities often called?

a) Free housing

b) Market housing

c) Local housing d) Council housing

8. Select the correct statement

a) It is illegal to discriminate against someone for the purpose of employment in any circumstances

b) Discrimination is not against the law when the job involves working for someone in their own home

Answers

1b, 2b, 3a, 4a, 5b, 6d, 7d, 8b

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• UK regional accents thrive against the odds
• ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight
• What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth