Asking voters and think tanks to shape policy means blame can be spread more widely when everything falls apart Daily Telegraph First you wait for ages for a 10-year plan, then two come along at the same time. But then it turns out that the second plan wasn’t ready after all , and there would be an extended delay before it arrived. Such is life in Labour’s Britain. First we had Keir Starmer, or “two-year Keir” as some social media wag christened him, defying criticism from his own party by announcing he needed at least 10 years in office to turn things around. And he had a plan to prove it. He would have been wiser to produce a four-months plan. Then his successor, Andy Burnham, promised his own 10-year plan and even suggested that those dissatisfied with John Healey’s Budget last month should look to the publication of the plan , before the year’s end, to answer everyone’s substantive questions that the Budget did not. But now the plan itself has been delayed until January, th...
Home Office staff have criticised ministers on an all-staff call over Labour plans to house 1,200 adult male asylum seekers in a North Yorkshire village with a population of 600. Why would the villagers be upset? They must be racist… The call was held yesterday. It was hosted by Home Office Permanent Secretaries and was open to all departmental staff. In a Q&A section, the following popular comment was posted anonymously by a staff member: Guido hears the senior staff chose not to answer that one… The illegal migrants would outnumber the residents of the village by two-to-one. The village also has 100 children… Immigration minister Anna Turley caused outrage when she said: “ We are not housing them in the community. They are being housed on a specific site that is self-contained and away from the community. All their needs are met on that site. Where they are not met, they are transported usually to larger places—cities or towns. That is certainly the situation at the two sit...