The Prime Minister is in full command of the facts, but has no idea how to raise morale among his despondent backbenchers.
We all like lower taxes and backing British business – but that is no excuse for not delivering on getting inflation down and delivering on economic growth.
Doing the minimum possible on legal migration would have the unwelcome effect for the Prime Minister of prolonging and intensifying debate about it.
The Prime Minister’s mooted emergency legislation seems unlikely to pass; even if it did, there is hardly time before the next election to get the policy operational.
The issue of immigration is now fully back at the centre of our national life and will exert a profound influence on the outcome of the rapidly approaching general election next year.
The Prime Minister looked relieved to have appointed a Home Secretary who is not furious with him.
The rage, frustration and contempt of its terms are a foretaste of what’s to come if the Conservatives lose the next election.
The former Home Secretary accuses the Prime Minister of having “no appetite for doing what is necessary” to stop the boats.
The new Foreign Secretary is asked whether he wants to distance himself from his predecessor’s rhetoric.
Grant Shapps was commenting on criticism of Suella Braverman for accusing the police of ‘bias’.
The Shadow Home Secretary suggests “the Government made it harder for the police to do their jobs” at Saturday’s Armistice Day events.
Slowly but surely, British people from all faiths and backgrounds are being confronted by a minority who hate the liberal democratic west of which their country is an integral part and to which it has contributed so much.
This is not something that needs to be buried in any arcana about the Ministerial Code. Rishi Sunak does not need an inquiry to tell him whether he asked for changes to Suella Braverman’s article or not.
Whether you see the glass as still half-empty, rather than half-full, the question we all face is the same one. If we are starting from here, now, can we imagine again a sense of the future that we do want to share?
The few solutions that have been offered up have tended to be blunt instruments, more likely to inflame tensions than deliver results in such a hostile institutional environment.