The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured), has praised the people of Italy for their 'heroic' actions over the migrant crisis

Yesterday the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, praised the people of Italy for their 'heroic' actions over the migrant crisis, promising 'solidarity' and declaring, with a hypocrisy spectacular even by his own standards: 'Viva l'Italia!'

The country famously shaped like a boot could be forgiven for aiming its tip firmly in the direction of this gentleman's nether regions. His, and all the other unelected EU officials who've turned a blind eye to a nation that, because of an accident of geography, is bearing the brunt of the influx of people from Libya and North Africa.

This year alone, 84,000 have landed on Italian soil — up 20 per cent on last year. And it's still only the beginning of July.

In Reggio, 1,500 people arrived over the course of a single weekend — almost 1 per cent of that city's population. Things were so bad, the authorities were forced to put them up in the local A&E hospital.

Can you imagine if this were happening here? There would be outrage. It's testament, then, to the infinite kindness of the Italian people. Yet even their patience is limited. The Italian government has now declared that if something doesn't change soon, they will be forced to close their ports and impound rescue vessels.

This is not a decision anyone would take lightly, but the Italians have no choice. For years, they've been asking for help from Brussels. And for years, their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Yet one of the main justifications for the EU — bandied around at every turn by the Remain camp during the Referendum — is that it acts as a socio-economic unifier for the many disparate countries that fall under its umbrella. That its preservation is a vital safeguard against the divisions that tore Europe apart in the 20th century.

Without it, we are endlessly told, Europe would descend into chaos.

In fact, the opposite is true. It is precisely because of the spectacular incompetence and PC-induced paralysis of Juncker and co. that Italy is now forced to face alone a humanitarian crisis of almost Biblical proportions.

Rescued migrants arrived at Reggio Calabria in Italy on Monday as recent figures show 84,000 migrants have landed on Italian soil this year

Brussels has repeatedly failed to mobilise any sort of united search and rescue operation. It hasn't even been able to stop member states such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic (who are not exactly shy about enjoying their own rights to freedom of movement) from refusing point-blank to take a single migrant. Oh, all right, the Czech Republic has taken 12. Out of more than half a million.

France and Switzerland, too, have turned their faces away from their neighbour, closing their borders to migrants from Italy; and yesterday Austria moved to do the same.

None of which is of any use to poor Italy. Nor will it help alleviate tensions on the ground there. Many in the already-impoverished South are becoming resentful of the newcomers — 70 per cent of whom, as the United Nations admitted this week, are not refugees, but economic migrants.

But Italy, where I spent much of my childhood, is no land of milk and honey today. Calabria, for example, a magnet for the people-smugglers, has the highest youth unemployment in Europe, at 65 per cent. The one thing they really don't need is even more young men hanging around street corners.

Little wonder that every Italian I talk to can speak of nothing else. They feel angry, frustrated, threatened. They see their culture being eroded, their country betrayed by the well-fed suits in Brussels.

Dissatisfaction is spreading, dark forces are on the rise again. And for a country where the memory of Mussolini is never far beneath the surface, this is not a good omen.

Labour MP David Lammy is very upset that a 'white upper middle-class man' (Sir Martin Moore-Bick) has been put in charge of the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry. Odd, since he seems perfectly happy with another white upper middle-class man (Jeremy Corbyn) being in charge of the Labour Party.

I can't stand this fad — led by Rafael Nadal — for male tennis players to strip off and hurl sweat-soaked garments at the crowd. This is Wimbledon, not a Justin Bieber concert.

Speaking of standards, I admire Andy Murray greatly but I find him very hard to watch on account of his unattractive habit of making really quite vulgar gestures whenever he scores a point. There's just something faintly off-putting about a man who has to fist-pump his way through every ball.

I can't stand this fad — led by Rafael Nadal (pictured) — for male tennis players to strip off and hurl sweat-soaked garments at the crowd

There's public sector pay and public sector pay. For example, as a taxpayer, I do not want to have to fork out £60,000 a year for a Pelvic Floor Coordinator, or similar. But I would like the nurses at my local A&E to be able to afford decent living accommodation.

So what I can't understand is why the 1 per cent pay rise cap for public sector workers has to be across the board? Why can't it be lifted for frontline staff only — and the money end up where the public really wants it, ie, in the pockets of those who most deserve it?

Or am I being hopelessly naive?

Denying children a gender is just cruel

As far as I'm concerned, once you're an adult you can do what you like with your body. Dye your hair green, cover yourself in tattoos, stick a ring through your nose and declare yourself a transgender alien. The choice is yours. What you cannot do, however, is impose your choices on others. Especially children.

This week, an eight-month-old Canadian became the first person to be registered 'gender unknown' on its health card. According to the parent — a non-binary trans person called Kori Doty — this is because they are going to wait until the infant has developed the 'sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are'.

Tip: check their nappy. Seriously, though, how could anyone be so selfish — not to mention stupid — as to think this a good idea.

This week, an eight-month-old Canadian became the first person to be registered 'gender unknown' on its health card

Small children don't like choices: they thrive on certainty. Dare I say it, binary concepts: good, bad, big, small, happy, sad. Boy, girl. Simple, clear ideas that make them feel safe in a scary world.

If you cannot understand this, then you're probably not ready to be a parent.

What makes this situation even more heartbreaking is that in claiming to offer a life 'outside of the restrictions that come with the boy box and the girl box', this parent is not 'liberating' their child but simply subjecting it to an equally oppressive — albeit cranky — set of restrictions. Namely, theirs.

Loathsome Love Island

If you want to know what the legacy of a decade of internet porn looks like, tune into ITV2's Love Island.

It's all there, from the hairless bodies (both male and female), to the surgically enhanced lips and chests, to the way that sex is viewed as just another bodily function, less to do with human emotions than a perennial need to satisfy a hunger for physical gratification.

No wonder it pulls in two million viewers nightly. But it's not clever or post-modern, as some critics claim. It's just porn dressed up as light entertainment.

Beckham says it's fatherly affection. Critics say it's 'weird'. But there's nothing weird about David kissing five-year-old Harper on the lips: all parents do that. What is weird is posting the picture on Instagram. Not every family moment has to be a shameless opportunity for self-promotion you know.

There's nothing weird about David kissing five-year-old Harper on the lips: all parents do that. What is weird is posting the picture on Instagram (pictured)

Vogue's (sacked) voice of sense

Hell hath no fury like a fashion editor scorned, as this week's revelations from Lucinda Chambers, legendary fashion director of British Vogue, prove.

Having fallen foul of the new editor, Edward Enninful (who apparently is on a mission to purge it of all 'posh girls', even though, I would have thought, they're the only ones who can afford to work for pins), she launched a withering attack on the magazine.

'In fashion, we are always trying to make people buy something they don't need,' she said, before confessing that she hasn't read Vogue in years. Finally! Someone brave enough to tell the truth about this horrible, soul-sapping industry that turns models into anorexic zombies and makes fools of us all.

Lucinda, I salute you.