Bribing Keir Starmer out of office would cost UK less than 4 more years of Labour

A bevvy of grim statistics has landed this week, each one another nail in the coffin for a country that once prided itself on competence, pragmatism and, at the very least, a bit of backbone. If you were hoping for good news, I suggest you stop reading now. If not, let's take a tour, in chronological order, through the rotting remains of the Government's key manifesto promises on small boats, the economy, crime and free speech.

Since Keir Starmer brazenly scrapped the Rwanda scheme last year because the "adults are back in charge", more than 50,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats. Sir Keir, who won power promising to "smash the gangs", reached that figure in just 402 days. Rishi Sunak, for all his faults, took 603 days to hit the same mark, and his predecessor needed over 1,000 days. The gangs, in case you were wondering, are doing just fine.

Protests have been erupting across the country amid allegations of sexual assaults by asylum seekers. Tower Hamlets, Epping and towns you've probably never heard of have all become flashpoints.

To say that the Government's response has been disappointing would be putting it lightly. The unspoken truth no one in power dares to acknowledge is that Britain has become a willing host for whichever extremist strolls in under the banner of "asylum seeker" - a situation that is both unsustainable and a ticking time bomb.

The latest economic figures offer no comfort either. Job vacancies have slumped to a ten-year low, and more than 200,000 additional people are claiming unemployment benefits since Labour took office, pushing the jobless rate from 4.2% to 4.7%.

Young people, particularly those aged 24 to 35, have suffered the sharpest fall in opportunities as firms scale back graduate recruitment. To compound matters, the number of Universal Credit claimants has soared by over a million, hitting a record eight million people. That is no longer a safety net. It is an entire parallel economy of dependency.

On crime, Labour has made noises about deporting more foreign offenders under its "Deport Now, Appeal Later" scheme. Yet some of the countries most associated with serious offences, like Albania, Afghanistan and Pakistan, are conspicuously absent from the list. But not to worry: Canadian gangbangers in Hull can now be rest assured that they are on Westminster's radar.

While all this unfolds, the Government has somehow found the time to intensify its war on speech. More than 30 arrests a day are now being made for "offensive" online posts.

Thousands have been detained or questioned for sending messages that cause "annoyance" or "inconvenience". Incredibly, we have reached the point where, in Britain, you are apparently safer being a foreign criminal than posting a badly worded joke on Facebook.

In case it wasn't painfully clear, Britain is circling the drain. And fast. I might even tolerate Starmer turning the country into an illiberal sty if the basics worked; if women could walk the streets without fear, if work genuinely paid, and if crime was punished rather than excused.

But the deeper problem is the total absence of forward planning. For years, governments of every stripe have cobbled together incoherent, inconsistent policies designed to placate whichever special interest they were courting at the time.

That precedent shows no sign of changing. Take the Conservatives: this week, Kemi Badenoch declared, without a hint of irony, that her party would "finally" decide whether to leave the European Courts of Human Rights at this year's party conference.

I'm sure all 10 remaining party members are breathless with anticipation. Is it any wonder Reform UK is pulling ahead in the polls while Labour and the Tories hover somewhere between irrelevance and extinction?

If I may offer a radical proposal: bribe the lot of them to leave. It would cost Britain far less than four more years of this government and the Labour MPs cheerfully who have enabled its failures. Keir Starmer, his Cabinet, every last one of them: take a cheque, go home, and never come back.

Make no mistake, things will get worse before they get better. The social fabric is fraying, and it is the poorest communities shouldering the strain of mass migration. Class, not race, is fuelling the protests erupting across Britain.

Yet the political class pretends it is all about prejudice, neatly sidestepping the reality that it is about resources, jobs, housing and safety.

I love this country and what it represents. I believe it can, and will, rise again after this time of darkness. But that revival will only come when we stop pretending everything is fine and confront, honestly, how bad it has become.

Until then, the alarm bells will keep ringing. And those meant to hear them will carry on pretending it is just background noise.