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3 hours ago
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This was more like it. The kind of slow day when the government more or less looked like it was going to set the news agenda. Not be derailed by some catastrophe or cock-up. Or Donald Trump declaring war on Greenland and turning Gaza into a Middle East Riviera of golf courses and casinos. The world as one large real-estate deal.
These are the days that governments live for. A rare moment of stability. Nothing going visibly wrong. Or more wrong that it already was. A day when ministers have the illusion of being in control. When their delusions were more or less aligned with reality. When Rachel Reeves could say the interest rate cut was all down to her. When Keir Starmer could go out and about and talk about his plans to build mini-nuclear reactors on every street corner and be guaranteed that a few people were actually listening.
For Yvette Cooper, the morning started with a half-hour phone-in slot on LBC’s Nick Ferrari at Breakfast show. In times past, this could have been fraught with danger. Nick is not known for being gentle with politicians, and most cabinet ministers look on his show as an endurance test. A necessary rite of passage. Something that can’t be avoided. Their goal? To get out alive having taken as little damage as possible. To bask in the absence of pain when it’s over.
But the home secretary is an experienced performer these days. Confident in her ability to play the game. On top of her brief. Certain she can fend off whatever comes her way. Yet still somehow guarded. She doesn’t really do compassion. Or listening. She’s nobody’s first choice for a shoulder to cry on. Not the person to go running to if you’re in trouble.
The opening question came from a woman whose son had been stabbed to death three years ago. What was she doing about knife crime? Cooper leafed through her notes. Halve it in 10 years. Install scanners and arches in some schools. Stop kids buying knives online. Could she be certain this would be effective? Yes, she said. Hmm. We all remember previous home secretaries saying much the same and look where we are. What no minister will admit is that no one can guarantee our safety. If a child is determined enough to carry a knife then no one can stop them. There are knives in every kitchen drawer.
Nor can you make sure that atrocities such as the Southport killings never happen again. Some people are so mad, so bad, that they are going to do horrific things. The mental health services and Prevent are never going to be entirely foolproof. They are going to make mistakes. Bad judgment calls. Some bad people are inevitably going to slip through the net.
We live in an imperfect world. We can learn lessons from every killing, every failure of the system. But we can’t stop some people from doing bad things. If history can teach us anything, it’s that we don’t have that much control.
But all that goes in the box of things that a home secretary and a radio interviewer can’t admit. It’s an affront to their sensibilities. An admission of their own limitations. So Ferrari asked Cooper what she could do to make sure young people stopped carrying knives and that there would never be another Southport attack. Cooper thought a moment. “I would tell them to stop,” she said. Now why hadn’t the rest of us thought of that? If only we had realised it was that simple.
Nick then played a recording of an interview with Katy, the daughter of the murdered MP David Amess. She wanted an inquiry into his killing. Just like there was going to be an inquiry into Southport. Yvette prevaricated slightly. She would be releasing more details. Though she couldn’t say if it would be an inquiry inquiry. There were all sorts of inquiries and she wasn’t yet sure whether the inquiry she had in mind could in fact be called an inquiry.
Weirdly, this made perfect sense to Ferrari. Maybe he and Cooper have their own private language which is separate to ours. They operate in a meta-sphere where soon there will be an inquiry into everything. Our lives will all be put on pause while we all hold inquiries into everything that has gone wrong. Maybe there will be an over-arching inquiry into all the ongoing inquiries. Just to make sure they were functioning properly. And why stop there? Why not have an inquiry into the over-arching inquiry? We could all slide into a parallel universe. Either way, Louise Casey is going to be one busy woman.
We then moved on to a call from David. He was concerned that people were being showered with £3K of free clobber when they arrived in small boats. Yvette muttered something about criminal gangs. Nick intervened. Were we really going to give hats and puffer jackets to new arrivals? He seemed to think we would be better off letting children freeze to death. If they hadn’t bothered to pick up clothes in Calais then they deserved hypothermia. For a moment it seemed that the “tough on gangs” home secretary might agree, but she demurred. She had done her 30 minutes. All was well. She could leave the studio and get on with her day.
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Also out on the airwaves was the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp. Always good for a laugh. He was out and about trying to convince himself that Kemi Badenoch’s new immigration ideas were properly thought through and not just some kneejerk response to the popularity of Reform. On the Today programme, Nick Robinson made the fatal mistake that so many journalists make with Chris. He tried to take him seriously. A category error. Rather, he is a role model for halfwits everywhere.
Within seconds of opening his mouth, Philp was out of his depth. He clearly had no idea about who would be refused leave to remain and who wouldn’t. Robinson suggested the example of a Nigerian woman called Kemi working in McDonald’s. Would she be kicked out? What if she claimed benefits for a while? What if she got ill and needed the NHS? How low-paid was low-paid? Did people working in care homes count as making a contribution to society?
The Philpster had no idea. Out of his depth in a sink. The David Cameron government had only promised to keep immigration down because we were in the EU then. Er … Whatever happened to taking back control of our borders after Brexit. Poor Chris. He wasn’t even aware that he had been part of a government that had overseen record levels of legal migration. He sounded on the verge of tears.
More in pity than despair, Nick sent him on his way. Suddenly everything made sense. “I’ve been looking at an idiot,” he said to himself.
