“The levels… are far too high, and I’m determined to bring them down to sustainable levels”, the Prime Minister replies.
We all like lower taxes and backing British business – but that is no excuse for not delivering on getting inflation down and delivering on economic growth.
Doing the minimum possible on legal migration would have the unwelcome effect for the Prime Minister of prolonging and intensifying debate about it.
Without understanding what parts of the status quo are propped up by the mass import of people, and how, and why, any move to cut headline numbers is going to run aground on the consequences of so doing.
The Prime Minister will want to avoid the trap that Gordon Brown created for himself in the autumn of 2007.
Our chosen model is grossly unjust and will have many horrible consequences. But it already has, and yet it ticks along, because those consequences are not evenly spread.
Monday’s speech and today’s announcement show them choosing their ground for the next election. And since Hunt may find no money for further tax cuts next spring, the option of a May general election is opening up.
Like the UK, the country is struggling with the issue of what can be done about unlawful non-citizens who cannot currently be deported and have committed serious crimes.
The few solutions that have been offered up have tended to be blunt instruments, more likely to inflame tensions than deliver results in such a hostile institutional environment.
The Prime Minister’s mooted emergency legislation seems unlikely to pass; even if it did, there is hardly time before the next election to get the policy operational.
The judgment may be a setback, but it is certainly not an insurmountable obstacle. It is open to Ministers to respond to the Supreme Court’s concerns and move urgently to implement this important policy.
The issue of immigration is now fully back at the centre of our national life and will exert a profound influence on the outcome of the rapidly approaching general election next year.
I’d say it’s about saying things how they are, avoiding sugar-coating matters, and not denying reality because it’s inconvenient or because it doesn’t fit your ideology, world view or political agenda.
The rage, frustration and contempt of its terms are a foretaste of what’s to come if the Conservatives lose the next election.
The Government needs as broad a coalition of voices as possible to tackle the fissure opening up in our constitution and public life.