Shabana Mahmood wasn’t given long in her new gig before facing the media. She became Home Secretary on Friday afternoon, after former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner resigned over an ethics probe into her tax affairs, and this morning set out her stall on immigration. Positioning herself as a ‘whatever it takes’ minister, Mahmood says she is prepared to suspend visas for workers coming to the UK from nations that will not enter into returns deals – bringing Labour into closer alignment with the Conservatives and Reform on its immigration policy.

Mahmood promised she would go ‘further and faster’ than her predecessor Yvette Cooper on the small boats crisis, adding that she was ‘not the sort of person who hangs around’. She has been praised in the past by colleagues for being an effecti

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