When it comes to small boats, the government is all tough talk and empty promises

Editorial: Ministers’ energies would be better spent on tackling the backlog of 160,000 asylum cases, which has grown exponentially on their watch

Suella Braverman declined to give any detail of the government’s plan to house some asylum seekers on barges or cruise ships (PA)

For someone holding one of the great offices of state, Suella Braverman’s appearances on the Sunday morning TV shows are surprisingly rare. When the home secretary was interviewed by Sky News and the BBC on Sunday, it was easy to understand why this is so.

Ms Braverman is an enthusiastic champion of the right-wing Conservatives who want to see annual net migration to the UK reduced from 504,000 to “tens of thousands”, and who would pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights tomorrow in order to stop it from blocking plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

The problem is that neither of these things is a policy of Rishi Sunak or his government, so he must constantly manage tensions between himself and the person he appointed to the Home Office to shore up his right flank.