Suella’s brave enough to admit how serious this is — that’s why the BBC, Twitter and her own civil servants are coming for her

Note to Rishi Sunak: every successful Prime Minister needs a bad cop — someone who makes them look saintly by comparison; someone who doesn’t particularly mind if they’re on no one’s Christmas card list, and who can assume responsibility for the less salubrious aspects of government.

Margaret thatcher had Norman tebbit; David Cameron had my former husband, Michael Gove, who did lots of difficult but necessary work for him on education, and was unceremoniously fired for his pains.

Boris Johnson had his adviser Dominic Cummings, who turned out not so much to be bad cop as mad cop.

Doesn’t matter: point is, there are always those tricky problems in government that can’t easily be solved without upsetting an awful lot of people. And for that you need a real tough nut.

Illegal immigration is one such problem, and Suella Braverman is one of the few Cabinet nuts tough enough to acknowledge it and to tackle it head on.

Which is why, of course, the whole world is coming for her.

there’s all of team truss; several former Johnson acolytes; Priti Patel’s allies; and, inevitably, one of her own ministers, Robert Jenrick, who’s clearly eyeing a promotion if she gets fired. And that’s just in her own party.

throw in His Majesty’s opposition, the BBC, the entire population of North London and twitter users — not to mention the boatloads of civil servants flouting their own codes of conduct by leaking to the media because they’ve decided their views are morally superior — and it’s a wonder the poor woman can even get out of bed in the morning.

She faces some of the most complex challenges of our times: how to stop desperate people risking life and limb at the hands of people traffickers to reach Britain’s shores; how to separate real refugees from ruthless opportunists; and how to ensure a fair and functioning immigration system.

She’s also dealing with the racist attacks of the Left, who believe that anyone of her ethnicity who does not espouse their cause is a traitor.

She has to cope, too, with a Conservative Party that’s still fighting like rats in a sack — and a Home office which has not been remotely fit for purpose for a very long time.

As for the stuff about her emails . . . all I can say is: ‘oh, get off your high horses.’

Braverman says she sent work documents to her personal email account so that she could join in virtual meetings outside the office. ‘It was not possible to use a single device to conduct the meetings and read the documents at the same time,’ she explained.

Yes, it was wrong, but for an understandable — even laudable — reason, and she has apologised. time to move on.

If I were Sunak, I’d think very carefully before cutting her loose. She has become a lightning rod, and Prime Ministers need lightning rods.

I would ignore all the pearl-clutching at her use of so-called ‘inflammatory’ language — her description of the soaring numbers disembarking on the coast of east Kent as an ‘invasion’.

If I were the PM, I would let her do her job. Because, quite honestly, who else is going to take that kind of flak?

Suella Braverman is that rarest of politicians, someone who speaks as she finds.

And the truth is that beyond the bubble of Westminster, beyond the rarefied salons of those whose privilege affords them the right to judge others, her words resonate. We’re in the midst of a cost- ofliving crisis where working families who pay their taxes can’t afford to heat their homes, run their cars or feed their children properly.

Given this state of affairs, the fact that the Home office has not only wasted millions paying the French to fail to stop the small boat crossings, but is also splurging £6.8 million per day — PeR DAY — accommodating migrants in four- star hotels, is simply not acceptable.

What about those British citizens who’ve been priced out of the rental market, or whose mortgages have shot up, or who are fleeing domestic violence, or battling ill-health or dementia or disability. Where’s their paid-for accommodation? Why does it feel as though they are somehow always the last in line?

of course, that’s not really the case. Nothing is ever so straightforward. But that is the problem with letting something like this spiral out of control: people get angry and resentful. they feel marginalised and let down. they become paranoid.

What they’re thinking may not be right or even rational, but it’s what they believe. And history teaches us that such sentiments can turn very nasty.

that is why it’s the duty of government to make sure the system works — and why it’s so important that they fix it.

In truth, none of this is Braverman’s fault. She’s been in the job for only five minutes.

this mess is the culmination of years of government incompetence at the hands of successive Home Secretaries, each of whom has tried — and failed — to tackle the problem.

And it is because the real obstacle here is no single individual but the department itself — the Home office.

It is a department that, with the possible exception of education, has come to epitomise the socalled Blob: that amorphous, allconsuming mass of sticky inertia that ensures no amount of reforming zeal or intelligent policy thinking can prevent the second-rate status quo from staying stolidly, stubbornly, in place.

How many political careers have perished in its bloated, slobbering Jabba the Hutt-like jaws?

the only Home Secretary in recent years who emerged from that place remotely unscathed was theresa May, and that was largely because she had two highly skilled political Rottweilers — Fiona Hill and Nick timothy — by her side at all times.

Whether or not Braverman is capable of succeeding where so many before her have failed, and galvanising her necrotic department, is not yet clear.

If it were down to sheer guts alone, she’d have more than a fighting chance.

But it will take brains as well as brawn to defeat the Blob.

the prevailing narrative — bandied about by Braverman’s many enemies — is that she is none too clever and can’t make up her mind about anything.

But she went to the worldrenowned Sorbonne university in Paris and to Cambridge; she speaks French and did a pupillage to become a barrister. She’s achieved far more than many of her detractors.

And I don’t know about you, but the woman who stood at the dispatch box on Monday seemed like a pretty sharp cookie to me.

this is a complex, thorny mess which, if left unresolved, will only get worse.

And while the Conservatives, as a party, certainly can’t afford that — nor can the country. Because nothing fosters bigotry and resentment, nothing fans the flames of division more than people thinking they’re being taken for a ride.

It’s clear now that the Government has no choice but to bite this particular bullet.

Since Braverman seems willing to get her teeth into it, why not let her have a go? She will either succeed or (metaphorically) die trying. Neither outcome will disadvantage the Prime Minister.

Who else will take that kind of f lak?

The real obstacle here is no single individual but the department itself — the Home Office

She seems like a pretty sharp cookie to me