April 1, 2025 - 10:40am
There’s an old saying: you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. No matter how fine the stitching or how glossy the finish, some things just won’t change. In politics, though, this is a lesson which remains stubbornly unlearned. Failed ideas aren’t buried; instead, they’re rebranded, repackaged, and marched out as dazzling innovations.
Nowhere was this more obvious than at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit yesterday, where Keir Starmer stood before a room of world leaders, tech executives, and law enforcement chiefs to unveil his bold new plan to “smash the gangs”. The summit was hyped as groundbreaking, a fresh and ambitious approach to tackling illegal migration. But as the Prime Minister spoke about international “collaboration” and tougher enforcement, it became obvious that this wasn’t a new plan at all. It was the same old sow’s ear, stitched together and passed off as a silk purse.
On the surface, Starmer’s proposals sound entirely reasonable. More power for enforcement, tougher penalties, better intelligence-sharing, and even MI5-style counter-terrorism tactics to break up smuggling networks: who could object to all that?
The problem isn’t the intention — it’s the thinking behind it. People smuggling isn’t like terrorism. Terrorists operate like soldiers; smugglers are more like hustlers. Terrorists aim to destabilise systems through coordinated force; smugglers take advantage of the cracks in those systems. This is why every crackdown on people smuggling ends up like a game of whack-a-mole. You can disrupt networks, make things more difficult, and force them to change tactics — but “smashing” them is altogether harder, not to mention less precise.
We’ve been here before. The Clandestine Channel Threat Command (CCTC) was launched by Priti Patel in 2020, with bold promises of breaking the smugglers’ grip. Then there was Project Invigor, an international task force that was supposed to make a real dent in the trade. Both were full of promises about intelligence-sharing, arrests, and disruption, yet neither achieved anything of lasting value.
Rather than learning from past mistakes, though, Labour has doubled down. Rather than reforming the legal system to ramp up deportations and create a real deterrent, Starmer is proposing yet another central unit: the Border Security Command, which is essentially a rehash of the CCTC. It will come with more funding and manpower, but at its core it’s still the same old sow’s ear. It might make a small difference, but ultimately it won’t stop people from crossing the Channel, and it almost certainly won’t dismantle the gangs.
People smuggling involves a fluid, ever-shifting network of decentralised, transnational groups — Kurdish, Iraqi, Albanian — which are always ready to adapt and evolve. Unlike the mafia, which thrives on the stability of territory, infrastructure, and loyalty, people smugglers operate in opportunistic, mobile units which can vanish in one place and pop up in another. It’s a game of constant reinvention, a battle where the rules change before you even realise you’ve lost sight of the players.
Labour’s answer to this problem is the usual reflex of sanctions and enhanced penalties for people smuggling, but this won’t actually deter smugglers. Most of those arrested for piloting small boats aren’t masterminds of an international racket — they’re migrants themselves, roped into steering dinghies in exchange for a free ride. The real architects of the trade stay well behind the scenes, outsourcing the risk to those they see as expendable.
To truly dismantle these networks, Britain would need to step beyond intelligence-sharing and into real, extraterritorial action. Persuading European nations to let the UK conduct raids or run covert operations on their soil, however, is another matter entirely.
Yet Labour remains fixated on the wrong targets. The illegal migration crisis hasn’t spiralled out of control because of a lack of international cooperation — instead, it’s because Britain has shackled itself with laws that make enforcement all but impossible. The Human Rights Act, a relic of a different era, has become a straitjacket on our sovereignty. We are not being thwarted from outside but suffocated from within.
The asylum system needs a scorched-earth rewrite. The legal labyrinth must be torn down; deportations must become swift and inevitable; and the courts, NGOs, and activist lawyers who’ve hijacked the process must be stripped of their power. If we are serious about dismantling the gangs, we must first dismantle their customer base. The solution is to detain and deport: make it known that illegal arrivals will be put on the first flight home, and watch as the smugglers’ trade collapses overnight.
Of course, Labour won’t embrace this reality. Yesterday’s speeches demonstrated that old failures are once again being paraded as a new dawn. The sow’s ear has been polished, repackaged, and sold as silk — and soon enough, the seams will start to split.
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SubscribeA lot of good points in this. Especially the tendency for modern films to be dumbed down, to emphasise form and style over substance, and to try to place historical, real geniuses into modern tropes.
Interesting article, however, Sunset Boulevard is not a film just about female victimisation. Yes, Norma Desmond is a pathetic character, but she is not the only one. Joe Gillis,the writer, drawn to her and the glamour she stands for, ends up disillusioned and dead. He is equally important. Max, the subordinated, dismissed husband is a similar, supporting character. Feminists like to see the world or market, as a wonderful place, from which women are deprived because of patriarchal greed. The remedy for this is sexual equality with the same roles open to both men and women. But what is going on in Sunset Boulevard is of an older, different order. It derives very much from the story of Adam and Eve: Norma has taken the apple of Hollywood glory, and Joe becomes complicit in following her, though slightly reluctant, as was Adam. Feminists hate the Eve story, of course, even though it might be said that Eve was the first feminist, seeking to better her natural abilities. The result of this is not positive, as expected, but the loss of Paradise, for both Adam and herself. At the end of the film, Hollywood isn’t paradise either, but a sordid place where, despite hard work and sacrifice, as in life, no one gets out alive. The other films mentioned are more contrived to fit the feminine victim idea, and full of dreadful consequences, but Sunset Boulevard sees life holistically, not through a lens of single prejudice.
The author loves creating victims. These stars enjoyed money, luxury, and many privileges. Nobody victimized them. Most women would kill to be in their place and have their game. Callas was a demanding diva, and you got it wrong. Onassis dumped her to get married. Bias of a fanatic woke feminist patriarchy hater. Boring!
Feminist writers only seem to be capable of viewing anything through a lense of fanatical female victimhood.
Biopics of famous men are usually equally critical, the recent Elvis film being a good example. What lunacy is it that drives feminists to see any depiction of women as uniquely sexist.
This is not the movie I saw. The movie I saw was highly empathetic to Callas’ genius and her efforts to reclaim her art at great personal cost. In its flashbacks Callas is shown as commanding in her relationships with the most powerful men on the planet. The music throughout is resplendent. This review says more about the author’s personal grievances than Angelina Jolie’s brilliant performance.
“commanding in her relationships with the most powerful men on the planet”
It’s seems like a common feature of post feminist “modern” women, that they see life as a d**k measuring contest with “powerful men”, while being contemptuous and ignorant of the struggles of ordinary men.
That is so true – not to mention the psychosis in so much current entertainment of women physically beating the crap out of men twice their size. I mention how Jolie/Callas dominates the men in the movie only to refute the author’s portrayal of her as victimized.
Absolutely Right. Why do women (like the author) hate other prettier, more talented and more successful women so much.
Oh dear. I have seen the film and mostly enjoyed it. Probably because you spend a lot time listening to Callas sing and gazing at Jolie’s face, both of which are mesmerisingly beautiful. It is not a biopic, if you don’t know much about her life you will still need to Google it afterwards. The film is an entertainment and a pleasant way to spend a very cold afternoon.
I appreciate this. I also wonder what it is in us female viewers of these films that keeps us coming back for this story? Because surely we as consumers play a role in shaping and maintaining this narrative? Is it a kind of existential masochism? Is it our envy of accomplished women that leads us to enjoy their “debunking” to justify ourselves in our own torpid avoidance of risk and lack of courage to stick out?
Interesting points!
What a wonderful piece of writing! Brava!
Given the director’s back catalogue, this is as much a Pablo Larrain movie as a Callas ‘biopic’. He has a distinct style, trying to find the soul of iconic women. On the other hand, El Conde, his film about Pinochet, was superb black comedy.
Can’t quite decide whether I should go and see “Maria”. Still recalling the shock on hearing the Angelina Jolie would be playing Maria Callas. I’d be quite interested to have heard Callas’ views on Jolie.
Getting the sense that there’s just too much fake history to make it worth watching. That it will try to take something complex and replace it with a simplistic narrative. There’s more than enough original source material about Maria Callas out there for anyone genuinely interested – an excellent new BBC program called “Maria Callas: The Final Act” and “The Callas Conversations” with Lord Harewood. Go for the original – not the dumbed down Hollywood version.
Some films maybe a labour of love but they are soon corrupted by the men in suits to get bums on seats. But in a world of streaming and multiple platforms, audiences are dwindling and storytelling is dying. The industry is facing its own Sunset Boulevard.
Isn’t this the real motive behind these extended put downs? Female envy. Who goes to see them, men or women?
btw – let’s be real about the actual talent and intelligence possessed by Monroe.
Hollywood abuses its female actors but it also relies on their narcissism. Firstly to accept the Weinstein Faustian pact and then to accept roles abusing former stars. Jolie could have retired quietly with her millions. She chose however to play an icon whose talent dwarfed her own.
Maria Callas’ instinct for publicity and poise exceeded her good but not perfect bel canto voice. By the time she coupled with Onasis her voice was on the way out. Now we have all the science – voice – coaches etc i think voices last longer. So her timing was good. IMO the best person to play Callas would probably be Diamanda Galás – i think she is committed to both her art and her humanism and has amazing pipes. Maybe something in the east Mediterranean gene pool? I very much doubt La Jolie is committed to anything beyond her own image and bank balance. I realise this is anti hollyweird and anti nepotism bias showing through so if Jolie is a decent sort i apologise – but would be happy to bet my initial view is right.