Is Shabana Mahmood ‘one of the best Conservative Home Secretaries we have ever had’? Tory MP Edward Leigh thinks so. The Father of the House lavished praise on the Home Secretary in the Commons yesterday after Mahmood announced a ban on the annual al-Quds Day march. He isn’t the only right-winger to fall for Mahmood.

Many have failed to clock how unpopular Mahmood has become with her own party

Many have failed to clock how unpopular Mahmood has become with her own party

Since her promotion to the Home Office, Mahmood has focused on restricting immigration, lengthening settlement periods and requirements for long-term migrants, limiting refugee status, offering money for voluntary departures and banning visas from certain countries. She has won plaudits from many right-wingers, with much happy fantasising about her ‘Blue Labour’ credentials, and a little idle speculation about her succeeding Keir Starmer

With legal immigration tumbling down, the Home Secretary seems to be a success, a rare bright spark amid a cabinet of mediocrities. But saying that Mahmood is the soundest Labour minister is like saying Albert Speer was the least bad Nazi – hardly a ringing endorsement. Those right-wingers flocking to her standard should disabuse themselves.

‘We don’t know what’s going on or why we’re doing........

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