Suella Braverman must urgently review the Home Office – as it is tying both hands behind its own back
Drivel service
IT is 17 years since John Reid declared the Home Office not fit for purpose.
Seemingly, it still isn’t.
Rishi Sunak has made stopping the boats one of the top five priorities of his Government.
Home Office civil servants should be busting a gut to help him.
Instead, ministers are being undermined by bizarre in-house rules.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has hired 700 extra caseworkers to slash the 170,000 asylum applications backlog.
But what is the point when each of those new staff is handed a set of guidelines which appear designed to ensure most applications are granted.
How can the truth of a migrant’s claim of persecution on the grounds of being gay be challenged if staff are barred from asking about their sexuality?
If “upsetting questions” are banned then how can claims be rigorously and properly tested?
Rules as absurdly skewed as this make a mockery of the whole system.
And they make it impossible for the Government to meet its targets.
This is not just a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.
The Home Office is tying both hands behind its own back.
Braverman must urgently review the whole process.
Photo lunacy
IT is monstrous that Levi Bellfield has even been granted a marriage ceremony.
That he should now insist he has a photographer to record the event beggars belief.
Bellfield says not having official pictures and video of his big day at HMP Frankland would be a breach of his human rights.
Prison chiefs caved in to his original demands for a wedding fearing they would lose under European law.
It is likely they will do the same again.
For years Bellfield has had the Prison Service dancing to his tune.
Whether it’s his sudden conversion to Islam or insisting on marrying the poor deluded woman who visits and writes to him in jail.
But Bellfield’s killing of two young women and 13-year-old Milly Dowler proved he’s not human.
And doesn’t deserve any rights.
Still a triumph
SO England’s campaign ended as it so often has — narrow defeat in search of ultimate glory.
But we must not be too downhearted about our Lioness-hearted women.
After their Euros win, they have raised the bar yet again for what can be achieved.
They’ve given hope and excitement to a generation of young girls — and in the process won over the majority of men.
What a triumph it’s been.