A sense of moral superiority is a central hallmark of enthusiasts for mass immigration. But such smugness is woefully misplaced, given both the damage done to our country by the demographic revolution and the twisted methods used by this state to impose its dogma. Even as the evidence of the immigration disaster mounts, the ideologues refuse to adopt a border strategy which might actually help to rebuild Britain and restore our national integrity.

That is particularly true of the dangerous anarchy that prevails across the English Channel, where the number of illegal migrants reaching Britain by this route has passed the milestone of 50,000 since Labour came to power last July. This year alone has seen over 27,000 newcomers arrive on the southern English coast, a rise of 47% compared with the same period in 2024.

One colossal “mega dinghy” brought 107 migrants to England on Wednesday, illustrating the boldness of the smugglers in the face of institutional feebleness.

Indeed, the surge in numbers is a brutal indictment of Government impotence. Sir Keir Starmer and his Cabinet like to give an impression of busy determination in tackling the criminal gangs of traffickers, but their measures – such as endless diplomacy with the French, and continual tinkering with bureaucracy – have been hopelessly ineffectual.

Labour politicians avoid the really tough decisions that would make a difference, like leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, creating an off-shore processing centre, or ending the use of the Border Force as a glorified taxi service. Tellingly, amid all the recent tough talk, the number of arrests for organised immigration crime has fallen since last year.

Deceit has always infused the modern Labour party’s approach to immigration. For the sake of appealing to the British public, their leading figures occasionally pay lip service to the idea of toughness but their heart isn’t in it.

Suspicious of our British heritage and nationhood, they would far prefer to be celebrating diversity or denouncing the “far right” than cracking down on immigration abuses.

Typical of this impulse to mislead was Tony Blair’s election manifesto of 1997 which stated that “every country must have firm control over immigration and Britain is no exception”.

How tragically hollow those words now sound, as Blair went on to demolish controls and dish out British passports like confetti. Such was the fervour for new migrants that Blair’s closest ally Peter Mandelson even boasted of “sending out search parties for people”.

The same mix of dishonesty towards Britons and delight in the migrant influx can be seen today in the left’s parrot-cry for more “safe routes”, which in effect is a demand for free movement.

Equally fraudulent is their eagerness to cloak illegal migrants in the mantle of victimhood, even though 85% of them are young men who already reside in safe European countries and are of the age for military service.

The pro-immigration revolutionaries further like to pretend that public concern about the scale and speed of demographic upheaval is not genuine but rather is cynically whipped up by the media and politicians on the right.

That explains why these campaigners seized on a recent YouGov polling study which stated that “support for hardline, anti-immigration policies is linked to ignorance about migration figures.”

This kind of language feeds the self-importance of the woke elitists who like to think of themselves as far more sophisticated and better informed than the kind of impressionable, bigoted folk who turn up at anti-immigrant protests outside provincial hotels.

Yet it is the condescending liberals who are so often in the wrong. They sneer at anyone who draws a connection between migration and crime but the public is right to be worried about the rise in grooming gangs, drug violence, terrorism and attacks on women.

They’re also right to be worried about the economic impact of mass immigration. Contrary to Labour’s prediction about mass prosperity, immigration has turned out to be a vast engine of benefits dependency, an inhibitor of enterprise and a huge burden on our infrastructure. Only this week, it was revealed that 1.3 million universal credit claimants are foreigners.

Accusations of ignorance and misinformation are thrown at the anti-immigration protestors but they could just as easily be directed at the Government.

Last week officials admitted that they “lost track” of 150,000 people who arrived here to take up jobs in the social care sector.

And could there be a worse example of misinformation than the assertion by Blair’s Government that only 13,000 would come here when former communist states of eastern Europe joined the EU in 2004? In the end, millions arrived.

A political establishment with such an appalling recored ccan only regain trust by standing up for the national interest. That would be a first for Starmer’s lot.

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Biddy Baxter, the legendary editor of Blue Peter who pioneered many of its ideas, has died at the age of 92. I mourn her passing but I cannot pretend I liked her programme. Earnest and boring, it was the televisual equivalent of school detention.

The only interesting thing I ever learned about the programme was that Valerie Singleton once had a night of passion with Peter Purves. But otherwise an “eat your greens” mentality prevailed. To this day, the jaunty little signature tune sends a shiver down my spine.

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Garlanded in their inevitable record-breaking high, the A-level results yesterday prompted the usual scenes of celebrations at grades achieved and university places won.

Yet for all the hugs of triumph, there was a darkened edge to the rituals, as if growing numbers of participants recognised that they have been sold an expensive con to prop up a giant Ponzi scheme that cannot be sustained for much longer.

It was Tony Blair who, as Prime Minister in 1999, set an arbitrary target that half of all our young people should go to university, with the cost of expansion to be met by a big hike in tuition fees. As money poured into higher education, Ministers predicted a new era of economic advance.

But it has hardly worked out like that. The British economy has effectively stagnated since the 2008 crash. Drunk with ambition, universities overreached themselves and many are now in serious financial trouble.

Industrial relations are poor; administrative structures flabby. Meanwhile, employers complain bitterly about the calibre of today’s graduates. Woke culture and dumbed-down courses have left too many of them with neither the practical skills nor the resilience for the world of work.

Leaving university with an average debt of £50,000, these graduates often struggle to find suitable jobs – or indeed any jobs.

One mother complained this week that her daughter, who had studied for an English degree, “has sent out over 500 job applications without a single offer.”

More than 600,000 graduates are on benefits, a spectacular waste which just illustrates how badly a rethink is needed of the entire system.

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My friend Andew Lownie, the acclaimed biographer and literary agent, deserves every moment of acclaim and every penny of success for his remarkable new joint biography of Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

There has never been a royal book like this. With its scabrous accounts of their exuberant sexual appetites, spirit of entitlement, insatiable financial greed and boorish manners, it is already a publishing sensation.

Andrew Lownie not only spent four years researching this infamous pair – a task that involved approaching over 3,000 people for contributions – he also has developed a formidable reputation as a campaigner for freedom of information with several of his previous books, most notably his life of the maverick military commander and royal celebrity Lord Louis Mountbatten. All of us doing archival research owe him a heavy debt.