The price of cooking oil has doubled in the UK since the start of the Russian war on Ukraine. Even if it rose by a factor of 1000% percent, the hardships that we might experience would pale into complete insignificance compared to those experienced by the people of Ukraine. We should therefore stop thinking of ourselves and the minor inconveniences that we are experiencing, think instead of the Ukrainians and the horrors being inflicted on them, and do everything in our power to bring this invasion to an end.
And don't even get me started on Priti Patel and her "We won't stand idly by while evil gangs put lives at risk" — she no more cares about "evil gangs" than she cares about the horrors of being deported to Rwanda — all she cares about is ensuring that as few migrants as possible end up in the UK, no matter how evil the régime from which they are fleeing or the horrors which they have already experienced. As the German ambassador said yesterday, Germany takes more refugees in a month than the United Kingdom does in a year.
With the present Government's stated intent to renegue on the Northern Ireland Protocol, with its further intent to deport genuine refugees to Rwanda, with Conservative MPs calling for the UK to withdraw from the ECHR, and with the total failure to take any responsibility for the goings-on at Partygate, I am increasingly ashamed to be British, an emotion that would have been unthinkable for me 20 years ago.