DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Posturing peers put migrants’ lives at risk 

So much for Rishi Sunak’s pledge to ‘stop the small boats’. In just three days over the weekend, more than 1,000 migrants made the treacherous voyage across the Channel from France – meaning a staggering 12,700 have reached our shores so far this year.

It is utterly unsustainable to allow so many would-be asylum seekers to sneak into Britain illegally, costing taxpayers £3.5billion a year and fuelling public anger.

However, the Prime Minister must be cut some slack – for now. His Illegal Migration Bill, which aims to make removing unlawful entrants easier, is under attack from hand-wringing peers and archbishops.

To get the Bill through Parliament, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has made major concessions, including an effective amnesty to small-boat migrants who arrive before the legislation gains Royal Assent.

But that will just encourage more people to risk their lives making the perilous journey in the meantime.

So much for Rishi Sunak’s pledge to ‘stop the small boats’. In just three days over the weekend, more than 1,000 migrants made the treacherous voyage across the Channel

The plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has also been blocked by the courts. But only when migrants realise they are buying tickets to Africa, via Dover, will they be deterred from coming here.

What is the alternative? The liberal Left has no plan. The Lords must back the Bill, which is the only way to stop this evil trade – or these so-called humanitarians will simply be endangering more lives at sea.

BBC botches it

The BBC loves to portray itself as a paragon of integrity, decency and rectitude, cut from superior moral cloth to other people and organisations.

That the Corporation clings to this fantasy despite being embroiled in a wave of scandals – from paedophile Jimmy Savile to rogue reporter Martin Bashir – shows the depths of its self-delusion.

Each time, the broadcaster insists lessons have been learned. But have they? This time, a top male presenter stands accused of paying a teenager tens of thousands of pounds for sexually explicit images.

Equally troubling is that a proper inquiry does not appear to have been launched when the complaint was received in May.

If the Tories or another news organisation had acted so sluggishly, we’d never hear the end of the BBC’s pious denunciations.

There must be a full investigation into the BBC’s handling of this saga

The seeming insouciance of senior management typifies everything that’s wrong with the Corporation, fuelling suspicion it has again put its own interests ahead of those of the common good.

There must be a full investigation into the BBC’s handling of this saga. Given its unique funding model, licence fee payers have every right to know whether this was incompetence – or a cover-up.

Nuclear fallout

The first duty of any government is to safeguard the nation against overseas threats, which explains why Sir Keir Starmer is so desperate to convince voters that Labour would be strong on security.

Really? Twelve loony lefties in his top team have called for Britain to scrap the nuclear deterrent, while he fought manfully to get Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong supporter of unilateral disarmament, into No10.

When Putin is threatening the West with nuclear annihilation, Labour’s peaceniks are the last people to rely on to maintain our defences in a dangerous world.

The maternity scandals that have shamed the country grow more nightmarish. A shocking 1,700 babies and mothers may have died unavoidably or suffered terrible harm at two Nottingham hospitals. 

NHS chiefs admit families were ‘failed’, amid claims midwives were inept, managers covered up mistakes and patients’ concerns were ignored. How shameful that such tragedies occur not because of a lack of modern treatment, but through institutional failures.