Too often security is the excuse that officials use to control elected politicians espousing popular causes
Suella Braverman is capable of mistakes: she admitted as much by resigning as home secretary under Liz Truss for accidentally breaking the ministerial code. She yesterday admitted further use of personal IT for matters that were governmental. This was not good, but was it iniquitous?
Why is Mrs Braverman – returned to her post by Rishi Sunak – marked out for destruction by the BBC and other critics of the Government? To listen to them, you would think her infractions – not Putin’s war and energy and grain blockades, nor inflation – were the big news. You would think the overcrowding of migrants at Manston was the result of her personal inhumanity rather than the scale of the migration problem she wishes to tackle.
It is striking that this Home Secretary, like Priti Patel before her, is so harried. Perhaps the mindset of enthusiasts for mass migration is deeply offended when women of Indian heritage have opinions of their own. Mrs Braverman does indeed think differently. Yes, she has been home secretary twice, but only for a few weeks. Her opponents are trying to prevent her enacting the policies she wants.
There is also a shifting of blame. Policy is, rightly, the responsibility of ministers, but when practical immigration issues have been implemented so badly for so long, might that not reflect poorly on Home Office officials? Much easier than putting things right is to leak. Lobby correspondents love restarting the favourite blood-sport of the Westminster village – getting a minister sacked. Yesterday morning on Radio 4, the BBC’s Nick Eardley did the usual “Questions aren’t going away” routine. Of course, they aren’t: his tribe will ensure that, thus marking the anniversary of their director-general’s great impartiality drive.