Priti patel

It is hard not to feel sorry for Priti Patel. She would surely have been a Tory conference darling at the gathering that never happened back in autumn 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Back then she always came towards the top of cabinet ministers’ popularity in the monthly survey conducted by the Conservative Home website. But this year the Home Secretary’s ratings have dropped like a stone. She currently sits in 29th place, staring up in envy at such magnetic figures as Alok Sharma and Alister Jack and without even the comfort of knowing that there is always Gavin Williamson to look down on. In the mini-hall being used

The sun is beating down again, the waves are less choppy in the English Channel and the small boats full of irregular migrants are pouring across once more. At least 1,000 men, women and children were reportedly spotted landing on the south coast yesterday. If these numbers are correct, it would have shattered the previous daily record of 828, recorded on 21 August. But Home Office sources were today briefing that was an over-estimate and the likely official number will be about 740, merely the second highest daily total ever. The graphs plotting the staggering acceleration of this traffic make grim reading indeed – this is one curve that has never

The modern world has an unfortunate habit of making life difficult for those working to keep us safe. For the police, security services and others, so many inventions seem to be created just to make it more difficult for them to see who’s up to no good.  Take envelopes, for one. Envelopes make it much fiddlier to see what’s in the letters we send to one another – and they could show anything: that envelope could contain financial fraud, revenge porn, or even be plotting a murder. What is it hiding? Modern Britain is unreasonable to state snoopers in so many other ways too. Inconsiderately we put locks on our

It is somehow fitting that during an Olympic Games a department of Her Majesty’s government is busy smashing records. In the very week that a man ran the 400 metre hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics in a previously unthinkable time of sub-46 seconds, the Home Office presided over the arrival of 482 irregular migrants on the south coast of England in a single day. That easily broke a previous record of 430, set on 19 July or ‘freedom day’. Startled observers of the cross-Channel chaos are now pondering whether the 500 barrier could even be exceeded one day this summer. That the Norwegian hurdler Karsten Warholm’s record represented astounding success, while

The position of Home Secretary Priti Patel is clearly untenable. Presumably this means she must resign. Who says so? Why, only her Labour shadow Nick Thomas-Symonds. At least, he has said the first bit from which we can infer the second. And what has reduced Patel to this miserable status in his eyes? Could it be the fact that 18 months after she first promised to halt the cross-Channel boats that spill migrants onto our shores, there are more of them arriving than ever? No, not a bit of it. Thomas-Symonds is not interested in that. In fact, whenever he and the Home Secretary debate migration policy she runs enough

Remember when Labour MP Clive Lewis got into trouble for saying, ‘On your knees, bitch’? It was at a fringe event hosted by Momentum during the Labour conference in Brighton in 2017. Lewis uttered the line as a joke to the actress Sam Swann. People went nuts. Labour bigwigs accused Lewis of misogyny. He eventually ‘apologised unreservedly’ for his ‘offensive’ language. That phrase — ‘On your knees, bitch’ — sprung back into my mind this week as I read an exchange between Alastair Campbell and Priti Patel. No, Campbell did not use the B-word. He is far too civilised for that. But he did tell Patel to get on her

Following his re-election as Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady would be well advised to start banging a few heads together. Because the Conservative parliamentary party has turned into a thoroughgoing disgrace. We’ve all read about the ‘transactional’ relationship between most Tory MPs and Boris Johnson – i.e. they will only continue to back him if he keeps winning. But what the past few days has highlighted is the transactional relationship Tory MPs have with each other. There is almost no semblance of basic team loyalty, let alone that higher level of solidarity known as esprit de corps. Currently this is not a band of brothers and sisters

When immigration minister Chris Philp announced last summer that he was in the process of agreeing a ‘new operational plan’ with his French counterparts to stop the cross-Channel traffic in irregular migrants, it seemed as though the government was finally getting a grip on the crisis. In a statement to camera he declared:  ‘We had a very constructive meeting with our French colleagues in Paris this morning. We have reaffirmed our unshakeable shared commitment to making sure this route of crossing the Channel is made unviable…we have worked on a joint operational plan, with the objective in mind of completely cutting this route. We’re going to work at pace in the

Priti Patel: The BBC’s reputation ‘has been compromised’ Today’s political shows were dominated by the fallout from the Dyson inquiry into the BBC and its relationship with the journalist Martin Bashir. The findings of Lord Dyson’s report have already seen Tony Hall, the BBC’s former director-general, resign his post as chair of the National Gallery. The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, spoke to Trevor Philips – who will be replacing Sophy Ridge while she is on maternity leave – about the issue: PP: The BBC itself – one of our great institutions – its reputation has been compromised… and they themselves will have to reflect upon the report, and spend a

Any gunslinging sheriff can tell you that if you shoot from the hip you may hit the target but not quite with the precision you wanted. Priti Patel, very much a minister to draw first and ask questions later, is in much this position with her challenge to the police establishment over the weekend on its policy of recording all non-crime hate incidents. Most of what she said is spot-on; but in two respects she may have to think a little more carefully. The problem with the present police policy, as Matthew Parris trenchantly pointed out in this week’s Spectator, is that even if you never break the law it

Much ink was spilled during the Cameron years about CCHQ’s A-list efforts to get more top talent from a range of diverse backgrounds into the Tory parliamentary party. But now it belatedly transpires one man foresaw the future and was nursing his own crop of rising stars before it was fashionable – onetime MP turned novelist Jeffrey Archer. The octogenarian author popped up on Times Radio on Sunday to offer his thoughts on the issues of the day. Mr S was interested to hear Archer telling host Gloria De Piero that no less than six of the members of the organising committee of his 2000 London mayoral bid – which ended somewhat ignominiously after he was

Every Home Secretary is forced to confront the cold political realities of the office. What they set out to deliver – strengthening countermeasures in the aftermath of a terror attack, say, or taking steps to tackle a spike in violent crime – tends to be supported by swathes of the public at large. But though they can enjoy that currency of quiet public support, Home Secretaries of both major parties must then do battle ‘inside the Beltway’ with a vociferous legal and human rights establishment – and other vested interests ­– which seek to dilute their policy responses to the challenge of the day. To use a term of art,

Priti Patel’s reaction to the ugly scenes on Clapham Common on Saturday has been to point the finger. ‘Some of the footage circulating online from the vigil in Clapham is upsetting. I have asked the Metropolitan Police for a full report on what happened’, she has said. But do we really need to wait for a report to work out what has happened?  Perhaps, instead, the truth is rather simpler: the police were enforcing laws put into places by Priti Patel’s own government. Of course, there is some debate as to whether officers should have exercised more judgement in the applications of these laws. On this point, though, Patel has been clear:

Late last night, politicians started scrambling to express their concern about the policing of a vigil held on Clapham Common in the memory of Sarah Everard. After images of police officers arresting women on the ground emerged, Home Secretary Priti Patel said she found some of the footage ‘upsetting’ and would be asking the Metropolitan Police for a ‘full report’. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called the scenes ‘disturbing’ and said, ‘this was not the way to police this protest’. The political implications of last night’s policing decisions are going to be very difficult for both Patel and Starmer. This week, the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill has its second

The government’s border policy has become an increasing cause of bemusement among MPs and the country at large. The UK did not close its borders during the first lockdown when countries such as New Zealand did. When they did eventually bring in tighter border restrictions, it was just at the point Conservative MPs thought they ought to be opening up.  This time around, things are stricter, yet there were still delays. A new requirement to have a negative Covid test 72 hours before travelling to the UK has been brought in but even that had little sense of urgency with confusion over whether it would come into effect last Friday or

At tonight’s Covid press conference, the Home Secretary Priti Patel sought to defend the coronavirus restrictions against suggestions that the law was confusing and hard to follow. She said: ‘The rules are actually very simple and clear. We are meant to stay at home and only leave home for a very, very limited number of reasons’. What were those reasons? A list followed, including: ‘outdoor recreation but in a very, very restricted and limited way, staying local, I’ve said that several times over the last week.’ Except, outdoor recreation was specifically deleted as a deemed reasonable excuse to leave home by the regulatory amendments bringing into effect the national lockdown.

Priti Patel, Ms Priti Patel, Burnished by sunshine of far Israel,  How we all cheered when on Marr you did smirk, And as he got rattled, we yelled ‘O, good work!’ – Love-thirty, love-forty, oh weakness of joy, With the speed of a swallow you mangled the goy,  With carefullest carelessness, gaily you played Marr,  And like a Hindu princess you cheeked and you slayed Marr. – Priti Patel, Ms Priti Patel, Mandarins you mangle, and at police chiefs you yell, Illegals you find where others have missed ’em, But you’re no xenophobe with your lovely points system. – Conference loves you, especially on crime,  When you praise execution, and

The Home Office’s report into the characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation was keenly awaited by victims of grooming gangs. Sadly, for many of these people, it has left them disappointed.  When Sajid Javid commissioned the review he promised there would be ‘no no-go areas of inquiry’. His successor as Home Secretary, Priti Patel, says in the report itself that ‘victims and survivors of these abhorrent crimes have told me how they were let down by the state in the name of political correctness. What happened to these children remains one of the biggest stains on our country’s conscience.’  But victims I’ve spoken to suggest political correctness remains an issue. The report, they say, obfuscates