The Herald:

OVER the years I’ve written a number of books, including two ‘horror’ novels, so I’m pretty au fait with tales of villains, wickedness and gothic cruelty. It took me rather by surprise, then, when I realised I couldn’t quite find a character in the annals of dark literature - a mortal character, of course - who’s a fit for the sustained, measured, implacable viciousness of Priti Patel.

I wasn’t looking for axe murderers or cannibals, clearly - rather a relatively ‘normal’ human being who inflicted maximum pain on the maximum number of people, arms-length and at a distance, simply by issuing an order; summoning misery with a wave of their hand.

I was thinking here, obviously, of Patel’s sinister, frankly monstrous, move as Home Secretary to use British boats to force refugees at sea back into French waters, flouting centuries of naval tradition to always rescue those in peril.

Then it came to me - perhaps there was one character in literature almost of match for Patel: Prince Prospero from Edgar Allan Poe’s nightmare fantasy The Masque of the Red Death.

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