My simple mission? To revive the 'greatest country in the world'

KATIE LAM'S family have known Britain at its best and seen the world at its worst.

- 

Her great-greatgrandfather fled the Nazis and made his home in England with his family. Thirty-fouryear-old Ms Lam is now on a mission to revive what she calls the "greatest country in the world".

If there is a British answer to the American dream, she has lived it. She was head girl at the Guildford comprehensive school eight houses down the road from her own home; she won a place at Cambridge, where she was elected president of the union and she chaired the university's Conservative Association.

Ms Lam rose through the ranks at Goldman Sachs, but also found time to co-create musicals and cabaret shows which have been performed at venues including New York's legendary Studio 54.

She worked for Boris Johnson in Downing Street and sought to thwart terrorists and gangsters while at the Home Office. Then last year she entered the Commons as the MP for the newly created Weald of Kent.

She won attention with her passionate calls for justice for the victims of grooming gangs - and today she identifies two key threats to Britain's future.

The first is the economy. When it comes to making Britons wealthier, she says "we've made no progress in my adult life".

And, secondly, she argues the "fudge" of attempting to counter economic stagnation by embracing mass immigration must stop.

If this continues, she warns, "there'll be even fewer places to live relative to how many people there are. It'll be even harder to get a GP appointment.

"But also, I think it has really serious implications for our society and our culture because there's no way you can integrate and assimilate that volume of people over that period of time. It just can't be done."