AFTER a delusionally confident matinee unveiling by Home Secretary Priti Patel the reviews are in... and no performance has enjoyed such a drubbing since the opening night of Cats.

"Cloud cuckoo land" - the care sector

"Blissfully naive" - the hotel sector

"Deeply concerning" - the meat industry

"Catastrophic" - the seafood industry

"The NHS will be at risk" - the GMB

The only element of the government's proposed new points-based immigration policy that we can safely give five stars is the level of ubiquity of dismay. Quite the billboard so far. Ms Patel might like to take her name out of lights.

While there is nigh-on universal condemnation for the Tory plans to pull up the drawbridge against the advancing hordes of people planning to make themselves of use to dozens of vital industries, there can be no shock.

This is not a government attempting to hide its right wing, xenophobic tendencies. This is a government of Little Britain, a bullishly out of touch assortment of the dim, determined to play to the peanut gallery.

All the country's a stage and all the men and women in it are having their entrances and exits controlled by a woman who seems to have no insight whatsoever into the far reaching impact of her policies.

Creating a system that will enshrine classism, by only allowing in the well off, and racism, by preferring majority white, English-speaking countries, seems an attempt to play to a crowd whose tastes should not be indulged.

It has oft been pointed out that Ms Patel's own parents would not have been able to come to Britain had her proposals been in place at the time of their journey here from Uganda. Of course, it is not her remit to design policies sympathetic to her own immigration history; it is her remit to create policies in which the public can trust, that manage immigration in a way that is best for the country.

One would, though, assume an immigrant past would give the Home Secretary a greater insight into the issues, an insight that seems frighteningly lacking.

Boris Johnson last year said the government's new immigration policies would put "people over passports", an attempt to make the system seem based on human qualities such as empathy and sensible qualities such as economic necessity.

This semantic tap dance was a dual attempt to, on one hand, appear reasonable to the people who appreciate the country needs a wide variety of immigrants in order to function while, on the other, appearing hardline to those who believe immigrants are stealing British jobs and would like them all to go home.

The government's plan seems to be pinned on the notion that EU freedom of movement has created a scenario where too many people are chasing too few jobs - a bogeyman notion oft repeated by Brexiteers.

This, though, overlooks the changing demographic of the UK, in particular Scotland where the native death rate outstrips the birth rate. The country is ageing, placing demands on health and social care that need migrant workers in order to alleviate that pressure.

Ms Patel also suggests automation as a means of plugging the skills gap. Are we so keen to keep the foreigners out that we want to replace man with machine? And can we? It seems unlikely, certainly according to Stephen Leckie, the chairman of the Crieff Hydro chain of hotels.

"Throttling the goose which lays the golden egg," were the stark words Mr Leckie used to describe the proposed changes to immigration policy.

"I would like to say, 'Show me a robot which can make a smoked salmon sandwich,'" he said, "Or a G&T."

This current lot are making cabinet membership look like the most unskilled job in the country. Show me a robot that might devise workable, humane policies and I'll happily vote for them.

The Tories have made the grave mistake of conflating low pay with low skill. Staff in care homes mix clinical and academic skills with empathy - they earn low wages, they are not unskilled.

Yet the proposals will make it much harder, if not impossible, for care staff to enter the country. There is no route to entry for the self-employed, meaning a drop in, say, Polish builders at a time when the government is promising one million homes to be built in the next five years.

As a pay-off for damaging industries vastly propped up by a migrant workforce, Ms Patal is suggesting that workers will be spoiled with increased salaries.

Large employers can comfortably pay minimum wage because workers have limited alternative options. Supermarkets and hotel chains will not suddenly be forced to compete for staff by offering increased hourly rates because, where employers are few, they will still hold the power.

Ms Patel's grand plan is that companies will train more British workers to fill vacancies left by foreign workers. Eight million people, she said, between the ages of 16 and 64 are "economically inactive". Some of these lazy sods are school pupils, students, carers and the retired.

Let's bet that when those in their later years voted for Brexit they weren't doing so under the expectation that they would be cutting short their cruise ship time to return to work as a housekeeper in a Highland hotel.

Britain is at almost full employment and these proposed new rules will hurt Scotland in particular, due to the reliance on migrant populations to increase our overall population.

Native Scots will need to start reproducing apace to make up the numbers. At least this is one issue on which the Prime Minister leads by example.

The government is putting on a show for a demographic of voters who care more about muddled ideologies than they do economic realities.

This proposed policy is a song and dance number without rhyme and certainly without reason.

We audience members can only hope that these uncoordinated, talentless routines are leading closer and closer to a grand finale and curtain down on this Tory troupe.