French emergency services report that four migrants have died while attempting to get across the Channel on small boats this morning. Three women died after having heart attacks near Dunkirk and a man died in a separate incident near Dannes.
Boats are usually overloaded and often encounter difficulty. French authorities were criticised yesterday for failing to intercede boats as they were loaded, despite them sitting in extremely shallow water and being funded by the British taxpayer to do so. Yesterday around 1,000 migrants are expected to have made the crossing in low-wave weather. For this to be allowed to continue puts lives at severe risk…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”