Sunday Express

It’s not racist to control asylum

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ITWAS a year ago this month that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer struggled to answer a question on my

LBC radio show as to whether a woman could have a penis.to date, it appears he’s still wrestling with this.

This month I asked him about Sue Gray, the “fiercely independen­t” senior civil servant who conducted the inquiry into the Partygate antics at Number 10 which significan­tly contribute­d to Boris Johnson’s downfall soon after.

Many Conservati­ves are crying foul after Ms Gray quit her civil service job to move to the role of Sir Keir’s chief of staff. Some say she required approval before doing so.

So it should have come as little surprise that I asked Sir Keir exactly when he first approached Ms Gray.

He swerved the question and talked about “nothing improper” taking place.

By the way, I hadn’t suggested that it had. So I asked again. And again. And again. In total, I asked the question nine times – and never elicited a response.

While I wish I could say otherwise, I’m afraid it’s a case of don’t watch this space!

HAVING denounced the Royal Family as cold, uncaring, out of date and even bordering on racist, is it not somewhat surprising that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have opted to christen their delightful daughter Princess Lilibet Diana Mountbatte­n-windsor?

Best wishes to the little tot, but perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised.

After all, it was only a week ago that Prince Harry, who famously wants more privacy, decided to offer a session with a therapist of sorts on pay per view!

A CAMPAIGNER has been arrested for praying outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham. Admittedly this was not the first time Isabelvaug­han-spruce has been detained by police for this, but she was acquitted for the previous “offence” weeks earlier.

While her “crime” was to go into a designated buffer zone, her protest was merely silent prayer.

Both sides of this heated debate deserve to be heard and respected.

But how come we live in a country where you can get arrested for praying, but police offer to get you a blanket if you close down a motorway or lie in front of an ambulance?

LAST PLEA to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ahead of next week’s Budget: You must offer tax breaks for businesses of all kinds, or more firms will go the way of Astrazenec­a and opt not to build here.

You should offer personal tax cuts too and you could cancel that ludicrousl­y over-priced white elephant HS2 which few people outside one street in Birmingham give a damn about. We’re waiting …

“I’M GOING to make you a wine offer you can’t refuse!” A red, from Sicily, (think about it!). The Extra Special Sicilian

Reserve Red is currently on offer for £7 at Asda.

WHAT am I missing? A policy that spells out that people coming here will no longer be automatica­lly eligible to claim asylum is somehow racist or inhumane – or even in the eyes of one “commentato­r” akin to policies espoused by Nazis in the Germany of the 1930s.

Clearly, and not for the first time in my life, I’m getting something hideously wrong in this debate that seems to show a government attempting to do something previous government­s should have done for the past 20-plus years.

Never lose sight of the fact it was then Labour prime minister Tony Blair’s disastrous “open doors” policy on migration that landed this country in the difficulti­es it currently endures.

The number of people risking their lives to cross the English Channel in flimsy dinghies is growing exponentia­lly each year. And also remember it was, according to one speechwrit­er working for Blair (now Sir Tony) at the time, a blatant bid to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”.

No rational person objects to controlled immigratio­n. If in any doubt just go to your nearest hospital and give an almighty thank you for those who are here and putting in a shift across so much of the NHS.

But it is the “uncontroll­ed” immigratio­n that rightly rankles.

That is unless you work in human rights law, are a member of the Opposition, come from one of the many charities working in the area or the UN, write news scripts for the BBC or just happen to be the Corporatio­n’s highest paid star.

Interestin­gly by the way, if you were thinking of seeing what solutions are offered by any of the above, don’t waste your time.while perpetuall­y there to criticise, suggested solutions are desperatel­y thin on the ground.

At last the Government grows a pair sufficient­ly big enough to show they’re ready to take on the challenge of resolving this and the outrage is deafening.

But ask yourself the following questions:

Why is it racist to be concerned that one million or more unauthoris­ed residents have come into this country unchecked?

Just pause and think of the impact on our hospitals, surgeries, schools, housing and just about every other aspect of the infrastruc­ture upon which this nation rests, without even factoring in that accommodat­ing them costs a cool £6million a day.

And how can a country be deemed “hostile” or “cruel” when it has (rightly)

(manure)”

provided sanctuary to more than half a million people from Hong Kong, Ukraine, Afghanista­n and other parts of the world over the last seven years?

What do these opponents make of the undeniable fact that a third of small boat arrivals last year came from Albania, three quarters of whom were adult males aged below 40, even though Albania is in no sense an unsafe country and is a member of Nato?

But all these facts are drowned out in the ceaseless rage over the policies and posturing by Labour, that the solution lies in extra funding for the NCA (National Crimes Agency) to go after and stop the traffickin­g gangs, and that in turn is drowned out by one of the jewels in the

crown of the BBC, Gary Lineker, opting to take on the mantle of Mother Teresa.

Briefly on that, Lineker is a brilliant football pundit and is obviously welcome to his views in this supposedly free country.

However, having been on the receiving end of “a word of advice” from his bosses concerning his hugely impressive social media platform, he surely has to get his facts right. The Nazis deployed language stating Jewish people carried diseases and depicted them in cartoons as rats. Try as hard as you might, you won’t find those vile slurs in anything the Government has said.

This plan is undeniably bold and has more hurdles to clear than there are in next month’s Grand National.

But the Government deserves time to put it forward without being derided by so many who choose to ignore so much.

 ?? Picture: SILVER SCREEN COLLECTION/GETTY ?? LAST time you watched Zulu on TV (almost certainly last Christmas, and if not there’s a good chance it will come round this Easter) what did you see? A stirring tale of unimaginab­le acts of heroism from a beleaguere­d group of British and Colonial soldiers holding out against wave after wave of attacks from Zulu warriors, sent to their almost inevitable deaths by seemingly unconcerne­d commanders?
Or an advert for far-right extremism?
Bizarrely, the latter was the conclusion of a report into the controvers­ial counter-terrorism programme Prevent, which has cited the film as a “key text” for “white nationalis­ts/supremacis­ts”.
This has correctly been dismissed by Sir Michael Caine (Zulu is agreed to be the film that made him a star back in 1964) as the “biggest load of bull he’d ever heard.
Of course Sir Michael is right, and when you note that other works deemed likely to excite far-right sentiments included Yes, Minister
and The Dam Busters, you can see this report is without any merit.
Picture: SILVER SCREEN COLLECTION/GETTY LAST time you watched Zulu on TV (almost certainly last Christmas, and if not there’s a good chance it will come round this Easter) what did you see? A stirring tale of unimaginab­le acts of heroism from a beleaguere­d group of British and Colonial soldiers holding out against wave after wave of attacks from Zulu warriors, sent to their almost inevitable deaths by seemingly unconcerne­d commanders? Or an advert for far-right extremism? Bizarrely, the latter was the conclusion of a report into the controvers­ial counter-terrorism programme Prevent, which has cited the film as a “key text” for “white nationalis­ts/supremacis­ts”. This has correctly been dismissed by Sir Michael Caine (Zulu is agreed to be the film that made him a star back in 1964) as the “biggest load of bull he’d ever heard. Of course Sir Michael is right, and when you note that other works deemed likely to excite far-right sentiments included Yes, Minister and The Dam Busters, you can see this report is without any merit.
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