Yes, save the migrants…then take them home to tell their pals not to bother

AS the latest “rescue ship” packed full of African migrants docked in the Spanish city of Valencia this week, hundreds of charity workers stood on the harbour and applauded.

Well intentioned they may be, but by putting out the welcome bunting in this way they are naively fanning the flames of an escalating migrant crisis that is damaging Europe both sociologically and politically.

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In Italy — which, along with Malta, turned the ship away — the new “hardline” interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has promised the mass expulsion of illegal immigrants, pointing out that his country lacks homes and jobs for its existing population: “Let alone for half the African continent.”

He adds: “Some idiots think I want people to die at sea. They haven’t understood a thing.

“There is only one way to save these lives: Fewer people leaving, more repatriations. Life is sacred and to preserve it we must ensure that people don’t go to sea in dangerous tubs.”

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Quite. Which is why rescuing then delivering the migrants to European shores is aiding and abetting the unscrupulous people smugglers who charge exorbitant amounts for a place in small, poorly maintained dinghies that they know full well won’t make the journey.

The passengers should be rescued. No one disputes that.

The ruling classes have got us into this unholy mess and everyone, including the migrants, are paying the intolerable price

Jane Moore

But why don’t the ships simply take them back to the Libyan shores from whence they came?

That would send back the message that it is fruitless to even set sail in the first place and, ultimately, save far more lives.

Instead, the EU (including us) is spending £160million in Libya on recruiting coastguards to try to deter migrants — many of whom are desperate to reach the UK — from making the perilous journey.

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But it emerged this week that some of them are actually working as people-smuggling kingpins themselves.

One — Abd Al Rahman al-Milad — is using patrol vessels bought with EU money to shoot and sink boats that have paid his rival people-smugglers.

Of course, the victims in all of this are those desperate souls in the boats, and the less well off sections of European society who, without doubt, suffer the effects of uncontrolled immigration far more than those whose lives are protected by wealth.

The ruling classes have virtue-signalled us into this unholy mess and everyone, including the migrants, are paying the intolerable price.

Now, those in authority are starting to pay the political price of their shameful inaction as angry Europeans use the ballot box to express their discontent.

Consequently, it looks increasingly likely that, soon, there might not even be a European Union for us to leave.

I've got Zara down to a tea

HOT on the vertiginous heels of Hayley “what’s Brexit?” Hughes comes 21-year-old Zara McDermott who, according to her online profile, is a Government adviser “dealing with parliamentary questions, briefings for ministers, and correspondence cases”.

Ooooer. Dead intelligent, like.

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When intrigued housemate Jack asked: “What, you make laws?” she replied: “Yeah, in essence.”

Which, in essence, probably means she makes tea and perhaps a few notes for those who actually do make the laws.

Meanwhile, we have Wes Nelson who, at the tender age of 20, is a “nuclear and electrical systems design engineer” whose job is so top secret that, handily, he’s not really allowed to talk about it, and solicitor Rosie Williams, who advised A&E doctor Alex George that if he wanted to impress a girl he should go and work out in the villa’s gym area, “then she’ll, like, see you’re not just a doctor, you’ve got something about you. Do you know what I mean?”

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Er, no, not really love. Unless you’re saying that saving lives is a bit dreary compared to endlessly pumping iron.
Saints bloody preserve us.

Even more depressingly, despite being painted as beauties with brains, both Zara and Rosie are chasing the deeply narcissistic, womanising himbo that is Adam Collard.

Indicating that their emotional intelligence is on a par with an amoeba.

What the Markle is going on?

DURING the GMB interview with Meghan Markle’s father Thomas, it became patently clear that not only have the royal couple still not visited him, but the Palace still hasn’t advised him on media matters and, most oddly of all, he has barely even spoken to his daughter since the wedding.

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The deliciously off-message half-sister Samantha seemed to confirm this with a tweet that said: “Happy Father’s Day to all of the self-sacrificing fathers who gave us everything that we are,” adding, “Humanitarians do not ignore their fathers, Meg.”

Curiouser and curiouser, no?

PA-refect partners

ANT McPARTLIN is reportedly dating his personal assistant, Anne-Marie Corbett.

No surprises there.

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PAs, by dint of their occupation, are invaluable.

They book you dinners/ taxis/hairdressers/ dentists/doctors, take your clothes to the dry cleaners, pour you a drink before you even know you want one, tell you where you need to be, when, and how you’re going to get there, and murmur “poor you” when you’re whinging about your day.

In short, nothing is too much trouble and, unlike a wife/ husband/ partner, they never roll their eyes and mutter: “Do it your bloody self, you idle loafer.”

Or is that just me?

A fashionably family affair

ARTIST Grayson Perry attended the launch of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition dressed in purple platforms, a pink baby doll frock and a full face of glittery make-up.

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He was accompanied by his lovely daughter Florence, which, considering my youngest refuses to be seen with me if I so much as wear a jauntily angled hat, makes him very lucky indeed.

Forget nosey neighbours, noisey is worse

RETIRED businessman Stephen Parsons has been convicted of threatening behaviour and criminal damage to a door after being driven to distraction by noise from nearby houseboats rented out on Airbnb.

Mr Parsons, 65, said the party antics on the boats next to his South West London home were driving him to distraction.

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While criminal behaviour can’t be condoned, anyone who has suffered from noisy neighbours will understand that feeling of reaching your wits’ end.

Our home is our sanctuary, the place where we take respite from the incessant noise that permeates life’s precious few silences.

But what if you find yourself living next door to someone who thinks their noise should be shared and tolerated by all?
The neighbours who tinker with their car all day long, endlessly revving the engine.

The ones who regularly throw barbecues, their guests braying loudly into the early hours as you stare mutinously at the bedroom ceiling.

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The ones with the relentlessly yapping dogs. The ones with wind chimes on their balcony.

And perhaps the most common of all, the ones who, just as you settle in your garden to enjoy the blissful silence of a sunny Sunday afternoon, start up their power tool.

Altogether now, “Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours . . . ”

Trouble is, there are depressingly few of them around.

Maradona's fall from grace

DID you see Diego “Hand of God” Maradona cheering on Argentina from the stands?

Clutching a fat cigar, he was wearing designer sunglasses, massive double-diamond studs in each ear, a diamond ring and not one, but TWO vastly expensive designer watches.

Where did it all go wrong, eh?