Failing Priti has become a liability

Priti Patel is increasingly being seen as a liability by the Government. Seemingly totally focussed on prosecuting peaceful protesters; murder, knife crime, rape and other violent offences against women are too often allowed to drift unchecked.

But it is the migrant crisis which is her biggest failure. The Tories talked about sending illegal immigrants back to where they came from. Well, 24,000 have come, but the number repatriated - is just 5! An almost vanishingly small percentage.

Patel has been successful at shutting down other routes for migrants, most of the safe and legal ways. She left them just a Channel crossing in an open boat as the only option which was always going to be a recipe for disaster.

A recent opinion poll showed only 18% of people thought Priti Patel was handling the crisis well, 62% thought she was handling it badly or very badly. Even 45% of Tory voters thought she was responding badly or very badly.

One problem she has is shortage of suitable staff to deal with the crisis. But civil servants don’t want to work in the toxic environment she has created and Boris Johnson has weakly refused to do anything about remedying the situation.

The Ministerial Code is in place for a very sound reason. It protects everyone in government, clarifies roles and duties, thus ensuring the smooth running of the governmental machinery.

Ignore the code, based on years of experience, as Priti Patel and Boris Johnson did and there will be consequences. It will not end well. Pete Milory Trowbridge