Tory lies alert: yes, it’s a cartoon of David Cameron, so now you know that we’ve been catching Tories lying for at least eight years.
Here’s Clare Coutinho, Energy Secretary and Net Zero Secretary, and liar.
Apparently in her Conservative Propaganda Carnival – I mean, Party Conference – speech, Ms Coutinho told an extremely off-colour joke about the Labour Party planning to tax meat.
There is no Labour Party plan to impose a tax on meat, although I wouldn’t put it past Keir Starmer to have been writing the idea down on the back of an envelope if he heard about it.
Sophy Ridge from Sky News tackled her about it and she absolutely refused to give an inch:
That frozen expression on Coutinho’s face when she realises what she’s being asked is priceless. It’s a real rabbit-in-the-headlights moment.
And she can’t deny that she made it up.
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Grinning idiots: Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have both falsely claimed that cutting inflation is cutting tax and giving people more money to spend. THIS IS A LIE.
Both the UK’s prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer are economically illiterate and do not know that cutting inflation does not put any money back into the pockets of the poor.
Both Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have gone on the record, referring to inflation as a tax. It is not.
Either they are lying or they are too stupid to understand that they are wrong.
Cutting inflation does not reduce the amount of money people are having to pay for goods and services – those prices still rise, but just not as fast.
So when this happens…
Sunak on Kuenssberg says he has cut the cost of living/
Does anyone feel better off, or see fuel, mortgage or food costs drop?
I appreciate some commentators refer to inflation as a stealth tax. However Rishi is not alluding to this.
He’s claiming that reducing inflation is a tax cut. It is not. People are not better off with a reduction in inflation. Prices still rise just by not as much.
(The point is that inflation may act as a tax when it increases but the amount of money you are paying does not reduce when inflation does, as it would if a tax was cut.)
The chancellor: "If we halve inflation, thats not a 1p in the pound tax cut, thats 5 pence in the pound boost to their income"
This is economically illiterate. Reducing inflation doesn't boost incomes, it means prices are still rising, just slower. pic.twitter.com/tSw11qClDE
Of course the other branch of this is the claim that the Conservatives have actually done any work to reduce inflation. They haven’t.
Inflation was always going to come down from the historic highs it hit a year or so ago. Those were caused by situations in foreign countries that caused shortages of energy and food, raising their prices.
Those shortages have now largely been resolved, but the price rises have been cemented into our lives. The reason inflation has fallen is that it is a current figure, representing the amount prices have risen over a particular length of time. After a year, price rises drop off all the current inflation figures.
So: inflation is not a tax and its fall does not put more money in your pocket, and the Conservatives have done nothing to bring it down anyway. Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have lied through their teeth at you. This is not an auspicious start to the Tory Propaganda Carnival – I mean, Party Conference.
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Rishi Sunak: he loves coming out with rousing claims in Prime Minister’s Questions. What a shame so few of them are true.
Rishi Sunak seems to love misleading us all about poverty.
At Prime Minister’s Questions last week, he claimed that 1.7 million fewer people are in poverty now than when the Conservatives came back into power.
But he was almost certainly using the relative definition of poverty – that is, that a person is only define as being in poverty if they receive 60 per cent of the median average income, or less.
He was almost certainly not referring to genuine poverty, in which people cannot afford to eat or buy basic essentials. Peter Stefanovic spells out the distinction here:
Rishi Sunak proudly told MP’s this week there are “1.7 million fewer people in poverty today than 2010”
Can someone let him know the number of people in relative poverty has INCREASED BY ALMOST A MILLION since the Tories came to power in 2010! https://t.co/NF47lKvdao
14 million people in poverty is a little more than one-fifth of the population.
A million adults can’t afford to eat every day.
Nine million, while eating every day, are skipping meals and cutting back on food. There is a consequent effect on the nation’s health that will impact the NHS, of course – with thousands of people being hospitalised with malnutrition. Then the Tories say they don’t understand why the health service can’t cope after they have put so much (ha ha!) extra funding into it.
A record 2.1 million people are now using food banks. Remember David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ policy? This is its only success – forcing more wealthy people to subsidise those who cannot afford to feed themselves, including lower-paid working people and nurses, let’s not forget, with charity.
The number of children in food poverty has doubled in the last year alone.
Seven million households aren’t being heated properly.
Sunak also mentioned inequality, claiming – again, falsely – that this is also lower. In fact:
In 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million people fell by 7.5 per cent while those for the richest fifth saw a 7.8 per cent increase.
Could that be partly because Sunak has uncapped bankers’ bonuses while imposing real-terms pay cuts on public sector workers?
Sunak reckons 200,000 fewer pensioners are in poverty today – but the number of pensioners in relative poverty has actually increased by more than 200,000. In 2021/22, more than two million pensioners were living in poverty in the UK.
Sunak’s comment about 100,000 new homes needs no response because the House of Lords rightly rejected the arguments in favour of building on land likely to be flooded with water that had been polluted, not only by developers but also by greedy privatised water firms.
Sunak reckons he’s delivered 4,000 prison officers – so why are there fewer now than in 2010? Does it have something to do with the privatisation – and profitisation – of our prisons?
It would be worth keeping this information handy when PMQs is on over the next few weeks and months.
I’ll try to put out a YouTube clip and a few infographics.
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Keir Starmer: he’s not left-wing but he’s definitely sinister.
Take a look at this prediction on the date and outcome of the next general election:
Suspect Sunak will call the General Election for autumn 2024, by which time he’ll have suffered devastating defeats in the May local elections. My guess is that Labour will win an outright majority and that it will be more comfortable than many believe. What do you think?
Personally, I think autumn might be leaving it late and we might get a spring GE, at the same time as the locals. This would save Rishi Sunak from a “lame duck” summer that could harm Tory chances at the Westminster elections even more than his premiership already has.
The prediction that Labour will go on to form a government, if accurate, heralds disaster for the UK and everyone in it, though. We would just be swapping one gang of hard-right headbangers, hell-bent on robbing the poor to fatten the rich, for another.
Voters who want to support Keir Starmer seem to be doing it on the basis of a daydream, as laid out by ‘Barney’, below:
That would require breaking manifesto commitments (a step up from breaking leadership pledges), and defying the media. Plus voters would have mandated him not to. So the chance of him moving back to the left would be between zero and zilch.
John Holman’s response tells us exactly why any hope that Labour will move back to the left in government is forlorn: Starmer will simply say that he must honour his (right-wing) manifesto promises because that’s what voters have endorsed.
He won’t mention the fact that nobody in the Labour leadership will have given any of us, including rank-and-file part members, a chance to choose which policies should be in the manifesto in the first place.
Nor will he admit that all of Labour’s policies for the next government will have been chosen on the basis that they will win support – and donations – for Starmer and his cronies from the very rich and powerful elites of the UK, or will line their pockets in other ways. That would show that he has made his party just like the Tories.
He will keep quiet about those facts – which This Writer is sure will become self-evident to those of us with enquiring minds – because it suits him to permit the majority of voters to carry on as ‘BanAllHunting’, below, suggests:
I hear it a lot, although not so much recently. I think people hate the Tories so much they have persuaded themselves Starmer is some kind of saviour. I honestly fear for my country if either of the main parties get in next year with a working majority
That’s about the size of it. Without any evidence at all, people have persuaded themselves that, because he leads an organisation that still calls itself “Labour” and operates under a red banner, Starmer is their left-wing Messiah.
The actual evidence suggests otherwise. Look at the way he responds to Susanna Reid’s probing about the two-child benefit cap, here:
"The 2child benefit cap. You have said you will stick to that. It has earned you a very unpleasant name, #SirKidStarver. If we overturned the.. cap we could lift 250,000 children out of poverty. Why won't you change your mind on that one?"
Confronted with what she describes as “a very unpleasant nickname” – Sir Kid Starver – he doesn’t acknowledge or respond to it – and certainly doesn’t deny it.
All he says is that his party will have an “anti-poverty strategy”, just like Tony Blair’s New Labour government did.
But it will be without any funding, apparently.
So you can see that, under even the slightest scrutiny, any claim that Starmer will create any real and lasting improvement simply falls apart.
The absolute tragedy of all this is that, deprived of this fantasy, Labour tribalists will fall back on the old falsehood that anybody who doesn’t support Labour is a “Tory enabler”. That might be effective if Starmer’s Labour had any policies to distinguish it from the Tories, but it doesn’t.
In real terms, you’re a Tory enabler if you vote either Labour or Conservative.
The only way to break this deadlock is to find someone else to support, and there is a really easy way to do this.
You simply look up the other political parties operating in your constituency, plus an independents who may be around, and find out what their policies are.
Then you choose a candidate or party to support. This will be whoever has the most policies that correspond with what you want.
And then you vote for them.
Unless you are a hard-right headbanger, hell-bent on robbing the poor to fatten the rich, that is the only sane course of action in the UK, at this time.
Why on Earth would you vote in a party with policies you don’t want, that will do things that won’t help? That’s self-harm. Anybody doing it would legitimately need treatment for mental illness.
Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer: like-minded hypocrites – or liars?
Watch this short message from a former Labour supporter (if you can stand the extremely spicy language), explaining why he doesn’t support Labour any more – and why claims that people like him are enabling the Tories to win again are offensive.
The guilt tripping needs to stop don’t call us Tony Enablers because we stand by our principles and don’t sell our souls to the highest bidder. pic.twitter.com/m8L1Gb2lJ6
He’s right, of course. Nobody is enabling the Tories to win by voting for policies they would prefer to see enacted, rather than Tory or Labour policies.
If Keir Starmer’s Labour wasn’t so desperate to ape Tory politics rather than finding a new way forward, that party would be enjoying significantly higher support; if Blairites had not sabotaged the Corbyn project, we would have had a Labour government for the last six years; it is Starmer’s politics that is the problem, not the voting habits of the electorate.
Case in point:
This is real Labour. Tax the rich. The politics of envy. And rich doesn’t mean millionaire. It means head teachers, police inspectors, and huge numbers of business owners. If it worked it might have some merit but of course it doesn’t. https://t.co/WSrfZYCFV8
Firstly, the clip shows Reeves has abandoned the policy she had formerly endorsed in favour of a different way. Was the original stance a lie?
The new plan – to improve the fortunes of the population by improving the economy – would rely on employers passing the profits of improved business on in the form of higher wages.
Labour was going to increase taxes on the wealthy – and now it isn’t, having turned in favour of “piss-take” trickle-down economics. Hypocrisy? Or was the original stance a lie?
Moving on, let’s consider Labour’s current stance on Brexit – which is to support it.
This is backtracking on a previous party policy – championed by Keir Starmer during the 2019 general election campaign – to go back to the electorate and check whether a majority of the population still wants to go through with Brexit, after encountering the problems it had triggered already.
Stephen Fry has something to say about that:
"The Labour Party is afraid to mention Brexit – it was a catastrophe and everybody knows it deep in their bones"
Finally, we have Starmer’s own response to a simple question: Westminster or Davos?
I rarely use language like this to describe a politician, but Keir Starmer is a traitor. Not only to the labour movement, but to the U.K. Anyone who prefers the WEF & Davos to Westminster is telling you their concerns are with corporations, not with the people of this country! https://t.co/LUM5ZpkM30
In fact, Starmer made his meaning clear – that he would prefer to be around real people, who know what they stand for, than mouthpieces who change position constantly.
But that just reveals the biggest fault in his behaviour: he constantly changes his own position in an effort to create advantages for himself.
So is it not hypocritical of him to say he prefers the company of people who are not like himself?
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This is fine: the image was originally created to symbolise Rishi Sunak’s attitude to climate change but it works just as well for his position on schools that are falling apart because of RAAC concrete collapses.
The trouble with Tory lies – other than the fact that there are so many of them – is their tendency to fall apart when the facts are checked.
Here’s Peter Stefanovic on the schools’ rebuilding programme, and on Tory education funding in general:
I’ve added some actual FACTS to this SHOCKING response from Prime Minister @RishiSunak to the crisis facing our schools. If like me you’ve had enough of this Government’s absolute bull**** RT this widely#PMQspic.twitter.com/5M4d7zC16s
So the Tories claimed they would be rebuilding 50 schools per year – down from 100 and far below the 400 rebuilds required.
And the total number of actual rebuilds per year is two.
Yet the Tories cheer in support of this monumental failure.
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Jo Bird: Bigoted witch-hunters are again conducting a hate campaign to sabotage her chances of winning a Parliamentary seat from Labour – but the facts are against them.
A woman who was unfairly expelled from the Labour Party while she was running for election to its ruling NEC is to stand as the Green Party’s candidate for Birkenhead in the next general election – and the false accusations against her have suddenly re-emerged.
Somebody must be terrified that Jo Bird will take the seat!
Ms Bird was originally suspended by Labour – for just nine days – after making a self-deprecating remark that their should be “Jew process” when considering allegations of anti-Semitism against party members.
She was suspended again when she was running for election to Labour’s ruling body, the NEC.
Much was made of this at the time, including by the Jewish Chronicle. Ms Bird complained to press regulator IPSO about inaccuracies in its article, and the eventual finding came back in her favour.
But we live in an age of despicable lies that won’t die – and, now that she has been announced as the Green Party’s Birkenhead candidate, they have resurfaced – to derision from those of us who know the facts:
In March, we wrote to the Greens to express our concern that they were harbouring people who had been expelled from Labour for supporting antisemites.
Now they’ve doubled down and made one of them a parliamentary candidate.
HopeNotHate has to decide whether to keep promoting the racist ideology of Zionism or to be anti-racist like many of the people it falsely accuses of antisemitism. https://t.co/1Ly2dEQ5xo
Fortunately she has plenty of support. This is just one example:
Solidarity with @JoBirdJoBird, a wonderful person who will make a brilliant MP for Birkenhead. I'm so glad that @TheGreenParty is welcoming to left-wingers that have been unfairly marginalised by Labour 🟢
We know why this is happening: the Green Party is in an excellent position to take Birkenhead from Labour right-winger Alison McGovern*, so Labour is wheeling out its old, false, accusations against that party’s candidate.
This is politics of the dirtiest kind. If you live in Birkenhead and you were thinking of Labour before, think again now.
*McGovern beat left-wing candidate Mick Whitley in a selection contest after boundary changes:
🚨 NEW: Jo Bird (who was expelled from Labour for speaking at a pro-Corbyn meeting) has been selected as Green candidate for Birkenhead.
Labour's candidate is the right-wing MP Alison McGovern, who beat left-wing MP Mick Whitley in the selection contest after boundary changes. https://t.co/RPZAYxargF
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Confused? Think how bad it must be for Suella Braverman, who can’t even do the simple arithmetic necessary to prove that there are proportionately fewer police now than in 2010 so they still have to prioritise their caseloads.
The woman known as Suella Braverman (not her real name – is it, Sue Ellen?) has been caught out in a monumental lie about police numbers.
Challenging police across the UK to treat all crimes as important and worthy of investigation, no matter how trivial, the Home Secretary falsely claimed that the government had recruited 20,000 police officers in England and Wales.
This is not true. Watch as Jayne Secker of Sky News skewers her, live on air:
Suella Braverman shares her "huge programme" on police reform that will help forces get "back to basics".
Sky's Jayne Secker challenges the Home Secretary on her statement that the government has gained 20,000 more officers.https://t.co/AVk5NZBEtw
As far as This Writer can work out, with help from The London Economic, there were 148,725 police officers in England and Wales in 2010, when the Conservatives came back to government for the first time since 1997. That’s one uniform for ever 422 people.
This number dwindled steadily over the next few years, with 20,000 officers lost. Then in 2019 came a manifesto commitment to recruit more.
Now, the best information I can find shows 149,566 police officers – an increase, but of not even 1,000, let alone the 3,000 suggested on Sky.
Worse, the UK’s population has risen by nearly five million, meaning there are now 453 people for every police officer.
So in fact there are still fewer police on the UK’s streets – per head of population – than in 2010.
And this makes a nonsense of Braverman’s challenge to the police forces. With lower numbers in comparison with the rest of the population, isn’t it unrealistic to expect them to give up prioritising the kinds of cases they decide to investigate?
In conclusion, Braverman’s statement about the police is a tissue of lies.
They can’t investigate every crime to its fullest extent because there are fewer of them now than when the Tories came to office – and they were overstretched then. Braverman is setting them up to fail – and criminals to get away with their crimes.
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Keir Starmer: politicians press their lips together like this when they realise they have said something they shouldn’t have.
Cringe, Britain!
Keir Starmer, leader of the political party that is still nominally known as Labour, was the subject of a ‘question and answer’ article in The Guardian, in which he was asked to reveal the last lie he told.
His response evoked memories of Theresa May, before the 2017 general election, trying to talk about the “naughtiest” thing she ever did:
These politicians – they always try to squirm out of these questions that are intended to make them look… human, at least. And they always end up looking grotesque. Remember when former US President Bill Clinton admitted smoking cannabis but said he didn’t inhale?
This Writer likes another question in the same Guardian article, because it has a certain quality of prediction about it:
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Having more time to spend with Vic and the kids.
Many’s the failed politician who has quit in order to “spend more time with [their] family”.
This Writer certainly hopes that Starmer’s wish comes true soon.
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Face of evil? Suella Braverman’s dossier attacking immigration lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie seems to be not only dishonest and illegal, but also racist.
Let’s see if I’ve got this right: the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom has deliberately released a dossier filled with lies in order to get the media to harass an immigration lawyer, thereby putting her in danger. Is that correct?
I refer to a four-page document created by Suella Braverman (or ordered by her), and sent to right wing papers the Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express.
It contained a series of falsehoods about Jacqueline McKenzie, head of immigration and asylum at the law firm Leigh Day, which she herself described as follows, in an article for The Guardian:
Someone had drawn a diagram linking Keir Starmer to anyone who challenged the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan. There was mention of a case in which I represented a Jamaican man who had lived in the UK from the age of nine and was facing deportation. It said that I was a hired adviser on race to Starmer, when in fact I am an unpaid volunteer on a working group set up by Labour to look at race disparities across a number of indicators, just as the Conservatives did with the Sewell report.
It also “outed” me as a trustee of Detention Action, a well-respected NGO supporting people in immigration detention centres, presumably because the organisation challenged the Rwanda scheme in the courts. The dossier did not mention that I had become a trustee after that challenge. I did represent a man who was one of seven shackled on the tarmac waiting to be flown to Rwanda before the flight was grounded by the courts. I feel no shame: a doctor in the immigration detention centre confirmed that my client displayed signs of being a victim of torture.
A statement in support of Ms McKenzie by her colleagues at Leigh Day points out:
Omitted from the briefing was Jacqueline’s involvement on another group chaired by Priti Patel MP on the Windrush Scandal and the 90% of her work which is focused on legal support for victims of the Windrush Scandal.
Another Guardianreport quoted the actual Tory document:
The party’s document, which had the heading, “Revealed: senior Labour advisor is lefty lawyer blocking Rwanda deportations”, sought to highlight McKenzie’s links to the party and her work on immigration cases, she said.
The Tory dossier said: “Just last year, she [McKenzie] helped a Jamaican criminal lodge last-minute appeal to deportation because of his high blood pressure. The foreign-born crook had just served an eight-year prison sentence for kidnapping.
“[Labour leader Keir] Starmer has been keen to distance himself from previous remarks and convince voters that he can be trusted on immigration.
“But his decision to hire lefty lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie is further proof that ‘Sir Softie’ can’t be trusted.”
A spokesperson for the Conservative Party intensified the attack in a comment for the same article, stating:
“It’s no secret that an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, dubious campaign groups and the Labour party are trying to frustrate our efforts to stop the boats and deport more foreign criminals.”
Ms McKenzie has made her opinion on the reasons for the Tory attack on her abundantly clear:
There is no doubt this story was timed to accompany the moving of asylum seekers, many traumatised, on to the Bibby Stockholm. The government attacks vulnerable people and those like myself, who represent them in order to distract from issues that the electorate prioritise: the cost-of-living crisis, the environment and the NHS.
This flagrant attack on me and my work, built on misinformation and mischaracterisation and underpinned by racism and misogyny, is a dark day for our political sphere. It represents a serious slur on the integrity and independence of thousands of hardworking and upstanding lawyers.
I’ve saved the worst for last: The attack on Ms McKenzie has put her in danger, along with those around her:
The hit job on me was vile and self-serving, and put me and those close to me at considerable risk of physical harm. I’m having to take security advice and precautions, such is the seriousness I place on ominous emails I have received.
The Tory dossier was not only full of lies; it deliberately and falsely alleged that Ms McKenzie was politically biased – a claim that has outraged members of the legal profession, not just at Leigh Day but across the UK.
According to the Leigh Day statement,
Lawyers should not be criticised for doing their jobs. People are entitled to have legal representation when faced with removal from the country, or indeed being moved to accommodation which may be unsuitable. Many of the clients represented by Jacqueline’s team have been through trauma, torture or incredible hardship. In a civilised society they should be treated with compassion and understanding as well as having the law applied accurately and fairly to the individual circumstances of their case.
While the work we do as a firm is not always popular we strive to provide access to justice to all whether that is bereaved families who need help finding answers through the inquest process, those who have been seriously injured on our roads, employees who have been discriminated against by their employers and international communities who bear the brunt of multinational corporations wreaking havoc on their local environments. This commitment to access to justice for all extends to those seeking asylum in this country or who need support with their immigration status.
We are proud of the work we do and will not be cowed by a government whose strategy appears to be to attack and demonise lawyers, and the judiciary, merely for working to ensure the laws of this country are upheld.
It is a position that the Law Society, which represents and supports solicitors across England and Wales, and the Bar Council, its counterpart organisation for barristers, fully supports:
“No lawyer should be criticised, or made the subject of a targeted campaign, for doing their job."
Our full joint statement with @thebarcouncil, sharing our support for immigration lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie:
"Everyone is entitled to legal representation, and it is a United…
“Everyone is entitled to legal representation, and it is a United Nations basic principle that lawyers should not be identified with the causes of their clients as a result of representing them.
“The legal community is gravely concerned by the experience of immigration solicitor Jacqueline McKenzie.
“That is why – as we have said repeatedly – it is wrong to describe lawyers as ‘lefty’ or ‘activist’ simply on the basis of the causes they advocate on behalf of their clients.
“Lawyers who represent their clients are not only doing nothing wrong, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do in playing their part in ensuring that the rule of law is upheld. Ms McKenzie has been doing exactly what she is supposed to do as an immigration solicitor, acting in the best interests of her clients within the constraints of the law.
“Political leaders know that lawyers represent their clients within the legal framework that parliament creates and CCHQ should seriously reflect on what has happened in this case.
“Language and actions that unfairly undermine confidence in the independence of the legal professions, and potentially risk the safety of lawyers, will ultimately undermine confidence in our entire justice system and the rule of law.”
It seems clear to This Writer that the dossier of lies about Ms McKenzie is part of the “crackdown” on “rogue lawyers” that the Tory government announced earlier this month.
At the time, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk claimed that the aim was to stop a minority of lawyers who were making false claims in order to allow people who should be deported to stay in the UK.
Jon Kay: You've announced a crackdown on rogue lawyers.. but this is a distraction… you should be tackling the backlog?
Alex Chalk: "A small minority are doing terrible damage.. coming up with false claims… & this illegality, dishonesty is extremely serious" #BBCBreakfastpic.twitter.com/nDM49V4w57
He seemed to be having trouble getting his words out and, if the attack on Ms McKenzie is representative of the Tory plan, this should be unsurprising. It can be hard to present a pack of lies as factual information.
Even then, the Law Society was pointing out the errors in the Tory claims:
Today, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office announced that they have launched a Professional Enablers Taskforce to crackdown on lawyers.
Responding, deputy vice president of the Law Society Richard Atkinson said: (1/5)
“The overwhelming majority of immigration lawyers continue to support the #RuleOfLaw through their adherence to the law and professional standards set by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. (3/5)
The Tories’ claim to be cracking down on a small number of lawyers who are dishonestly and illegally playing the system on behalf of foreigners who should not be in the UK seems to be a cover for an attack on entirely respectable lawyers that is itself dishonest and illegal.
But then, what can we expect from a Home Secretary whose own word cannot be trusted?
Suella Braverman wants to crackdown on crooked lawyers. Braverman was accused of lying on her CV by saying she made a contribution to a seminal law textbook. The author, Philip Colvin QC denied her claim “I asked her to do some photocopying for the book, which she did”.
One final point that I haven’t mentioned before: Ms McKenzie is black. This Tory “crackdown” on asylum-seekers and those who represent them is not only dishonest and illegal; it is also racist.
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