The UK’s recent seemingly modest agreement with France over illegal migrants crossing the English Channel prompted this article at the CityAM news service:
Clearly this is an entirely inadequate response to the Channel crisis: five per cent of current numbers of illegal migrants, who are themselves only five per cent of overall immigration. The idea that this will move the dial on an issue which is now regularly cited as one of the public’s biggest concerns is positively outlandish.
But it is also a patently and laughably poor deal for Britain. It bears comparison with paying Mauritius billions of pounds to induce it to accept sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory, or in domestic terms awarding huge, above-inflation public sector pay deals with no conditions attached. I sometimes wonder whether civil servants now check that the Prime Minister still has his loose change, watch and shoelaces when he returns from the negotiating table.
I suppose the question that also lingers about Keir Starmer is this: is he “Sir Shifty” (to borrow the phrase of former Sun political editor, Patrick Kavanagh) or is he “Sir Stumbler” (Bruce Anderson)? Is he a berk or a knave?
“Is he a berk or a knave?”
Those sets intersect.