Seeing a little child in a babygrow at the weekend being hauled by its arms aboard a migrant dinghy by burly men, and a young woman in a hijab waiting as she held two toddlers in lifejackets in the sea off northern France, left me wondering whether people-trafficking villains are now cynically using mothers and babies as a form of human shield to guarantee the lucrative boats make it to our shores.

Shockingly, there were also scores of women, babies and toddlers among the record 260 migrants aboard a 49ft inflatable mega-dinghy that landed on UK shores yesterday.

That dinghy was carrying more than a Boeing 737’s passenger load. Its crossing will have netted the traffickers a staggering £450,000 in profit – and will cost us taxpayers an estimated £25million in accommodation, legal and other costs now the migrants are here.

Surely the traffickers have worked out that mums and kids will have eased the passage of their boats.

After all, who would prevent a mother and her child being helped from rough waters in France into the safety of a dinghy? The smugglers are playing on liberal heartstrings by taking mothers and children as passengers. In doing so, they’ll make it even less likely that boats are turned back as they attempt to cross the Channel

It looks to me like a new sinister ploy by the cruel people-trafficking gangs against which Andy Burnham has vowed a ‘relentless’ fight.

Doesn’t look that ‘relentless’ right now, does it Andy?

As Nigel Farage pointed out yesterday, you just need to do the maths.

If four super-boats arrived each day, that would be 1,000 young illegals pitching up on our shores every 24 hours. And, with calm August weather ahead, many more are expected to come

The huge dinghy carrying 230 migrants which left France on Sunday night and arrived in the UK in the early hours of yesterday

We can't rely on the French border police, writes Amanda Platell. They just stand on the beaches watching the boats depart

We clearly can’t rely on the French border police. They just stand on the beaches watching the boats depart, despite the fact that earlier this year the UK agreed to pay the French £662million over three years to help tackle the problem – a new funding package on top of the £476million we’ve already handed over.

The French are pocketing our millions and laughing in our faces

Meanwhile the PM is touring the UK, visiting pubs and care homes and steelworks in a ‘listening’ exercise, talking to ordinary folk about the cost of living and how he can put more money in their pockets.

You’d have thought that, having plotted the political assassination of Keir Starmer and having been in politics as a mayor, an MP and a member of the Cabinet for decades before becoming PM, Andy would be a bit further ahead with ideas on how to deal with one of the most pressing problems of our time: illegal migration

You’d have thought he might be aware that the people traffickers will do anything they can to get their boats to the UK, even if it means using mums, babies and toddlers.

Andy would do well to remember that illegal migration was one of the issues that helped sink his former boss Gordon Brown’s government in 2010, with pictures daily on front pages of healthy young men arriving in Britain, just like today, then fast-tracked into asylum-seeker accommodation paid for by you and me.

Why hasn’t ‘listening’ Andy included on his schedule a visit to the market town of Thetford, Norfolk, where last week around 100 people protested – sadly, some violently – against plans for a former military base to take 1,250 male migrants?

As Andy Burnham embarks on his UK tour today, he would do well to remember that illegal migration was one of the issues that sank his former boss Gordon Brown’s government in 2010

Thetford ranks within the top 10 per cent most deprived neighbourhoods in England, with a population of just 25,000.

Is Andy listening to the outrage felt over the the sight of seven migrants among 800 housed and fed in nearby Braintree, Essex, in a former RAF base – where there are plans to increase numbers to more than 1,200 – all of them allegedly dressed in designer gear, disembarking from a people carrier?

Paid for by us, they can reportedly take part in art therapy, museum trips, cricket and chess and dance classes, as the town simmers with indignation and fury over their kid-gloves treatment.

Andy has lost the plot if he thinks downing a pint in the local or hugging a granny in a care home or talking tough on vape shops is going to secure his tenure in No10 when the annual cost of illegal migration into this country is between £3billion and £5billion and rising.

Around 10,000 readers have already commented in despair on the Mail about the infant and the mother and toddler pictures and about the people traffickers’ new super dinghies.

I couldn’t read all the comments, but one summed up the general view: ‘All [the illegal migrants are] by now settling in to their air-conditioned hotels, and texting their friends .......... IT’S TRUE...... EVERYTHING REALLY IS TOTALLY FREE.’

There is a storm brewing Andy, and there will be many more dirty tricks from the people traffickers as they protect their very lucrative trade.

None of which you look as if you even begin to understand.