In a way, David Lammy’s bad week is all, in fact, Keir Starmer’s fault. And it’s all the Prime Minister’s fault in a multitude of ways.

After all, had Starmer not decided to jet off (again) on a foreign trip – this time to the COP summit in Brazil – then the Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) would never have been at the despatch box in the Commons when shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge started asking repeatedly whether another prisoner seeking asylum had been accidentally released .

Both Lammy and Cartlidge knew the answer to this question, and it was only because Cartlidge couldn’t count to six that he was unable to use his final question to reveal that a second prisoner had indeed been released – after Lammy had introduced “tough” new rules to prevent it happening again.

The Prime

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