On Monday, the Home Affairs Select Committee published a report headed: “Billions squandered on asylum accommodation by Home Office mismanagement – Home Affairs Committee report finds”. Byline Times declared: “The Sheer Scale of Conservative Mismanagement of the Asylum System Revealed.” So there is little wriggle room for those held responsible.
They are the three home secretaries during the period investigated: Priti Patel (Witham), Suella Braverman and James Cleverly (Braintree), two of them of course in our region.
The original estimated bill for housing asylum seekers was £4.5 billion in 2019; but by 2029 when all the contracts should be concluded, it is expected to be £15.3 billion. As this diary notes later, all of this was to try to escape the consequences of the Tory government’s own disastrous decisions, particularly around Brexit.
This is not the place to examine details, merely to point out that there are in the Pecksniff files two official documents. One shows a contract signed by the Home Office with the owner of a hotel in the region, for asylum accommodation. The sum involved is one million pounds. The other shows a large donation to the Conservative Party by the same gentleman, only four days later.
There is no suggestion that any of the three former home secretaries had any knowledge of or involvement in this transaction. It would clearly be conducted at a different level. But we have not been able to publish the information, since the libel laws are such that the gentleman concerned would be bound to sue, and the Bylines Network would be financially unable to fight the claim.
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Groupthink is by no means restricted to politicians. Journalists are always prone to it. Not for the first time this week, a poll shows the public’s fears and apprehensions over immigration are spectacularly misrepresented. As a result, the voters are induced into a false conviction over just how concerned they are supposed to be. This poll is supported by a new investigation by Oxford University, which concludes that “misleading media coverage is shaping public debate on immigration and human rights”.
The poll, by Best for Britain shows that the question is all. Certainly half – but only half – of all respondents declared immigration to be among the top three challenges facing the country; but that is only a reflection of what they read and see repeated endlessly on TV. It is not their own experience. We know that, because when people were asked about the issues affecting them and their own community, immigration was ranked only seventh – behind the cost of living, health, the economy, crime, housing and the availability of jobs.
So immigration concerns, as so unscrupulously promoted across the news media, are only one of the most pressing priorities for half the population, and those concerns seem mostly influenced by what Best for Britain calls “media exposure and political discourse”. But it doesn’t signify when people are asked about their own experience.
Dear reader, once again we are being led by the nose.
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In any case, Conservative immigration policy is in a shambles and is increasingly based on lies and deliberate untruths. The policy becomes shambolic because it has to keep changing every time its present position is proved to be based on an untruth. The ridiculous Katie Lam declared the policy to involve revoking those with ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’, in search of what she called “a culturally coherent” Britain. That means one in which all people think the same.
Then on Wednesday, a party spokesman said removal of settled status was no longer party policy. That prompted the execrable Chris Philp (shadow home secretary) to deny the change. Which on Thursday left Kemi Badenoch (NW Essex) as leader to rebuke Ms Lam, who she explained had spoken “imprecisely”, in spite of having given them her blessing last week. She told journalists: “We’re not being retrospective”.
For context, readers might bear in mind that although the policy (whatever it is) seems to be to stop those nasty grasping foreigners from applying for benefits, all data shows that immigrants make a substantial net contribution to the country’s finances. Further, any attempt at retrospectively removing residency rights would be a clear breach of the Brexit agreement.
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As expected, Lucy Powell was elected as the Labour Party’s deputy leader. We should not expect fireworks, since it would not be in her interests or those of Keir Starmer to promote open warfare in the party. In any case, as Pecksniff reported last week, there seems no inclination among the membership to cause trouble. Labour MPs report how their members are depressed and disconnected. Many have seen through illusions once possessed that their government would diligently pursue the ideals for which they joined the party, though few seem inclined to do anything about it.
In any case, when the result was announced, both Sir Keir and Ms Powell openly declared their eager enthusiasm to work towards a common goal. The PM professed himself delighted at the prospect of working together. In fact, so keen was he to have Lucy Powell as his deputy that he placed one of his own people in the race as her only rival and sent out his creatures to traduce Ms Powell’s reputation.
So how long before apple carts might be upset? Ms Powell is not the most vivacious of politicians: she has the perpetual glum expression of a woman stuck under a hair dryer. But she has been around the political block once or twice, and like it or not she is seen as Andy Burnham’s representative on earth – or at least in the Commons. So that is where we should look.
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On the matter of membership, what is left of the Tories seem understandably to be in disarray. We learn of a leaked emergency email from Tory HQ to all branches, which protests that over 1,000 party officer positions are vacant across the country, and the HQ has no contact details for 131 constituency parties. The email admits there are 50 party officers who should have received the email but won’t, because there is no means of contacting them.
The Tories have appeared shambolic for several years now, but we forget that same incompetence must surely apply to the way their leaders run the party. Imagine, one in five constituencies may not even be in contact with HQ. It seems remarkable that they were able to fight the last election, and impossible that they can fight the next one.
We note without further comment that the most recent former chair of the party (2023-24) was Richard Holden, now the MP for Basildon and Billericay, a seat he awarded himself (as chair) even though the local party tried to reject his self-imposition as candidate at the 11th hour.
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But at least Labour (and the Liberal Democrats) have decided to fight back against Reform, instead of inviting them to tea and giving them the seat by the fire. Until now, power without responsibility can rarely have been offered on cheaper terms. But while two thirds of the electorate proclaim they would never vote for Nigel Farage – a determination reflected in another poll this week – it is difficult to see how Reform can sweep the board.
Also, Reform have had nobody to beat: their opponents have all backed off as though Mr Farage were made of kryptonite, instead of the soft squishy stuff one occasionally treads in and which is how most voters seem to see him. Last week Plaid Cymru gave Reform a kicking, and we look to further evidence. Last week there was a by-election for Colchester City Council, which Labour held with 800 votes. The LibDems came second with 657, and Reform third with 600.
Together, all the progressive parties polled nearly 1900 votes, whereas the right managed 800. Perhaps unrepresentative, or perhaps a straw in the wind.
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Being well versed in addressing the serious issues in life, the wise men at the Muckrakers this week fell into a reverie on the question of who among the party leaders would make the most agreeable companion in bending the elbow among the roving intelligentsia of the saloon bar.
There was unanimous agreement: it had to be Ed Davey. For one thing, he could clearly be depended upon to buy a round. For another, the man would drink pints, rather than swigging from the neck as some suspected might be the habit of the otherwise vivacious Zack Polanski.
But Mr Davey also shows other attributes this week. In an interview with LBC, he set out in admirable clarity how Nigel Farage and the Tories have brought about the small boats issue themselves… ironically by leaving the EU.
Have the LibDems at last been prodded into action in response to the challenge of the Greens? If not, then they should have been. But it is good to see them perhaps bringing their guns to bear at last.
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An interesting whisper has reached your diarist’s ears on the matter of Greens recruitment. There is a suggestion – nothing more at the moment – that recruitment may be noticeably stronger in areas which have been the subject of braggarts from outside, leading anti-immigrant demonstrations or putting up flags. If that were so, it might be a hopeful sign that the antagonism of residents is being channelled into trying to do something about it.
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Was it not the blessed Bananarama who taught us that “It ain’t what you say it’s the place that you say it, and that’s what gets results”? So it was that this week Led by Donkeys had the inspired idea of driving a mobile projection van around Clacton, showing a film featuring a local voter. She points out in detail the ways in which Nigel Farage is taking his voters for mugs and exactly how much Mr Farage is taking from other (often dubious) jobs, when he should be representing his constituency.
What makes it such a good idea is that it solves the problem of how to reach those who voted for him, literally where they live. Readers of Pecksniff already recognise that malevolence for its own sake might be considered Mr Farage’s life’s work. The man is a bloater. But sadly, it must be accepted that it is likely East Anglia Bylines may not be the chosen news source for the majority of Clacton residents.
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Our man Faragewas tempted away from counting his gold on Thursday, to comment on a nationwide investigation into deprivation which revealed that Jaywick, part of Mr Farage’s own Clacton constituency, is once again the most deprived area in Britain.
He claimed he had “definitely helped” tourism there. But my dears, have you ever visited Jaywick? It would be astonishing if they have had a single tourist in the last decade. But as a rather telling excuse he adds: “I’m doing what I can, but there’s a limit to what one person can do”.
Well, perhaps. But one person who wasn’t distracted by holding down 11 other lucrative jobs might possibly manage a teensy bit more.
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“Real People – Not Career Politicians” boasts an election leaflet from Reform, showing a smiley and joyous group who look as though they have just won the Postcode Lottery. But though they are certainly not career politicians, nor are they real people. Literally. A little research shows that not one of the group actually exists. They are all figments of AI’s imagination.
In the full panoply of the rackets committed by Reform on the body politic of Britain, the complete invention of a group of pretend Reform voters probably ranks low. But the discord aroused is hardly an encouragement to voters to assume that anything Reform says is true.
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This week’s shady characters with their collars turned up were Celina Błędowska, Mary Marshall, Malcolm Lynn, Karl Whiteman and Liz Crosbie.
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