France is laughing all the way to the bank with fortune we are paying them to stop boats
The idle rich
IT has long been obvious that France is laughing all the way to the bank with the staggering fortune we are paying them to stop the boats.
Hundreds of migrants a day still set sail for Dover from their northern coast unimpeded.
But even that pales into insignificance against the apparent failure even to begin building a migrant detention centre at Calais which was central to the latest bung of half a billion quid.
And the conspiracy of silence over it is an insult to the public.
Our Home Office mandarins refuse point-blank to tell The Sun whether work has begun or even if a site has yet been found. The excuse?
They don’t want to upset the French.
From which we must assume Macron’s minions have done nothing whatsoever.
This is a truly vast sum of British taxpayers’ money.
Voters already loathe that it is handed to the French to police their own beaches.
To be told that they cannot even know what has become of it, and what results it has achieved, is a jaw-dropping outrage.
Prisons crisis
HOUSES, power plants, reservoirs, prisons. You name it, we have failed to build enough of it over the last decade.
The chickens have come home to roost.
Soaring property prices and rents. Energy insecurity.
Regular water shortages.
And our jails packed to bursting, holding more prisoners than ever.
Which might present Labour with a first crisis if they’re in power by Friday.
Their options are grim:
Let more lags out early.
Delay jail terms.
Suspend more sentences.
Not a great look for an incoming Labour Home Secretary.
And of course it won’t be fair to blame them.
When was politics ever fair?
If Labour want to hit the ground running — and be truly tough on crime — they must immediately identify new prison sites, race through the planning and get the foundations dug.
Fix our forces
JUST as pressing, and yet even more serious, is the woeful depletion of our defences.
The warning to The Sun from Lord Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff, is terrifying.
We have too few troops, jets, submarines, warships and much else to mount a credible defence despite the looming threats from Russia and China.
The Tories have committed to increasing the military budget. Labour would only do so if they can spare the money.
But national security is THE priority.
How does putting it on the back burner remotely match the urgency which military chiefs are repeatedly warning of?