IT has been Refugee Week, a celebration of the diversity brought to our land by those who seek a haven from war, political repression and torture. There was a lot of song and solidarity, poetry and praise for the warm welcome which Scotland, Glasgow mostly, extends to the asylum seeker. It's all very Jock Tamson's Bairns and Come in, Come in, It's Nice To See Ye.

The welcome is less than whole-hearted from the small minority who believe asylum seekers get everything and indigenous folk nothing. Steve Ladyman, a Labour MP, wrote: "Urban myths can be the bane of an MP's life. If I got a penny every time I receive a letter telling me that asylum seekers are given cars or taxis to get them to the benefit office, I would be a rich man."

Refugee Week was an opportunity to mingle with the immigrants and find out how they are living off the fat of Scotland. "So, what kind of car did you get?" I ask a Sri Lankan now resident in Scotstoun. He smiles and says: "There was no car. When I came here as an asylum seeker, I wasn't even allowed to drive. I couldn't apply for a British licence." He fled Sri Lanka after death threats because he was on the wrong side of the political divide. He left his three cars behind. "I could have done with a car to take the children to school in this cold weather."

In Maryhill, at an evening of poetry and music, Muslim women, being entertained by a Scottish folk group, are doing their best to join in the chorus of I've Been A Wild Rover. But spending all your money on whisky and beer is not really their territory. I ask Khaira from Algeria: "The rugs and carpets you got, were they as nice as the ones you had back home?"

"I did get carpets," she says. "They were old and a bit smelly. But I'm grateful for what I got. There is one thing I would like. In Algeria, I was at university. I've been studying social care part-time at college here. I did well in my subjects. But I'm not allowed to go on and study full-time because I am an asylum seeker. I would like the right to learn."

Antoinette from Congo looks mystified when I enquire how gorgeous was her free three-piece suite. "We got beds and chairs and other basic things," she says. Compared to Congo, where she had no money and no electricity, she is better off in Scotland. But she did not make her way to Govanhill in search of the good life. She left Congo because of brutal treatment "from the soldiers". Antoinette's friend and countrywoman points to the scar under her right eye where one of the soldiers burned her with a cigarette. "The best thing I was given in Scotland was the chance to learn English. Now I can go to my GP without an interpreter," Antoinette says.

Sinit, formerly of Eritrea and now of Maryhill, reads a poem about the cold and rain in Glasgow but also of the warmth of her new friends. So, how does she like the big fridge-freezer which the Scottish taxpayer gave her?

"Is this a joke or a dream?" she asks. "I have a basic normal house here. I am able to buy the kind of food I ate in Africa, not the Scottish food which is so unhealthy.

"But I wasn't allowed to get a job even after I had studied English and computing. If you don't work, you feel like you're in a prison."

Sinit's friend from Uganda says it is not about material things. "In Africa, you might live in one room. You may go without food for a few days. In Scotland we can get by on very little money. It's not the house that is important. Being able to work is important. They can't give you self-esteem."

Amal became famous as one of the Glasgow Girls who confronted political leaders when a schoolmate from Drumchapel High School was victim of a dawn raid. She left Somalia when she was 10 years old. At 19, she is decidedly Scottish. "Aye, right" - that great double positive making a negative - is her reply when I ask how gigantic was the TV set her family were given.

"We got a flat and a bed to sleep in. My mother got less than £50 a week for her, me and my sister. We had enough to buy food and that was about it. The money was not important. We were safe. In Scotland we were able to go to school. In Somalia, children became soldiers or worse."

As a 15-year-old meeting with the likes of the then first minister Jack McConnell, Amal thought she might go into politics one day. Now she's more interested in the degree in community development she is to start at Glasgow University. She is not even tempted by politicians' generous expenses.

Which brings us to those in society who really do get everything, our members of parliament. Jo Swinson is a Scottish girl who did go into politics and is now LibDem MP for East Dunbartonshire. Ms Swinson is not the most prolific spender Westminster way, although she is well-known for charging for an eyeliner out of Boots. She did get a £550 telly courtesy of you and me. And a DVD player and a Freeview digital box. She gets her TV licence paid. She gets the £1400 per month rent on her London flat paid. She gets free travel to and from her work. She eats at taxpayers' expense, but not as much as many of her fellow MPs.

Ms Swinson has not claimed for expensive furniture. Her shopping is mostly essentials. Duvets, pillows, sheets, pots and pans, crockery, Tupperware, chopping board, sieve, electric scales, spare door key for her cleaner, a blow-up mattress, corkscrew, coasters. Some of Ms Swinson's items were more problematic. Such as the tooth flosser disallowed by the Commons fees office. She was allowed a tape measure which, she wrote on her expense sheet, was necessary "for hanging shelves and pictures accurately". A plea in mitigation if ever I heard one.

Looking through Ms Swinson's receipts, I could see no sign of the infamous eyeliner.

Maybe it was air-brushed out, or in her case obliterated with mascara. Even in their heavily censored form, the MPs' shopping lists are legion.

So many goodies charged to the public purse. And all the kind of stuff that, legend has it, asylum seekers get when they move into their sumptuous apartments in Glasgow's Sighthill tower blocks.