It was only today that I learned that there is a restaurant in London’s Camden Market called Shaka Zulu. This is supposed to be Black History Month – is there a White, Brown or Yellow History Month I wonder – so how on earth does this supposedly tolerant society allow a major London restaurant – and the prices look horrific – to be named after a man who killed over two million of his fellow black people – many of them in particularly horrific ways.

We hear a great deal from the chattering classes about the evils perpetrated by colonialism, but the colonial powers between them did not murder two million people over the couple of hundred years that they ruled. Shaka (he was actually Tshaka) managed it in less than ten years and was only stopped when his brother Dingaan plunged a knife into him.

If a restaurant or any other public establishment were named after Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan or Attilla the Hun there would be public uproar, yet the Shaka Zulu eatery has been in business for ten years even though they seem to have received very mixed reviews from their patrons.

Truly this world is losing its marbles!

When she took office nearly a year ago, I was very impressed with Priti Patel. She talked tough and promised to sort out the immigration debacle, put more police on the streets and be hard on crime and criminals.

As yet, we seem to have had nothing but this tough talk and I couldn’t help a somewhat wry smile when I read about the latest farcical incident with illegal immigrants to this country.

It seems that four suspected illegal immigrants were detained at Dover, having stowed away in the back of a lorry. The men, two Bangladeshis, an Indian and an Egyptian were taken into custody and the driver has been sent for trial.

At last it seemed that Priti was living up to her rhetoric and getting tough, but – and it really is a very big ‘BUT’ – the four miscreants were not arriving at Dover, they were attempting to leave the country! Having read this, I was not sure whether to laugh or cry.

A spokesman for the National Crime Agency proudly told reporters, ‘Four individuals have been prevented from making what was undoubtedly a hazardous journey.’ 

What was this turnip talking about? They were inside a lorry about to board a ferry for God’s sake. What is hazardous about that? It’s not as if they were casting off from the beach in a children’s paddling pool or even a leaky dinghy damnit.

The authorities should have bid them a fond farewell and forgotten them. You can bet your winter bed socks that if the French discovered a gang of illegals trying to leave their shores, they would give them a police escort, and wave fond farewell, from the quayside. 

Just look at the way the French Navy has been shepherding dinghies full of migrants into British territorial waters in recent weeks. I can only wonder what our tough-talking Home Secretary makes of this boldly humanitarian and downright ridiculous intervention by the National Crime Agency. 

She has just pledged a major shake-up of asylum laws to fix Britain’s ‘fundamentally broken system’ and has promised to take all steps necessary to tackle human trafficking, despite opposition from Labour, do-gooders and Leftie lawyers. 

She could start by turning her attention to the activities of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, run by entrepreneur, Armarpal Singh Gupta who has been called Britain’s legal aid king and has pocketed fifty five million pounds of tax payers’ cash over the past three years. Yes, you read that correctly – fifty five million of our pounds in three years! 

Most of their work concerns immigration cases and staff from Duncan Lewis have even been travelling to Calais to as they put it, ‘gain an understanding of the conditions asylum seekers are residing in.’ You can bet your life they are drumming up more and more business rather than gaining any understanding of anything.

The company said it had been invited to visit the migrant camps by aid charities. Sources say Gupta’s lawyers work with go-betweens who refer migrants to the company once they make it to Britain. Duncan Lewis has also been involved in a number of recent cases brought to frustrate Home Office efforts to deport asylum seekers who have crossed from France in dinghies. 

This might be vaguely legal but it surely has to be completely unethical. In fact there are recognisable similarities between this firm and that of Phil Shiner the celebrity human rights lawyer – now disbarred – who made a fortune from legal aid by pursuing British soldiers over ‘war crimes’ in Iraq. 

I am sure that most of the British public are solidly behind Ms Patel as she attempts to tackle the migration crisis. The government she represents has a clear public mandate to take back control, not just with the Brexit result but also the eighty seat majority handed to the Tories at the last election. 

The problem she faces is that there are too many vested interests ranged against her, both political and financial. Under New Labour, the legal establishment was taken over and abused by the Left. The Blair creature even boasted that the incorporation of European human rights legislation into British law was the proudest achievement of his entire career but what on earth was he on about? He would have been far more justified in admitting that it was a terrible mistake and apologising to the Nation.

Those of us who warned at the time that it would prove a get-out-of-jail free ticket for everyone from illegal immigrants to criminals, and a goldmine for lawyers, have been proved correct time and time again and the worst thing about it is that we are forced to pay for all this politically motivated legal activism, whether we like it or not. 

Let’s go back to Duncan Lewis for a moment. Their more choice clients include an HIV-positive Zimbabwean rapist who was convicted in 2009 of attacking a woman in her own home and has been resisting – so far successfully – all attempts to deport him. 

How much has that cost us over the past eleven years, I wonder. The ‘rights’ of foreign nationals, however debased they are, have been and are being constantly elevated above the interests of the British people. Let’s face it, Immigration cases are among the most profitable sources of income for Left-wing law firms. These shysters can drag out cases for years, secure in the knowledge that their bills will be picked up by the taxpayer and they can usually rely on a judge to grant their injunctions against deportation when all other avenues have been exhausted. 

Last week, for instance, a plane chartered to remove thirty illegal migrants from Britain departed with just one of them on board after a last-minute plea to the courts blocked the expulsion of the other twenty nine. 

I think Priti P means well and she certainly talks a good game, but until Britain withdraws from the awful European human rights racket, this country will remain a soft touch for illegal immigrants and assorted asylum seekers from all over the world. 

Left-wing lawyers aren’t the only ones making a killing, either. Plenty of unscrupulous businesses are happy to exploit cheap foreign labour, no questions asked. Hoteliers have turned their establishments into immigration hostels, knowing that they have a guaranteed source of income – even during the recent lockdown, which has bankrupted many in the hospitality sector. 

Clearsprings Ready Homes, based in Essex is being paid £1.1billion by the Government to house migrants across Wales and the South of England. It has provided accommodation and transport for most of those who have arrived this year by dinghy from Calais. 

A taxi firm called Evo was awarded a contract worth £1.7million over two years to ferry asylum seekers around the country, picking them up from Gatwick Airport and Dover. Some individual journeys have clocked up bills running into hundreds of pounds. Last weekend a newspaper carried a picture of migrants in face masks being chauffeur-driven in an eight seater people carrier. 

We should be trying to deter migrants, particularly at the moment but why wouldn’t they want to come here? They are guaranteed to be lavished with legal aid, free accommodation, free health care and generous benefits. 

Their chances of being deported range from minimal to none at all and in the unlikely event of them ever wanting to leave, the Home Office will send in the National Crime Agency to stop them. 

It seems that you can paddle across the Channel any time you like, but you can never leave these shores