Documents recently released to the BBC show that in March 2022, then chancellor Rishi Sunak had significant doubts about Boris Johnson’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
His objections weren’t on humanitarian grounds – Sunak is a Tory after all. He was simply concerned about the cost such a plan would entail.
Sunak was advised to “consider his popularity with the base” when criticising the Rwanda scheme.
He clearly took this advice to heart; since becoming prime minister there has been no bigger champion of the Rwanda plan than Sunak.
His former objections to the cost of the scheme have vanished. Instead, the government has spent £400m on the site itself and £1.3m defending the plan in the UK courts.
In 2022, Sunak thought the scheme wouldn’t deter desperate people risking their lives crossing the Channel in flimsy boats in search of a safe and better life. By November 2023, Sunak was so wedded to the Rwanda scheme that when the Supreme Court ruled it illegal he promised to pass emergency laws to allow the Rwanda plan to proceed in defiance of the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) and the UK’s international treaty obligations.
To its eternal shame, that legislation is going through parliament now.
On becoming prime minister, Sunak promised a government of “integrity, professionalism and accountability”. His shifting position on the barbaric Rwanda plan shows it is nothing of the sort.
His commitment to the Rwanda plan is designed to appeal to the far right of the Tory party; it is as opportunistic as it is cynical.
The Rwanda plan should be dead – as dead as decency in the Tory party.
Sasha Simic
London
Where is the justice?
Regarding the current Post Office scandal and the lack of government action, I wonder when there will be a positive end to ex-subpostmaster’ excruciatingly long wait for compensation and pardon for crimes for which they did not commit?
Additionally, in the past 20 years, only subpostmasters have been prosecuted, needlessly, but the government, Post Office, and Fujitsu employees have all remained immune from investigation and prosecution.
It would demonstrate dignity, if it still remains in the Tory party, in the last throws of their failing government if this awful episode were closed once and for all, to the benefit of those prosecuted.
There is a move afoot, by the public, to force Paula Vennells, ex-CEO of the Post Office, to voluntarily give up her CBE or to force the government to rescind it.
This sad, despicable episode has been parked in a backwater by all and sundry to the detriment of the subpostmasters. The major player in this sorry story is the government which ought to have shown better judgement in the suffering of so many innocent people.
Keith Poole
Basingstoke
Legal leeches
In this whole sorry Post Office saga, there seems to be one group who have benefited enormously, yet has come under very little scrutiny, and that is the lawyers. Especially those advising the Post Office and doing much of the dirty work for them. How many tens of millions have the Post Office spent, and are continuing to spend arguing over every claim, all no doubt on the advice of their lawyers?
If there is a final and decent settlement, this advice will have proved disastrously wrong and expensive, landing the Post Office, and ultimately the public, with a double whammy – both the cost of failed litigation and the cost of compensation.
Is anyone thinking of trying to claim back these misspent legal costs?
Robert Park
Address supplied
Look who’s back
If Helen Harrison is duly elected to represent Wellingborough at Westminster, I can’t help wondering whether disgraced former MP Peter Bone will quietly take up the role of her office manager along with the commensurate salary paid by the public purse?
This would be utterly disgraceful.
Robert Boston
Kent
Pardon me!
Nikki Haley has announced that she will pardon former president Donald Trump for his crimes – even if he’s found guilty.
I’d say this is a publicity stunt by her campaign (although she is showing well in New Hampshire polls especially) and is brown-nosing to the number one GOP candidate, her main rival, Donald Trump.
It actually shows how much they have in common, Trump and Haley. The charges of insurrection aside, she is a better choice to beat the left, like Margaret Thatcher 2.0 for the US!
Noting how a pardon implies guilt for the accused, she said it is “in the best interest of the country”, not Trump himself alone.
Angus West
Address supplied
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