The reactions are coming in – Emily Maitlis and fellow News Agents presenter Jon Sopel have been discussing Starmer’s migration speech. They’re coming to terms with it in their own way…
Maitlis was aghast at Starmer’s use of Brexity language and said she would be “terrified” by the changes:
“I think you can go in and talk about control and contribution i.e ‘we need to have these controls and we need to recognise the contribution’ – He has opted certainly in this speech just to talk about control and the language of taking back control… If I had elderly parents that were going into a care home right now I’d be absolutely terrified, I would be absolutely terrified because what you’re doing is you’re turning off the tap of people who are qualified.”
Sopel weighed in with his own contribution: “The question of the lab and the experiment as if as if – it sounds like Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t it?” Cheers for that….
Maitlis finally found her line: “Maybe you have to ask yourself if you had to have a hardline immigration system from any party would it be the party that traditionally veers towards compassion but is hardening up or the party like Reform that traditionally veers towards a lack of compassion and probably incompetence when they actually get into power?” At least it’s Labour, thank God…
This month Maitlis declared Runcorn a victory for Labour. The zingers keep coming…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”