Best Of

They can't even blame the Tories on inflation, the previous government left office with inflation down to 2% and generally falling/stable. This is all on Labour and their idiotic tax/spending policies. There's no new external shocks, no COVID, the wars in Ukraine/Israel have already been factored in, Trump's tariffs should make UK prices lower given export diversion by China and other affected countries.

If ever we needed evidence that Labour haven't got a clue how to run the economy this is it. In fairly benign conditions, with no substantial external factors they've let inflation go up from 2.2% when they took over in July to 3.6% last month and still rising. They've caused this, not global conditions, not the previous government, they did. The Tories need to absolutely destroy them on inflation, they actually did the hard work and got inflation back down to acceptable levels, Labour have completely thrown that away.

The Telegraph has the full judicial exchange on the Afghans:

Mr Justice Chamberlain
When you are dealing with public expenditure of that magnitude [£7billion]…it's not possible to lose that amount of money down the back of the sofa. It's not secret intelligence programmes - it's putting real people up in real accommodation in the UK without revealing it's happening. There was going to be an announcement made [to Parliament] but which…the word 'cover' is used. The basis of the expenditure of all of this money isn't going to be revealed.

Jude Bunting KC
One of the key issues in the political debate right now is who is telling the truth about the public deficit. This is directly relevant to that debate. And another key issue is immigration. The injunction is stopping informed debate about how to house people coming to this country...That 'agreed narrative' is misleading the public by omission.'

Mr Justice Chamberlain
The statement to Parliament will 'provide cover'. It is a completely unprecedented situation, but we are seeing a witness statement indicating a statement to Parliament to provide 'cover'. It is a very, very striking thing.

Jude Bunting KC
The Government is saying it is going to deliberately mislead the public.

Mr Justice Chamberlain
It is very striking.

Jude Bunting KC
It is corrosive of democracy. It prevents the public being informed about the reason for £6billion of expenditure, at a time when immigration is at the forefront of debate. The courts have enabled the government to put a false narrative in place that would be corrosive.

Mr Justice Chamberlain
How feasible [is it] to spend that amount of money without the facts coming to light? But we are now saying how it was feasible: making a statement that provides cover and agree a narrative which is not a true narrative, or not a full narrative.

Jude Bunting KC
Journalists will be unable to ask questions or report or correct and fill in gaps.

Cathryn McGahey KC
It is acknowledged that the public's ability to know how its money is being spent and parliamentary scrutiny [are being impeded] but on the basis that the injunction is saving lives.

Mr Justice Chamberlain
There has been this further information about how the government is going to provide 'cover', as it's put, for the political consequences of bringing people to the UK by a statement that does not tell the whole truth to Parliament?

Cathryn McGahey KC
It would tell as much of the truth as possible.

Mr Justice Chamberlain
I'm starting to doubt myself - am I going bonkers, because it really is £6billion? [Later confirmed to be £7billion]

Cathryn McGahey KC
It is…Yes it's a very large amount of public money being spent without currently any information to the public.

During that time there was a sinister shift in ministers’ reasoning for keeping the public in the dark. The Government’s lawyers told Mr Justice Chamberlain that it wanted to put an “agreed narrative” in place to explain away the arrivals of large numbers of Afghans – in other words, lie to the public.

How very sinister….

To be fair to Afghans some of them will have fought with the Western forces against the Taliban so would likely have been killed now the Taliban are back in power there had they stayed

These Afghan families are at risk because they worked under the Queen's Colours and not trafficked in small boats with no papers or background details.

If they don't qualify as legitimate refugees with a connection to Britain, then who on earth would qualify?

So why lie about it?

If they're already in the UK safely why not say "we are granting asylum to people who deserve it" openly and honestly?

As we have with people from Hong Kong, and Ukraine and elsewhere.

The most disturbing part of this story isn't that people were granted asylum, its that the government sought to lie about it and make telling the truth an offence.