A daughter of migrants talks tough on migration

And she insisted, “This isn’t just about policy or economics for me, it is personal. My parents came here in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius. They loved Britain from afar, as children of the Commonwealth.”

She added, ”It is not racist for anyone to want to control our borders. It’s not bigoted to say we have too many asylum seekers who are abusing the system.”

Ms Braverman’s remarks were praised by senior figures of the far right, were seen by some senior Tories as a pitch for future leadership of the ruling party and were denounced by Human Rights Watch as “wholly false, cruel and unconscionable”.

There seems little doubt, however, that Ms Braverman was reflecting the alarm of some Britons, particularly those in Channel port towns, and those of a “nationalist” disposition, at the migration situation.

A record 45,700 people crossed the Channel to the UK in small boats last year and Braverman promised that the government would go ahead with plans to send illegals to Rwanda, despite a string of legal defeats on the issue.

The Home Secretary’s rhetoric made all the front pages here and sparked renewed interest in the lady herself. Aged 42, she was born in Harrow, northwest London, and grew up in nearby Wembley. She is the daughter of Christie Fernandes, a Kenyan Goan, and Uma, a Tamil Hindu, born Mootien-Pillay, from Mauritius.

Her father, a native of Nairobi, lived for a number of years in Mauritius, where he married Uma. They migrated to Britain in the 1960s.

Suella is named after Sue Ellen Ewing, a character from the American television soap opera, Dallas, which was a favourite of her mother. Uma herself was a nurse and became a councillor in Brent, London. Her father worked for a housing association.

Suella read law at Queen’s College, Cambridge University, secured a Masters at the Sorbonne in Paris, and sat her Bar exams and qualified as an Attorney in New York.

She is a Buddhist. When she became an MP, she took her oath on the book of Buddhist scripture, Dhammapada.

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It was one of the most beautiful sights in England, certainly among the most photographed.

Sycamore Gap, a natural dip in the landscape in Northumberland, hosted a beautifully shaped, 300-rear-old sycamore tree. It stood just yards away from Hadrian’s Wall, constructed by the occupying Romans nearly two thousand years ago.

Picture-perfect, everybody agreed!

But, unbelievably, during the night of September 27, somebody took a chainsaw to the tree and chopped it down.

The result was a national outpouring of anger and astonishment, with ordinary people asking why anyone would want to commit such an outrage.

Worse, in falling to the ground, the tree damaged part of the 73-mile wall that stretches across the whole of northern England.

A man in his 60s and a boy of 16 have been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage while police inquiries continue.

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Whether it’s down to more food, less work, better health care, hygienic living or all four, the number of 100-year-olds living in England and Wales is at record levels. Official figures last week said centenarians rose over the past century from 110 people at the 1921 census to 13,924 on Census Day in 2021.

The rise has led to calls for a better strategy to deal with an ever-ageing population.

That said, Britain cannot compare to Japan, which has the world’s oldest population with more than one in ten people now aged 80 or older.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in January that his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its declining birth rate.

* * *

A devout Christian is desperate to win the lottery. He goes to church and prays long and hard but when the results are announced, he hasn’t won.

Without delay, he returns to church and remonstrates with God, pointing out how often he prays and how he obeys all God’s rules. But again he does not win.

Once more he goes to church and prays again, this time in despair. Suddenly, the clouds part and there is a figure with a grey beard looking down upon him. The words are clear: “OK, you want to win the lottery. Then please meet me half-way. Buy a ticket!”

* * *

Jerry tells his friend Ben that it’s easy to win at Las Vegas, that he went there driving a $20,000 Nissan and came back in a $400,000 Lamborghini. “I’m up for that,” says Ben and heads for Nevada in a $30,000 Toyota. He returns in an $800,000 vehicle, a Greyhound bus.

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