The farce of the ‘floating prison’ barge should be a serious lesson to Rishi Sunak

The Tories’ performative cruelty hasn’t won them any new voters, writes Tom Peck – nobody wants to see asylum seekers marched on and off a floating prison, pursued by bacterial infection

Legionnaires’ disease was detected in the onboard water supply of the Bibby Stockholm (PA)

When Rishi Sunak a) decided to stake his reputation on an absurd policy that was never going to work and was almost certainly illegal, then b) put Suella Braverman in charge of it and then c) decided to make it the focus of the nation’s attention for a full week – namely “small boats week” – he probably should have foreseen that it would end badly.

But how badly? At this point, it is reasonable to ask whether, actually, maybe it could have been worse. The Bibby Stockholm has not sunk with all its static passengers still on board (though it is not altogether easy to work out whether Braverman and co would have considered that a good or a bad outcome).