His Bill may be held up in the Lords as he continues to insists that his Government will stop the boats. The only means of squaring the two would be an election with illegal migration centre-stage.
The Prime Minister’s rhetoric about being a man who makes the tough choices has not yet been borne out in his policymaking.
My hunch is the next generation of aspiring leaders will have a firmer grip on the meaning of conservatism than the current crop. Or, at least, I hope so — otherwise there might not be a party to lead.
The joint One Nation Caucus and Tory Reform Group conference last weekend, following the recent National Conservative Conference, are pointers to the shape of a possible future.
Conscripting school-leavers to serve as corvée labour for councils crumbling under the burden of social care would be socially poisonous and morally absurd.
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.