Nigel Farage has promised the mass deportation of asylum seekers who arrive in Britain on small boats and vowed to extract the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights and scrap the Human Rights Act. The Reform UK leader says he would also suspend the Refugee Convention and “any other barriers” to deportation to urgently allay public fears, adding: “We are not very far away from major civil disorder.” Donald Trump says he is firing Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, says the FT, in a “stunning escalation” of the US president’s attacks on the central bank. The senior economist says the US president has “no authority” to dismiss her and that she will not resign. Transport for London is launching a campaign targeting “headphone dodgers” – passengers who play music or videos out loud. New posters will appear on the Elizabeth line this week, and elsewhere in the autumn, reminding these terrible travellers to “be considerate” and plug in.

The new caste system dividing the West

A strange version of the caste system has emerged in the West, says Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times. Watching coverage of the asylum hotel protests last week, I was struck by how “repulsed” a highly educated, middle-class interviewer appeared while talking to a working-class mother holding a placard that said: “Not far right, just a concerned mum”. It reminded me of how the Brahmins in my father’s native Pakistan flinch when they pass an “untouchable” Dalit. Here, it’s not a horror at the working class per se, but what liberals see as their “primitive and bigoted” world view. You hear it when James O’Brien sneers at a working-class caller on his radio show who advocates deporting asylum seekers and when views held by most British people are labelled “far right” – making them seem “impure, even untouchable”.

Part of the reason for the rise in populism is that huge sections of Western society feel like untouchables in their own nations. “Hillbillies”, “deplorables”, “white working classes”: these have become the new Dalits. Think of how “Brahminic” leaders like Nicola Sturgeon, Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern won acclaim for prioritising “hyperliberal obsessions” above the material needs of their voters. “Blue Labour” bigwig Maurice Glasman said recently that the elite had created a “hostile environment for working-class people” by branding them bigoted for thinking “completely normal things”. What’s striking is that ordinary people are kicking back – refusing to be called “far right” for believing national borders matter, love of nation is natural, illegal immigrants should be deported, and Western history is “broadly admirable”. As many well-integrated immigrants – like my late father – would agree, that’s just “patriotic common sense”.