Not for purpose
MINISTERS say they want to start moving small boat migrants on military bases.
This is welcome, if belated, news.
But after abject failure and spending £15billion on asylum hotels, can anyone have confidence the new camps will be quickly and cheaply set up?
And will those mainly young men from foreign countries and cultures be securely held away from families living nearby?
The Home Office has a poor record of delivering what the Government wants.
It is 17 years since it was declared unfit for purpose.
Since then fatcat bosses — like their staff often working from home — have conspired to hand Britain an unwanted reputation as the biggest soft touch in Europe.
Add to that Labour’s disastrous decision to scrap the Rwanda scheme — still the only deterrent our leaders have ever come up with — and it’s no wonder migrants continue to arrive by the boatload.
The Home Office is too big, too bureaucratic, too tired and too bereft of ideas to tackle an issue that has become the number one concern for voters.
Only by breaking it up and creating a special laser-focused immigration ministry can the Government have any hope of delivering an end to the crisis.
Make work pay
A WHOLE generation has been thrown on the scrapheap by a benefits system which pays better than work.
Young people straight out of school have been encouraged in a delusion that it is better to claim handouts for depression and anxiety than to build a life and career.
Once on benefits, many stay on them for life.
That’s a tragedy for the kids and a disaster for the economy which needs home-grown workers.
So Keir Starmer is right when he promises to put the near one million school-leavers not in education or work at the heart of any welfare reforms.
Weaning them off handouts by giving them skills and training is vital.
If that means making tough decisions on welfare payments then the Prime Minister cannot afford to duck them.
Perfect Prunella
IF Fawlty Towers is one of the greatest sitcoms of all time then it is impossible to imagine it without Prunella Scales.
Somehow she made nagging wife Sybil — “the dragon”, the “toxic midget” and “little nest of vipers” — such a memorable character that it will never be forgotten.
Dementia may have cruelly claimed her mind in later years.
But her legendary performances will live forever.
