This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

Recently, I spotted some graffiti which seemed to sum up what motivates so many in the political class today.

It wasn’t a particularly artistic effort, indeed it was just a handful of words scribbled on a wall, but it’s as powerful as any Banksy. It simply read: “The cruelty is the point.”

Sadism drips through politics at home and abroad, like fat rendering inside a roast. Britain isn’t immune, certainly among our major parties: Labour under Sir Keir Starmer, and the rump monstrosity of the Tories under Kemi Badenoch.

You expect cruelty from Badenoch, she delights in brutish culture wars and the coarse, callous exploitation of others’ suffering.

We shouldn’t be shocked when the same mean spirit oozes from Starmer. Yet for many a vestige of belief remains that Labour is somehow ‘better’ than the Tories.

That notion should have been filed under ‘myth’ decades ago when Tony Blair gleefully helped America butcher Iraq.

Starmer’s Labour showed its true colours – black as night – this week when it began publishing videos of immigration raids.

I’m not here to defend illegal immigration. If you come to this country without good cause, if you aren’t fleeing war or persecution, if you don’t have the right to work here, then you should be removed.

That removal should be........

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