Truss And Sunak's Silence On Migrant Crisis Is Baffling

'On so many levels, the Channel shambles is a disaster for Britain'

- Leo McKinstry

The story leadership contest is reaching a new intensity. As ballot papers go out this week to party members, frontrunner Liz Truss and her faltering rival Rishi Sunak are filling the airwaves with a barrage of new policy announcements, covering everything from pay rates to planning.

But amid this relentless bombardment, there has been one strange absence. So frenetic elsewhere, the two candidates have said almost nothing about immigration, one of the most controversial issues facing our country. Indeed, opinion polls show Tory supporters regard this as the second most important subject after the economy.

What makes the candidates' silence all the more bizarre is that a policy of strong borders should be natural territory for them. After all it was a Tory government that presided over Brexit, whose central theme was the need to "take back control" of our own national jurisdiction, including our borders.