There is nothing clever about flogging a dead horse, yet last week the Home Secretary stood before Parliament and did exactly that with promises of “robust action” to deliver “the biggest-ever reduction in net migration” to the UK.

James Cleverly said his five-point plan will tackle supposed immigration abuses among those who legally come to the UK to work or study, but he couldn’t resist the temptation of rounding off his 10-minute statement with reference to the Tory totem of “stopping the boats” of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.

It was a poor attempt at a psychological trick to link two disparate groups as the Conservatives scramble to shore up their support ahead of the next general election which some believe could take place this spring. Mr Cleverly was keen to highlight the 153,000 visas issued to relatives of sponsored students in the UK during the year to the end of September, as well as the 120,000 dependents accompanying 100,000 care workers coming to these shores. His party’s attempts to reduce those inflows are more likely to succeed than botched efforts at clamping down on small boat crossings, but “winning” the battle on legal immigration risks losing the war to revive business activity and bring inflation under control.

The UK economy is on a knife edge, with experts at accountancy group RSM predicting just 0.5% growth in GDP for the whole of 2024. One of the main headwinds is the number of people in employment, which remains below pre-pandemic levels despite the population increasing by almost 300,000.

This compares unfavourably to the Eurozone where employment is almost 3% higher than prior to the outbreak of Covid, and the US where it’s up by roughly 1.5%. Achieving significant........

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