Sometimes even an agnostic man on a ledge can appreciate the compassion of those with religion.
As more asylum seekers drowned in the Channel yesterday, tipped into the freezing sea at night, two quotations came to attention, one a couple of years old, the other freshly delivered.
The first words were from Desmond Tutu, the South African bishop and anti-apartheid campaigner, who died at this time last year – “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.”
In other words, don’t ask why these poor people are in the freezing Channel, but ask what you can do to stop them ending up in the water.
Don’t just blame the gruesome gangs who conduct this cruel trade, as the front page of today’s Sun does, declaring: “Evil dinghy trade costs more lives.” For you could as reasonably claim: “Evil government policy costs more lives.”
What better recruitment advert for people smugglers could there be than a policy that purposefully blocks legal paths for migration? All legal routes are unavailable but give me £5,000 and you can step into this unstable dingy.
Now to Justin Welby. The Archbishop of Canterbury said the incident showed “debates about asylum seekers are not about statistics, but precious human lives”. Such talk will get you nowhere in modern Britain, Your Grace. Careless compassion costs votes, and all that.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak had, only the day before, come up with the latest plan to cut so-called illegal migration. I won’t bore you with the details as they are the same as last time round.
Then he had to stand up in Parliament after this fresh tragedy to bumble out thoughts and prayers.
As the Glasgow Herald commentator Neil Mackay said in a tweet…
“It’s obscene to watch Tory MPs spout about their sorrow for the refugees who died in the Channel today. They demonised the very people they’re shedding crocodile tears for. They called them invaders. Pathetic, cowardly hypocrites…”
And those doing the demonising themselves become demons.
Oh, and now here is Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, opening the fridge door to her heart: “Our capacity in this country is not infinite, we cannot accept everybody who wishes to come to the UK. That is a reality of the world and it is a reality of life.”
When a government’s main motivation to please its own hard-line immigrant bashers, what hope is there for the poor people who end up in those dinghies? None at all and they deserve better than this. Justin Welby knows where the compassion is kept.
ALSO deserving of better are the nurses who have gone on strike today for the first time in their history.
Like other members of the public sector, the nurses are expected to do more for less, and to see their pay diminish – all while a Cabinet of millionaires dismisses their reasonable demands by pretending we’ve “run out of money”.
No, we haven’t. Choices are being made, and the nurses are being denied a much-needed decent pay rise because it suits the government to string out all these strikes in the hope they reflect badly on Labour.
Sunak even came up with the bizarre suggestion that the Royal College of Nursing are Labour’s “paymasters” – yet that usually most mild of unions is not affiliated to Labour and gives it no money.
The prime minister also flapped out some discreditable nonsense about nurses “being the enemies of hardworking people” – when they are the hardworking people.
The Daily Mirror, as you could have expected, has a sympathetic front page today that backs the nurses with the simple words: “We are with you.”
As we all should be.
More surprisingly, the Daily Express – yes, that Daily Express – also has a sympathetic headline: “Give nurses a deal and stop this madness.”
Heavens, the editor must have had a funny turn. Or a day off.
The day before, the Sun had a go at Mick Lynch, leader of the RMT, claiming he had “lost his rag”.
Oh, when that happens you can guarantee that the ones losing theirs are the billionaire owners of newspaper groups shouting about why we should hate unions,
Strikes are inconvenient, as that’s the point. Nobody likes strikes, including those shivering on the picket line (been there, shivered that). But sometimes there is no other way.
Go on, Mr Moneybags – and we really can slap that label on Rishi Sunak – just give the nurses a decent pay rise.