Gavin Mortimer

Is there a plot afoot to oust Giorgia Meloni as Prime Minister and replace her with someone more to the progressive left’s taste?  There have been rumours in the European media that Meloni’s government is teetering and that it ‘could fall and make way for a technocrat government.’ The audacity of Germany is breathtaking In 2011 Mario Monti formed such a government after the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi and he filled his cabinet with unelected technocrats, prompting Berlusconi to accuse him of ‘adopting the rules of austerity proposed by Germany.’ The former European Commissioner lasted just over a year in office before he resigned.

There are said to be six million rats in Paris. I met one last week when I was retrieving some winter clothes from a bag in my cellar.  Neither of us was particularly keen to make the other’s acquaintance.  Such a brief encounter may not please the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. In the summer her office announced the establishment of a committee to study how the city’s three million human inhabitants can learn to ‘cohabit’ with their furry neighbours.    Animal rights’ groups and green politicians expressed their satisfaction that the societal scourge of rat shaming is finally being challenged. Paris councillor Douchka Markovic has said the word ‘rat’ is pejorative and she wants them renamed ‘surmulots’.

Suella Braverman is right. The United Nations Refugee Convention is no longer fit for purpose. As the Home Secretary will explain today in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, the convention makes a mockery of genuine refugees.   'Simply being gay, a woman or fearful of discrimination' is enough to qualify for refugee status, Braverman will tell her audience. This means that 780 million are entitled to protection, a figure she describes as 'absurd and unsustainable'. The Home Secretary wants the refugee convention, which was in her view an 'incredible achievement' when it was introduced in 1951, to be reformed because in its current guise it offers 'huge incentives for illegal migration'.

King Charles arrived in Paris today on the first stage of a three day state visit to France, a country his mother adored. The French media view the trip as a chance to repair Anglo-French relations, which according to the front page of Liberation have been ‘strained since Brexit’.   The general tone of the French reporting is that this is solely the fault of those 17.4 million fools who, to paraphrase Emmanuel Macron, fell for the ‘lies and false promises’ of the Leave campaign.   In Liberation’s opinion, Brexit has proved a ‘catastrophe, notably economically’ with inflation and the cost of living soaring. It’s true that Britain is not thriving at the moment, but nor is the eurozone.

It is almost three years to the day since Ursula von der Leyen gave her inaugural State of the Union address in Brussels. The newly elected President of the European Commission touched on many subjects on September 16, 2020, among which was the migrant crisis, ‘an issue that has been discussed long enough’.   It was time to move from words to actions, said von der Leyen: ‘If we are all ready to make compromises, without compromising on our principles, we can find that solution.’  Von der Leyen then explained that a ‘new pact on migration’ was to be unveiled the following week, one which ‘take action to fight smugglers, strengthen external borders, deepen external partnerships and create legal pathways.

The details of King Charles’ state visit to France later this month were announced on Wednesday. His Majesty’s deputy private secretary, Chris Fitzgerald said that the occasion state will celebrate the countries’ ‘shared histories, culture and values’. One thing France and Britain haven’t shared for many years is the same view on school uniform. We wear it, they don’t, although they might be about to change.   In an interview on Monday, Emmanuel Macron agreed that school uniform may be the best way to avoid any future controversies about what children wear to schools in France.  He was referring to the furore that erupted last week when his new Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, declared a ban on the wearing of the abaya.

Rental e-scooters have been banned from Paris since Friday after residents of the French capital were asked to decide their fate in a referendum. The vote, held in April, attracted a low turnout, with only 103,000 of the city's 1.38 million men and women bothering to cast their ballot. Of those that did, however, 90 per cent voted to rid their streets of rental scooters. Rental scooters were first introduced onto the streets of Paris five years ago amid much fanfare. They were, claimed the company responsible, California-based Lime, the environmentally-friendly future. 'Very quickly our fleet will grow to respond to demand,' claimed Lime's director for France, Arthur-Louis Jacquier. As Parisians soon discovered, e-scooters were a menace.

The timing could not have been worse for Rishi Sunak. Just days after it was confirmed by Downing Street that the Prime Minister would host Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in the autumn, a human rights organisation published an extensive report accusing Saudi Arabia of the ‘mass killing’ of migrants at its border with Yemen.  The 73-page report was released by Human Rights Watch (HRW), and its contents have been relayed by several media outlets, including the BBC and the Guardian. It is a harrowing read.

Rishi Sunak has failed in his pledge to ‘Stop the Boats’, and the £480 million deal he signed with France in March is nothing more than a gargantuan waste of money. In fact, the French have intercepted fewer migrants in the Channel this year than they did in 2022. If the Prime Minister is truly committed to stopping the boats he must look to Australia and not France for inspiration. It is ten years this summer since Australia solved its own small boat problem. It did so with determination, courage and a refusal to be cowed by howls of outrage from those who champion a borderless world.

The British government is reportedly ‘frustrated’ with France for its failure to stem the numbers of migrants making their way illegally across the Channel.  What’s new? It’s a gripe going back years and the solution has always been the same: to throw more money to France in return for a solemn promise from Paris that patrols will be increased to reduce the numbers looking to enter Britain illegally.  Britain should wise up and understand that Macron has no intention of helping to reduce the numbers of migrants crossing the Channel In February 2016, for example, David Cameron’s government announced it was giving €20 million (£17.