Michael Deacon

2 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Michael Deacon

2 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Michael Deacon

This is an admirably courteous way of putting it. Because he could very easily have gone for: "Who the hell do you jumped-up busybodies think you are? You're civil servants, for crying out loud. Obeying the Government's orders is your literal job, whether you like it or not. The Government was elected. You weren't. So if you want to hang on to that gold-plated pension, you'll do what you're told and shut up."Personally, I wish he had put it as bluntly as that.

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Michael Deacon

Quick quiz. During an interview with ITV News on Tuesday, which Labour Left-winger said the following words? “Immigration is the lifeblood of this country. It always has been.”Did you get it? Probably not, because it was a trick question. The person who made that impeccably progressive statement is not a Labour Left-winger. Or even a Labour centrist. He is in fact Dr David Bull: none other than the brand new chairman of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. AdvertisementAdvertisementSeriously. That’s what he said.

2 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Michael Deacon

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Michael Deacon

The Labour Left were always bound to loathe Sir Keir Starmer’s recent speech about the downsides of mass immigration. All the same, one of their objections to it strikes me as somewhat peculiar. At a rally on Saturday, the veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott thundered that Sir Keir’s speech was “nonsense” – because, as she stoutly reminded her audience, “immigrants built this land”. Stirring stuff. I can see only one small problem. It’s not strictly true, is it?