Politics

Silvio Berlusconi should be remembered for more than just his passion for football and sex. He was the first European leader this century to identity illegal immigration as an existential threat to the stability and cohesion of the continent.   Ironically, the former Italian prime minister’s infamous ‘Bunga-Bunga’ parties reportedly owed their name to a joke once told to Berlusconi by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, a man who was also acutely aware of Europe’s vulnerability.  The two leaders were close, a friendship that became politically important when Berlusconi was re-elected PM in April 2008. A significant factor in his victory was illegal immigration from Africa, which had been steadily rising since the

Parliamentary select committees can, on occasion, be wise, impartial and dispassionate. Unfortunately they are also vulnerable to being taken over by an unholy combination of those with an axe to grind, and members of the great and the good unwilling to rock the liberal boat. This is essentially what has happened to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (or JCHR). Its report on the Illegal Migration Bill, published over the weekend, is a case in point. The ‘Stop the Boats Bill’ aims to make it more difficult for irregular migrants to cross the Channel and then use judicial review and human rights laws as a means of presenting the UK with a fait

Get ready for another 48 hours of Boris drama. The Privileges Committee is expected to publish its findings tomorrow into whether Johnson knowingly misled the House, some 14 months after the Commons voted for an inquiry into his statements on Partygate. The former PM claimed that he was advised by senior officials that both Covid rules and guidance had been complied with at all times in No. 10 during the pandemic. But according to the Times, the seven-strong panel of MPs has concluded that staff did not in fact advise this, despite his repeated insistences in the Commons. Whoops… In fact, Martin Reynolds – Johnson’s infamous Private Secretary of BYOB ‘party Marty’ fame

Rishi Sunak has just delivered a direct rebuke of Boris Johnson over the resignation honours row. Sunak used an interview at London Tech Week to hit back at Johnson, following the omission of Nadine Dorries from Johnson’s honours list. That decision kickstarted a chain of events that led to Dorries, Johnson and Nigel Adams quitting over the weekend and sparking three by-elections. The PM was asked whether his predecessor – who criticised Sunak’s government in his resignation statement – had undermined him. He replied: ‘Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do because I didn’t think it was right. That was to either overrule Holac

With festival season just around the corner, it is fitting that Prince Harry’s Worldwide Privacy Tour is coming to a climax. The Duke played to a jam-packed High Court crowd last week. They were keen to hear the latest solipsistic stream-of-unconsciousness of our tormented troubadour. For two years now, Harry has – sometimes with his wife, sometimes flying solo – bleated, neighed and whinnied in interviews, books, Netflix documentaries and talk shows. He has chased media exposure in a way that made Kim Kardashian look like Greta Garbo. Now, here was the big gig, with the world’s media outside the packed venue and helicopters hovering overhead. But would this be