Shadow home secretary Chris Philp came out swinging at Deputy PMQs, torching Starmer for “smearing” those demanding a national inquiry into rape gangs as “jumping on a far-right bandwagon” chasers. With Starmer skipping the session, it was left to Rayner to take the heat…
Philp hammered Labour over foreign criminals avoiding deportation thanks to the Human Rights Act – pointing to a Zimbabwean paedophile being allowed to stay in the UK because he might face “hostility” at home. He blasted:
“Why did the government side with foreign criminals and not the British public?”
Ouch…
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.”