To promote his new book, Alastair Campbell appeared this week on Question Time alongside Zia Yusuf. Campbell went on the attack, accusing Yusuf of dishonesty, of failing to apologise, of failing to take accountability. ‘As far as I remember, Alastair,’ Yusuf responded, ‘you were the person who presented a dossier to the British people claiming Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.’

If we expect the descendants of immigrants to walk with their heads bowed for generations, too grateful to have opinions of their own, then we have a pretty poor idea of what immigration and integration can be

If we expect the descendants of immigrants to walk with their heads bowed for generations, too grateful to have opinions of their own, then we have a pretty poor idea of what immigration and integration can be

With parents who came to Britain to work in the NHS – his father was a newly qualified doctor, and became a paediatrician, his mother is a nurse – Yusuf’s origin story would fit well into a progressive morality tale. Less so his career at Goldman Sachs, as an entrepreneur catering to the very wealthy, and as a major donor and now home affairs spokesman at Reform.Is there any inconsistency in being the son of immigrants and believing immigration should be restricted? Probably no more than there is in being a Muslim worried about Muslim fundamentalism.........

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