The small-boat talk from this government has combined naked racism with naked populism. Stop the boats. Get brexit done. Take back control. Ah, the populist power of the three-word slogan. The Tories know that stopping "foreigners" from "coming in" is very popular with the people in this country. Let's face it, they have very little else that might garner support, so they milk it for what it's worth, and to hell with the risk that the rhetoric is racist (which it is, in spades). No matter that we take far fewer refugees than most other developed, and many less than developed, countries. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown was wonderful on Question Time tonight. She cut through all the bullshit of the two Tories on the panel to say that, all this bloody verbiage, have we forgotten that we're talking about human beings here? (paraphrase only...) At last three of the audience members had a far better grip of what's going on than Ken Clarke, Jenrick and the utterly forgettable Labour woman.

So what is it with Labour with all this? Do we get a real opposition that calls the Tories out for their racism and xenophobia? Why no, we don't. "You tried it last year and it was a shambles. If you try it again it'll be a shambles ..." so where's the outright attack on the Tory ideology? Where's the perfectly justified accusation of racism? Where are the GUTS??

I could bloody weep. And I'm still a member...