UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has purchased two barges to house up to 1,000 migrants as part of his plan to tackle the flood of would-be asylum-seekers crossing the Channel to England.
The search for space for asylum seekers has reached critical proportions, with nearly 3,000 expected to be accommodated by autumn on two military sites.
While many arrivals are taken to hotels, this is costing the state £7 million a day and sometimes results in cancelled weddings and receptions.
Mr Sunak says his plan to stop small boats from crossing is “starting to work” and crossings are down 20% compared to last year.
However, critics have voiced concerns over his Illegal Immigration Bill, which seeks to change the law so that those arriving without permission will be detained and removed either home or a third country such as Rwanda.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, criticised the bill for not addressing the two key causes of international migration: war and climate crisis.
In a speech in the upper house he said: “(The Bill) is isolationist; it is morally unacceptable and politically impractical to let the poorest countries deal with it alone.” In other news, when Tim Piper saw Josh Tongue playing cricket with his dad in their garden at six years old, he reckoned the boy had huge potential.
When Josh was 11 years old in 2009, Tim telephoned bookmakers Coral and placed a £100 bet that the young bowler would one day play Test cricket for England.
He got odds of 500-1 which meant a £50k payout on a 14-year-old bet if Josh ever got a Test cap.
That’s exactly what happened last weekend when fast bowler Tongue played for England for the first time against Ireland.
Finally, an Armenian account of Jesus’s boyhood has been discovered in which Jesus takes boys to the shore “carrying the playing ball and the club”.
It says Jesus “would go over the waves of the sea as if he was playing on a frozen surface, hitting the ball.” The annual Wisden Cricketers Almanac reports this as potentially being the first account of a cricket match.
