Victims Minister Catherine Atkinson was asked on GB News whether she backs the Home Secretary’s flagship immigration reforms:
“Well, we had had a a consultation on indefinite right to remain and it’s important that there are always learnings from that… So I think that there is so much work that is happening when it comes to our immigration processes and a lot more that’s needed.”
Atkinson refused three times to say whether she backed the reforms, saying instead:
“I certainly back our Home Secretary and I think that she will take the measures necessary to ensure that we have a firm and fair immigration policy… Well, we need to see what will come forward post consultation and then I will be able to see what you want me to be backing.”
Mahmood is considering a partial u-turn on her reforms to ILR which are set to double the qualifying period from five to ten years. Up to 1.6 million migrants who arrived since 2021 could be exempted. All eyes on how Burnham will vote on the bill…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”