DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Rwanda shambles corrodes democracy
What a depressing but thoroughly predictable farce.
With the connivance of human rights lawyers and the activist Left, every single illegal migrant selected to be sent to Rwanda tomorrow for asylum processing is set to lodge a legal appeal.
As a result, it’s entirely possible no one will board the flight tomorrow. While their cases move glacially through the courts (at vast taxpayers’ expense, of course), the plane will sit on the runway, a humiliating symbol of Britain’s failure to control its borders.
Perhaps worse, this also represents an outrageous corrosion of democracy.
Protesters chanted and held placards against the UK deportation flights to Rwanda, scheduled to take place tomorrow
Prince Charles, who will visit Rwanda this month, reportedly called the scheme ‘appalling’
Intended to stop migrants dicing with death by handing huge sums to smugglers for a place in a dangerous cross-Channel dinghy, the Home Secretary’s crackdown enacts the wishes of voters.
But in liberal metropolitan circles, fashionable self-righteousness counts more than the verdict at the ballot box.
Priti Patel’s noisy opponents rage against her supposed inhumanity. Yet they seem unmoved by how many migrants might drown at sea or end up as slaves paying off debts owed to rapacious traffickers.
Their only goal is to sabotage the policy by hook or by crook. In this, they are emboldened by the Prince of Wales, who apparently condemns the scheme as ‘appalling’.
Leave aside that Rwanda is good enough for royalty (Charles is due to visit this month). Most of those agreeing with him have republican sympathies.
If he’s not very careful, those disagreeing with his provocative political interventions may also conclude Britain’s constitutional monarchy is no longer worth keeping.
Matter of life or death
Large volumes of callers to 999 have to wait minutes for their call to be answered
Every one of us should be grateful for the skill and professionalism of the ambulance crews who dedicate themselves to saving lives.
But gravely ill patients and emergency personnel alike are being let down by a 999 system that is simply not up to scratch.
Scandalously, huge numbers of the sick wait longer to get through to a call handler than the seven minutes it should take for an ambulance to actually reach them.
It is hard to imagine the fear gripping those people – often elderly – who must sit tight with no sign of help. When ambulances are required, every second counts.
Of course, NHS trusts are overstretched, taking record volumes of 999 calls. The increase is driven by a growing and ageing population. And the crisis is exacerbated by the difficulty patients face seeing a GP.
If their condition deteriorates, many end up turning to ambulances, inevitably placing the service under further strain.
The NHS should spend more of the record sums it has received in recent years on call handlers, instead of on pointless diversity managers. Failure to do so is, for too many patients, literally a matter of life and death.
Rotten track record
Another day, another Labour frontbencher refuses to condemn the unions threatening to wreak havoc on the railways.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves relentlessly attacks the Government over policies she thinks harm ordinary people.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves rejected the idea of replacing striking staff with agency workers
But on a walkout that will stop millions who depend on a reliable train service for getting to work, school or hospital appointments? One that pummels business? Not a peep.
As Grant Shapps says, scratch the surface of the supposedly modernised Labour Party and you find unreconstructed socialism, soaked through in union money.
The Transport Secretary is right to warn the barons, acting out of political malice, he will toughen anti-strike laws.
Such reforms were promised in the Tory election manifesto which won a thumping majority. If the unions keep holding a gun to the nation’s head, they must be disarmed.
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