Slim pickings
AFTER 500 days in power, Labour believes it has at last found a magic formula to end the asylum crisis.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood plans to seize watches, jewellery and other valuables from migrants who arrive illegally, and sell them off to help pay their accommodation bill.
She believes the confiscation scheme will end the pull factor which has seen 39,075 people cross the Channel on small boats so far this year.
But border patrols will need to bag a colossal heist of bling just to dent the £1.3billion a year it costs to put them up in hotels.
A similar scheme in Denmark, on which the idea is based, resulted in just 17 people handing over valuables in six years.
Ms Mahmood also wants those fleeing conflict returned to their homeland when safe to do so.
But this risks opening up a costly new layer of bureaucracy — and a fresh licence to print money for activist lawyers.
We don’t doubt the Home Secretary’s determination to tackle the crisis, which she admits is “tearing our country apart”.
But, as previous Home Secretaries will attest, she risks being thwarted by the courts.
Like Keir Starmer’s pledge to “smash the gangs” or his “one in, one out” deal with France, it is doomed to failure unless she takes the only step that deep down she must know will end the crisis.
Quitting the flawed and outdated European Convention on Human Rights.
War and fleece
IN just over a week, the Chancellor will deliver a Budget that will inflict pain and hardship on millions of families.
But over the past few days, all we have seen is the unedifying spectacle of Labour plotters jostling to replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.
It is sickening to see MPs shamelessly parading their vanity and a leading Cabinet minister engaged in “shouty” showdowns with Downing Street staff.
As one senior minister rightly pointed out, it is “deeply mortifying” and “horrifyingly embarrassing” for the party, and will only exacerbate its unpopularity.
Long-suffering voters want a Government that puts all its energy into tackling Britain’s mounting problems, not fighting among themselves.
Ailing economy
THE rise of social media has undoubtedly played a part in Brits self-diagnosing health problems.
So it’s little surprise Gen Z — brought up in the smartphone era — take more days off sick than any other generation.
But a crackdown on sickness-related benefits, currently claimed by 4.2million working-age people, is not only critical for the economic health of the country, but also the mental health of young people.
