QUENTIN LETTS: Home Office pair shrivelled as they had been grilled by MPs

Rycroft and Ridley: it might be an ecclesiastical clothes shop’s, or a cheese store in Belgravia. ‘Delicious Stinking Bishop, Petunia.’ ‘Thank you, I sourced it from Rycroft and Ridley.’

In reality Sir Matthew Rycroft is the Home Office‘s everlasting secretary and Simon Ridley its interim second everlasting secretary. For two hours they confronted the Commons house affairs committee. One of the worst massacres I’ve seen.

Sir Matthew, tall and gulpy with Herman Munster’s brow, was mustard on what number of new officers (1000’s) he had recruited up to now disastrous 12 months however he knew markedly much less about immigration particulars. Mr Ridley? Oh pricey. This slender little chap was a gibbering, blinky, vortex of calamities who saved feverishly seeking to his boss for assist whereas strangulated despair gargled up his oesophagus. Mr Ridley was, mainly, Mr Bean.

The Home Office is (mis)dealing with the immigration disaster. Ordure has been geared toward authorities ministers for the stalled Rwanda coverage and different cock-ups. But right here had been the back-room geniuses. The mechanics within the pits. Not that you just’d need these two to alter your wheels. They’d neglect to tighten the nuts.

Tim Loughton (Con, East Worthing & Shoreham) started with ‘congratulations in your knighthood, Sir Matthew’. Rycroft purred. He didn’t discover that Mr Loughton was being ironic.

Sir Matthew Rycroft (proper) is the Home Office’s everlasting secretary and Simon Ridley (left) its interim second everlasting secretary. For two hours they confronted the Commons house affairs committee. One of the worst massacres I’ve seen, writes QUENTIN LETTS

Sir Matthew was tall and gulpy with Herman Munster’s brow, whereas Mr Ridley was, mainly, Mr Bean

The committee sought figures. How many asylum seekers had been being deported? How many had been lacking? How many misplaced migrant youngsters had been discovered? How a lot would Rwanda price ‘per passenger’? Fundamental information for any immigration administrator.

Rycroft and Ridley couldn’t give a single reply. ‘I haven’t got a quantity.’ ‘We’ll have to write down to you with that.’ ‘We do have the knowledge to not hand.’ ‘I counsel I come again to you intimately.’

Sir Matthew went slightly pink however blithely handed the buck. ‘I feel Mr Ridley’s in search of the numbers,’ he murmured. Beside him, Ridley rifled frantically by means of a wad of papers, throwing sheets right here and there whereas making Mr Bean squawks.

Poor Ridley. He licked his lips, rocked in his seat, plunged his palms under the desk prime and clutched his groin, ever glancing at Sir Matthew in hope of salvation. Sir Matthew did not get the place he’s at the moment by leaping to the help of underlings. He gazed forward, chilly as a Raspberry Mivvi.

First time our heroes failed to supply solutions to statistical questions, the MPs accepted it. Second time, just a few eyebrows. Third time, exasperation, with Lee Anderson (Con, Ashfield) muttering that it was ‘staggering’ and Alison Thewlis (SNP, Glasgow Central) saying it was ‘unacceptable’.

Then an explosion. The committee’s Labour chairman, Dame Diana Johnson, informed the grotesque twosome, ‘I’d have thought you’ll have chapter and verse’. Silence. Dame Diana, usually essentially the most affected person of saints, stated it was ‘actually disrespectful to the committee’ the witnesses had been so clueless. Another sticky silence. Dame Diana prompt that 4 younger officers sitting behind the mandarins may dig of their purses for the information required. The officers froze. One of them did later hand Sir Matthew a scruffy piece of paper – may have been a butcher’s invoice – however he didn’t relate its contents. If he’d handed it to Mr Ridley, I dare say he’d have eaten it.

Poor Ridley was now so flustered that one in every of his replies started with the phrase ‘so’ repeated 4 instances. Another began ‘I, I, I, I, I, I, I confess I do not know’. He shrivelled and shrank, a lab specimen of managerial ineptitude.

He began chopping the air with one hand, as if attempting to karate the desk in two. Admissions of inaction crept out of him. One second he did not know a quantity. Five minutes later he did, however denied ever having denied it. Terrified denial of denial. Sir Matthew floor his enamel and dreamed of his knightly pension. The MPs stared in astonishment.

At PMQs half an hour later Rishi Sunak had a distinctly peculiar outing, being skewered as regards to, you guessed it, immigration.