Keir Starmer is a fool. But his mistake has been taking the British public for fools – especially over immigration. This week, we found out the real cost of housing immigrants – not from Yvette Cooper or our PM, but from the National Audit Office, which says housing immigrants now costs £4million a DAY – that’s THREE times more than our useless Home Office predicted. This is the same Home Office that 20 years ago was damned as unfit for purpose.

Two decades on, it has distinguished itself by reaching unprecedented levels of incompetence. What else can explain the prediction that, by 2029, the migrants housing bill would be £4.5billion, when the reality is it will be £15.3billion? But actually, it will be way more than that. The numbers coming in small boats under Labour are breaking records by the day – 11,000 so far this year with 140,000 since 2019. So have this useless bunch of civil servants been lying to us?

Or are they just so thick they can’t add up? And how has this wanton profligacy with our money been allowed to happen?

Because on top of that £15.3billion, there’s the £1billion a year we pay migrants in benefits – and God knows how much more for health services and education.

According to Reeves and Starmer, there’s not enough cash for pensioners’ winter fuel payments, for disabled benefits, or to support business – but there’s billions in reserve for illegal migrants who have done nothing for this country and probably never will.

Labour also vowed to end the use of migrant hotels – but the number in Home Office accommodation has rocketed by 134%, including 38,000 people in hotels.

Now they’re commandeering rented accommodation – taking it from Brits who need it – and giving it to illegals.

But last week this Government, which has repeatedly ignored people’s valid immigration fears, paid the price when Reform stormed to victory in Runcorn and Helsby and took hundreds of council seats.

Now Starmer and Cooper are running around like headless chickens trying to throw angry Brits some placatory scraps, saying anyone coming to work in the UK will have to understand English to A-level standard or they won’t be allowed to stay.

Which is a lie, because if you read the small print, migrants will have FIVE years to learn English, and are we seriously expected to believe if they haven’t, they’ll be thrown out?

The Government is also saying judges will now be instructed to ignore the farcical pleas from criminals and paedos we want deported – paedos who whine it’ll be harsh on THEIR kids if they’re sent away, criminals who say they must stay here because their kids hate foreign chicken nuggets, others who have to stay because their child might be trans or their cat might be sick.

These people, through their activist lawyers, have been abusing and exploiting Article 8 of the ECHR for years.

Now Starmer says he wants to stop it. He won’t. Fact. Judges were told exactly the same thing back in 2012 when Theresa May was PM. They ignored her.

Just recently, after a spate of ludicrous decisions, Baroness Carr said criticism of immigration rulings was disrespectful to them. What, so judges are gods who can’t be criticised?

And does Baroness Carr mean those judges who are known activists, some of whom work on panels advising illegal immigrants how to get here? The truth is Labour isn’t interested in curbing immigration.

If Starmer really wanted to, he could do it in a heartbeat. First, reinstate the Tory plan to immediately deport anyone who comes here illegally.

Second, stop housing migrants in four-star hotels and rented accommodation and build massive detention centres away from towns and cities.

Third, reinstate a Rwanda-type plan where migrants are processed offshore – as many EU countries are now doing. Fourth, copy Germany – turn away all undocumented migrants unless it’s crystal clear they are genuine refugees. Any one of those things would have a massive effect on the numbers.

But Starmer won’t do any of them. He doesn’t have the guts or the will!