Shabana Mahmood is not messing about. She knows that the job she was handed in September crushes careers. Therefore she intends to take the biggest swing she can at the toughest challenge on her desk as early as possible.

Just 73 days since arriving at the Home Office , she has announced what her department describes as “the biggest change to the asylum system since the Second World War”.

There are several pillars to her plan . But the element raising the most eyebrows is her decision to go into battle on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). While the convention is a totem for many in her party – who will deny that it is a problem of any kind – the Home Secretary has evidently concluded that she cannot get the job done without sorting out its malfunctions.

That particula

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