Braverman’s big mistake?

INSTEAD of a cushy position, like foreign or culture secretary, Suella Braverman asked Liz Truss for the job of home secretary in return for her support during the Tory leadership contest.

The Home Office is known as the graveyard for politicians. Braverman’s first task has been to deal with the communal disturbances in Leicester.

Already we have some known troublemakers getting in on the act. Police should remove them from the scene. Meanwhile, Hindus should be wary of inviting controversial “preachers” from India.

Sam Tarry, the Labour MP for Ilford South, has written to the home secretary questioning the wisdom of allowing Sadhvi Rithambara to tour the UK. In the event her visit was “postponed” – apparently because of ill-health – but Braverman would be under pressure to deny her a visa on the grounds normally given in such cases, that Rithambara’s “presence would not be conducive to the public good”.

On a panel discussion on the Iain Dale show on LBC last week, Tarry confirmed: “I was actually one of the first MPs to write directly to the home secretary…. about a very extreme Hindu preacher, who was on a tour of the UK. How on earth did this person even get let into the UK? We do not need people who have that level of bigotry, intolerance and hatred and Islamophobia coming into the UK.

“At the same time, I reached out to my good friends at the (local) Hindu temple, and said to them, ‘this is a big mistake, this is going to cause real tensions.’ And they listened, and they cancelled that hate preacher coming to Ilford.”

Hindus are the most lawabiding community in the UK – and long may that remain so. It’s time to calm things down.

It’s noticeable that the British media have avoided using their Asian reporters to cover the story for obvious reasons.

It’s a good job Braverman herself is a Buddhist.