When in a hole, hold a summit. Sir Keir Starmer spent his Monday morning making a rather stiff speech at an ‘organised immigration crime summit’. He said how ‘cross’ he was about illegal immigration.
Summits were once rare events at which the leaders of the USSR and USA frostily shook hands.
They only counted as summits if Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski were in attendance. In recent years the term has been used to describe regular shindigs or photo opportunities rapidly convened after a problem has become big news.
Lately we have had a coalition-of-the-willing summit, an inward investment summit, a Nato summit, G20 summit, a nutrition for growth summit, a knife crime summit, the COP climate summit and an artificial intelligence action summit. That last one was presumably named to differentiate it from an inaction summit.
Word circulated that the immigration crime summit was not going to be Sir Keir’s sole summit of the morning. He was also going to meet the makers of the TV show Adolescence to ponder the damage done to boys by the internet. A two-summit day!
Sir Keir was Westminster’s answer to Sherpa Tenzing. Then it was disclosed that the Adolescence meeting was not a summit. It was a ’round-table’ which is quite different, thank you.
Convene. Talk. Nod grimly. Job done. If you call it a summit, broadcasters will discuss the exercise wearing their serious faces. Summits, like Jelly Babies, are moreish but the sugar rush soon fades.
Yvette Cooper broke away from the summit and popped up at Home Office questions in the Commons. Was the Home Secretary looking more vexed than normal? She waited years to get back into government but now that she’s there she looks perpetually cheesed-off.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper attend the Organised Immigration Crime Summit at Lancaster House — March 31, 2025
Starmer chairs a round table during the International Border Security Summit in London — March 31, 2025
It’s hard to say who seems more crotchety, Yvette or her fellow minister Dame Angela Eagle. Come, come, you know Sister Eagle: tart as a crab-apple, voice like a rook.
It was Dame Angela who had the pleasure (loose term) of dealing with the Tories’ Chris Philp. He claimed illegal boat crossings of the English Channel were up 31 per cent since the election. Was it not a mistake, he bellowed, to have scrapped the Rwanda scheme?
Dame Angela pulled a scowl that could have curdled Cornwall. She emitted a slow screed of abuse – imagine a particularly fiendish voodoo spell – and concluded with ‘I do not know what planet he is living on’.
The voodoo did not entirely work, mind you, for Mr Philp, who was wearing his Union Jack socks, continued to twitch and heckle. Dame Angela may need to alter the recipe of her invective and include a little more blind-worm and toe of frog in her next brew.
The Home Office’s token male MP is Dan Jarvis, handsome chap but has a bit of a glass jaw. He was asked about mobile phone thefts. By way of reply he said there would be a ‘mobile phone theft summit’.
Not to be outdone, his fellow minister Dame Diana Johnson said there would be ‘a rural crime round-table’. Mr Jarvis retaliated with ‘new dedicated support hubs’. Touchingly, they really do seem to believe these things will make a difference.
Yvette Cooper broke away from the summit and popped up at Home Office questions in the Commons
Starmer holds a roundtable meeting with writer Jack Thorne (right) at Number 10 Downing Street — March 31, 2025
Invited to criticise police for that outrageous incident in Hertfordshire recently when two parents were thrown behind bars for having a disagreement with their child’s primary school, Dame Diana refused. It was an ‘operational matter’.
Then came a faintly sinister moment amid discussion of ‘unacceptable harassment of elected representatives’ (as opposed to innocent citizens being harassed by the cops).
John Slinger (Lab, Rugby) called for ‘everyone who believes in our democracy to play their part. This must include Parliament, social media companies, the traditional media, the education system, businesses, charities and civil society’. He wanted a ‘healthier and safer environment’. If he meant ‘less criticism’, he can hop it.
Democracy is not served by reporters being complimentary about MPs. Democracy is served by raw, liquid vituperation, particularly when sprayed at asses like Slinger.
