So, first, the Tories are circulating a document instructing their MPs etc, to blame Europe for everything (surprise!). This is before Europe has had a chance to look at the “plan”.
Then we discover that the plan pivots upon being approved by an assembly which has not sat for 3 years, during which time the gap between the two sides has grown wider.
But still, Brussels isn’t giving up.
Even if I have.
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It seems that Good Morning Britain deleted this tweet very rapidly after putting it up… but on the internet, there’s always someone who’s kept it for sentimental reasons, or something! Stuff on the net never really goes away, eh Piers?
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Boris, seemingly determined to make Hunt prime minister, has appointed none other than Ross Thomson to be his campaign manager in Scotland and his advisor on Scotland and Scottish affairs. Presumably Ross will be hoping to take over from Fluffs as the McTea boy in chief at Downing Street.
But given that Boris has to get there first, he might have been advised to choose someone who knew just a little about Scotland or was at least slightly in touch with the country, as his advisor.
Ross is telling anyone who will listen that Boris is the prime minister to put the fear of whatever into Nicola Sturgeon. (You may remember that, yesterday, it was Hunt that was saying that distinction fell to him!)
So, as we said yesterday… just two words on that. “Jim” and “Murphy”!
I’d also point wee Rossy in the direction of material that suggests a somewhat different or contrary conclusion.
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I bet the 2-3% of people who pushed the “leave” vote over the line in England and Wales weren’t as aware as they might have been that companies would go bust and jobs would be lost as a direct result of their choice.
I suspect that many were simply rejoicing at £350 million a week for the NHS and getting rid of foreigners from their care homes and farms and shops and factories leaving lots of jobs for “hard-working decent British families up and down the country”, as they are wont to say.
It’s such a pity that the Leave Campaign wasn’t as honest as it might have been.
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There may be little point in electing Boris as prime minister. His own side has threatened to bring him down and start the process all over again if he tries to take the UK out of the EU without a deal.
The problem is that Hunt has more or less made the same promise (see above). Leave on October 31, come what may.
So whoever is the next prime minister may find himself in the records for all the wrong reasons and beat George Canning as the shortest ever serving PM (119 days). At least Canning had had a relatively distinguished career before that.
But, can you just imagine a second contest within a couple of weeks? Quite apart from the laughing stock that the UK would be around the world (about which I care little), we’d be obliged to suffer Leadsom and McVey and the wee goblin Gove, appearing on tv, radio and social media all over again.
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The Tories happily cut £30 a week from the Disability Benefits, pathetically small though they are. So, people who really needed the money were £30 a week worse off. That’s £1560 a year worse off.
Why then, are they making a huge fuss about folk in Scotland who earn well above the average wage paying a few pence more a week in tax so that everyone (including the rich) can keep enjoying free tertiary education, free bridge crossings, free care for the elderly, free buses, free parking at all but two of Scotland’s hospitals, lower council tax, etc…?
Seriously, what is it with the Tories that they believe that rich people mustn’t be disadvantaged in any way, but the poor can go take a flying…run and jump?
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Gut Verhofstadt is working to see if there is a way that people who are currently EU citizens, with the privileges that bring (free movement, EU passport, EU driving licence, etc) may be able to continue to be citizens if they wish to be after Brexit. I’m up for that even if there is a cost.
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So, you could have someone with an extremely complex condition; one which would tax a specialist in the discipline to properly assess, and they are assessed by a paramedic or a physiotherapist?
No wonder the system doesn’t work and vast numbers of decisions are overturned on appeal, at VAST cost, when the case is heard by a judge (who has no targets).
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I hear today that Mr Farage is 53, separated and broke.
So, he’s on £70,000 a year as an MEP [plus expenses]; then he has a radio show on LBC, who knows what he gets paid for that. He gets a lot of gigs from the BBC too. He owns a £4 million house in London and has a generous pension lined up for when he leaves the EU parliament in a year’s time.
How broke exactly is that?
Anyway, when poor people complain that they are hard up, it isn’t unusual to hear someone reply that they seem to be able to afford to smoke and drink. So I’d suggest to Mr Farage: Stop the fags and booze. Not only will you be a bit better off, but maybe you’ll start looking your age, instead of a good ten years older.
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Mrs Thatcher was a fan of the single market apparently, according to a tweet today from Guy Verhofstadt as he settled into the ‘Salle Margaret Thatcher’ for a Brexit steering group meeting. He cited this quote for evidence:
Even Mrs Thatcher with her known dislike of all “foreigners” (except Americans, whom I imagine she considered to be honorary Englishmen) could see that the European market was a jewel. It’s well over 300 million now (510 million). How mad must the great dictator be to want us to be out of it?
Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot… that mad!
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