Way of the World Michael Deacon

The Government must abandon its plans to send migrants to Rwanda. So said a United Nations committee this week. Rishi Sunak, however, may find the intervention somewhat puzzling.

Mainly because the UN’s own refugee agency has sent thousands of migrants to Rwanda itself.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee (aka the UNHRC) says it is “deeply concerned” that Mr Sunak’s plans “discriminate against migrants”. Yet, between 2019 and the end of last year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (aka the UNHCR) flew more than 2,000 asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda.

I hope the asylum seekers didn’t feel discriminated against. Perhaps the UNHRC should have a word with the UNHCR, just to check.

In any case, I’m surprised at the UNHRC’s attitude. After a 12-day tour of Britain in 2018, none other than the UN’s special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia declared that Brexit had left “racial and ethnic minorities more vulnerable to racial discrimination and intolerance”.

In light of which, it’s odd that the UNHRC opposes the Rwanda plan. Surely it should support it. Anything to help vulnerable migrants escape nasty, racist old Britain.

Like the rest of the country, I wholeheartedly support The Guardian’s vitally important campaign to make the Garrick Club accept its first ever female members. In fact, I’m so inspired by this righteous crusade against elitism, I’ve decided to launch a social justice campaign of my own.

It’s to make The Guardian hire its first ever state-educated journalists.

I realise that my campaign will cause controversy. Horrified traditionalists will protest that The Guardian has been employing the alumni of our most exclusive public schools for more than 200 years. Must we really shatter the tranquillity of this charmingly eccentric and ultimately harmless London institution, purely in the name of social engineering? And anyway, why shouldn’t the high-born have a newspaper of their own? There are plenty of other newspapers where the state-educated can find work.

No one is forcing the Sunday Sport to hire Old Harrovians. So why should The Guardian be forced to hire people from comprehensives?

No doubt these specious arguments will be trotted out again and again by influential commentators determined to resist the clamour for reform. They will do everything in their considerable power to preserve the status quo, and ensure that all thinkpieces about poverty, oppression and capitalist greed continue to be written by people who went on school trips to Val d’Isere.

None the less, we must not give up our struggle. It is long past time for change. In the year 2024, there is simply no good reason why a 5,000-word long read on wild swimming or “Why I have left London” shouldn’t be written by someone whose parents couldn’t afford to send them to Roedean.

We will not have true equality in our country until this ancient bastion of privilege is finally dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world.

The British fishing industry already had quite enough difficulties to contend with. Now, however, it faces a problem that it could never have foreseen.

Our fish are off their heads on coke.

That, at any rate, is the startling claim made this week by a leading marine biologist. Speaking on ITV’s

Good Morning Britain, Prof Alex Ford said that raw sewage dumped in the English Channel contains traces of illegal drugs – and, as a result, “Every single marine species that we’ve looked at so far is full of cocaine.”

This thought is alarming enough on its own. But it gets worse. According to Prof Ford, illegal drugs have “very much the same effect” on fish as they do on people.

He did not elaborate on this point. But I suppose there was no need.

We all know what effect cocaine has on human beings. It makes them conceited, manically over-talkative, and utterly self-obsessed.

So now we have another reason never to go swimming at the seaside. Not only is the water hideously polluted. But you risk getting cornered by a crazed-looking haddock who insists on jabbering at you for hours on end about how incredibly clever and successful he is.

To prevent this, water companies will surely come under renewed pressure to stop dumping sewage in the sea. Unfortunately, though, solving the problem isn’t that simple. Abruptly deprived of their regular supply, the coke-addicted fish will suffer serious withdrawal symptoms – which, as experts in narcotics will attest, could lead to severe depression. The fish may even become violent, or turn to crime to feed their habit.

To protect our fish’s mental health, therefore, we must wean them off coke in a safe and responsible manner. Book them in for the 28-day treatment programme at the Priory, and ban them from attending showbiz parties.

Inevitably, the tabloids will subject us to endless boring interviews in which troubled mackerel bare all about their drug hell. But for the sake of our fishing industry, it seems a small price to pay.