Something Chris Tilley, from the Small Boats Operational Command, said to me earlier this year really has hit home in recent weeks.

“With successive fatalities, it becomes more of an accepted risk.”

In the wake of the disaster where 27 people died attempting to cross the Channel in November 2021, the smugglers stopped all crossings in what appeared to be some kind of sick introspection.

Now, when a boat sinks, it doesn’t change anything. The next boat is already being loaded and people are being moved to hiding places in the sand dunes along the northern coast of France.

The risk calculus the smugglers use has changed. They are numb to the deaths in the Channel and are using this ruthlessness to seek more profits.

How they are numb to the deaths of children is monstrous.

The statistics themselves are horrific reading. Since the start of September, at least eight children are known to have died.

And the details don’t bear thinking about. A two-year-old boy was “trampled” to death.

Mr Tilley also told me he fears the public are no longer shocked by tragedies in the Channel.

But we should be shocked.

And we should be angry.

Not only are there quite rightly huge security concerns about tens of thousands of undocumented people arriving in Britain, there are also growing fears that this crisis will only get worse.

The boats are getting flimsier. This is because the smugglers are importing made-to-order dinghies from China.

To illustrate the point, a source in Border Force told me many of the boats are made using the same material as a child’s bouncy castle.

They are then glued together to a piece of plywood and powered by an engine that wouldn’t pass any kind of safety test in the Western world.

So, Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly, speaking to the Express on Friday, are right.

It is a “national emergency”. And the “status quo” is not acceptable.

The smugglers must be hunted down and arrested.

Their access to illicit finance networks must be severed and the kingpins must be arrested, whether they are in France, the UK or in Iraq.

Sir Keir Starmer, within hours of winning the election, cancelled the Rwanda scheme, removing the only deterrence to cross the Channel.

With crossings up, and the death toll up, the Prime Minister will face more questions about whether this was the correct decision.

And the UK is beginning to look like a huge outlier as other European countries are now seeking Rwanda-style “return hubs” to act as a deterrent to migrants hoping to reach the continent.

So, we, the British public, have a duty to demand that our politicians never become blasé to the misery in the Channel.

And we have a duty to keep the pressure on for them to produce results.

They must end this crisis as soon as possible, by creating a deterrent and snaring the smugglers.

The blame game must stop. Responsibility must be taken, and leadership shown.

Or more people will die.