Craven was a good egg — craven is what this Government is.

It’s all such good news - and relentless too. So far this week:

• The 2025 one day record for illegal Channel crossings was 656. Today it was 700. The most recorded was in September 2022 when 1305 illegals arrived. No Plans in Place

• It is currently taking the tax payments of eight full-time employees to pay the losses accrued by each of the 2,700 Scunthorpe steelworkers whose jobs are being saved. Saved might not be the word I’m looking for. They’ll be back in bed with another China soon.

• As predicted, the current 2.8% pay award for teachers in England for September is now considered “inadequate and unfunded.” The NEU, whose conference is now underway, has just adopted a motion to launch a formal strike ballot over the government’s teacher pay offer. Simply servants to their masters.

• Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has warned that bin strikes could spread across the country: “If other councils decide to make low-paid workers pay for bad decisions that they did not make, workers paying the price yet again, then absolutely, of course, we all have to take action in those other areas.” The tail still wags the dog.

• The back-door, non-negotiated, rejoining of the EU is now underway with the news that the government plans to accept ‘dynamic alignment’ of regulations on some products, including agri-food goods. It reportedly will accept EU rulings from the European Court of Justice on the sanitary and phytosanitary elements of its new deal with Brussels. The government’s Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which set the stage for this pivot has measures that allows Labour ministers to accept EU rules through the back door, essentially undoing a large part of Brexit. Ursula tells Starmer to hurry up.

• The latest ONS figures show the unemployment rate remains high at 4.4% for the last quarter as the jobs market suffers its worst slump since lockdown. Morre plans and proposals going nowhere.

• The Post Office has paid Fujitsu £21m to address shortfalls in its Horizon IT software, which led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses. This is in addition to the contract with Fujitsu signed by the PO to continue using Horizon until March 2026 at a cost of £40.8m. Last year, more than £68m was paid to Fujitsu to operate and maintain the system, while a further £11m was paid between January and 12 March 2025. Valuable lessons learned… not.

• Sub Post Office Managers Champion, Sir Alan Bates, has urged victims of the scandal to sue HMG, the PO and Fujitsu. In a letter to the victims, Sir Alan said advice offered to the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) on streamlining and speeding-up the scheme was “ignored out of hand with the feeblest of excuses”. He added that the majority of applicants had received “substantially undervalued offers”, with some being offered small fractions of their claims.

  “The DBT lawyers appear to be taking every opportunity to challenge figures when the DBT has already paid for your lawyers to test and verify the claims before they are submitted,” he continued. “And it seems they will use almost any other tactic to ensure that the DBT does not have to pay out what has already been verified before the claim was submitted.” Sir Alan claimed figures from the department showed just 66 cases had been settled in the last six months. Despite admitting a return to the courts might be a “long haul”, he suggested legal action was the “quickest way to ensure fairness for all”. More lies and obfuscations.

• One piece of positive news just in… The UK’s Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that sex and woman definitions in the Equality Act 2010 relate to “a biological woman and biological sex” after a long-running legal case brought against the Scottish Government by For Women Scotland.

I struggled with the hypocrisy of the last Government in their relentless pursuit of Pro Nostro Bono as opposed to Ad Bonum Populi, the very essence and purpose of the concept of Public Service. But sadly - and far more dangerously - this shabby mob actually believes they are the people. Thus, they lie constantly and consummately because those they serve are actually seen as the enemy

Do you think me wrong? Read the court reports for the legal arguments being put forward in defence of their act of VAT vengeance on the Old Etonians, in which they have destroyed the lives and welfare of thousands of special needs children. Read the arguments for rejoining the EU by an unmarked PRM door, which this bunch of intellectually challenged dimwits simply don’t understand, leads directly to the oubliette.

Talking of losing it…