The Telegraph is getting itself worked up into a muck sweat, no doubt reflecting its readership which is made up largely of retired, simple-minded xenophobes. Saturday's edition was, for a remainer like me, a delight to read. Most of the stuff is behind a paywall and since I would rather lower myself into a bath of boiling hot sulphuric acid than pay a subscription, I can't provide links. But I can give you a flavour.
The lead front page story was about Mrs May being "Told to quit if she loses the vote" and this from unnamed cabinet ministers who have apparently told the PM that she must get better terms or go. It's always the unnamed ones isn't it? The Conservative party is in for a bit of blood letting shortly.
Inside, on the letters page is one from a Mr Tim Morris, CEO of a trade association called UK Major Ports Group, who writes that:
"The UK's port sector is resilient, adaptable and highly competitive". He says "most major UK ports already have the capacity to handle large volumes of both EU and non EU trade without 'logjam'".
He excludes Dover which he says faces a 'unique combination of Brexit risk factors' and handles just 6% of UK port volumes. Note the 6% is by volume, not value. Dover District Council (DDC) prepared a report HERE which says Dover handles one sixth (about 16%) of UK trade, presumably by value and equal to £113 billion a year. At present 99% of trucks are intra-EU and not checked, which will ALL become extra-EU after Brexit - and subject to border checks. DDC were desperately worried about all sorts of things in the lengthy report.
But from this single letter, The Telegraph concoct another front page story with the headline: 'Warnings of no deal ports chaos are misleading' which opens by saying this comes from a senior representative of the industry - in other words Mr Morris. His short letter is used to more or less rubbish everything in the DDC report. Not until much later does it mention Dover's 'unique' circumstances and it never really makes clear that there is nowhere near enough free short-term capacity in container shipping to replace 10,000 trucks per day passing through Dover even assuming exporters and importers could switch to ISO containers quickly and there was enough suitable trucks to handle them.
The lead front page story was about Mrs May being "Told to quit if she loses the vote" and this from unnamed cabinet ministers who have apparently told the PM that she must get better terms or go. It's always the unnamed ones isn't it? The Conservative party is in for a bit of blood letting shortly.
Inside, on the letters page is one from a Mr Tim Morris, CEO of a trade association called UK Major Ports Group, who writes that:
"The UK's port sector is resilient, adaptable and highly competitive". He says "most major UK ports already have the capacity to handle large volumes of both EU and non EU trade without 'logjam'".
He excludes Dover which he says faces a 'unique combination of Brexit risk factors' and handles just 6% of UK port volumes. Note the 6% is by volume, not value. Dover District Council (DDC) prepared a report HERE which says Dover handles one sixth (about 16%) of UK trade, presumably by value and equal to £113 billion a year. At present 99% of trucks are intra-EU and not checked, which will ALL become extra-EU after Brexit - and subject to border checks. DDC were desperately worried about all sorts of things in the lengthy report.
But from this single letter, The Telegraph concoct another front page story with the headline: 'Warnings of no deal ports chaos are misleading' which opens by saying this comes from a senior representative of the industry - in other words Mr Morris. His short letter is used to more or less rubbish everything in the DDC report. Not until much later does it mention Dover's 'unique' circumstances and it never really makes clear that there is nowhere near enough free short-term capacity in container shipping to replace 10,000 trucks per day passing through Dover even assuming exporters and importers could switch to ISO containers quickly and there was enough suitable trucks to handle them.
And bizzarely, in the same edition is another story: 'Major ports could suffer disruption for up to six months under a no-deal scenario, the Government has told industry leaders' - Revised Brexit assessments published on Friday warned that access through Dover and Folkestone could be reduced for significantly longer than first feared".
But Government warnings like this are nothing compared to The Telegraph's letter page, eh?
Inside, Camilla Tominey, a bit of a harridan who appears on various political TV shows and is described as an Associate Editor, has a longish piece giving nine scenarios if (when!) Mrs May loses the vote on Tuesday. She goes through some options, one of which is the PM trying for a second attempt after some last minute concessions from Brussels and, as she puts it 'with the pound tanking and the markets in freefall' Mrs May gets the amended deal the through.
The airhead Mrs Tominey does not seem to ask herself why the pound would be 'tanking and the markets be in freefall'. It is clearly because the market makers fear a no-deal, disorderly outcome but she ignores that and goes on to her no deal scenario, which she thinks is the default position. This is, according to her this is:
"Most likely to happen under a new leader who would have the political capital to stand firm in the face of cliff edge hysteria and the M20 turning into a lorry park".
If it is all cliff edge hysteria why would the pound tank and markets go into freefall? Incidentally she rates the chances of this happening at 4 out of 5. She wants a new leader to 'stand firm' - ignoring the screams of half the electorate or more, as we all go over the cliff edge.
Don't worry, this is never going to happen. But assuming any new leader was stupid enough to try it - and BoJo probably is - it would be like the then chancellor, Denis Healey in 1976 having to turn back while on his way to Heathrow, cancelling a planned trip abroad, to handle a financial crisis caused by a loss of confidence in the markets to negotiate a loan from the IMF (HERE) - only it would be far worse and entirely self inflicted.
Our chastened leader, whoever it is, would be in Brussels the next day to restart the negotiations and accept whatever humiliating terms the EU was prepared to offer.
Mrs Tominey would be the first to criticise of course.
Her nine scenarios by the way and the chances she gives, are as follows:
- Emergency EU Summit 1 out of 5
- The deal is agreed 2 out of 5
- There is a second vote in parliament 2 out of 5
- May gets a no confidence motion against her 4 out of 5
- An early general election 2 out of 5
- Go for the Norway option 3 out of 5
- Second referendum 2 out of 5
- Leave with no deal 4 out of 5
- No Brexit 1 out of 5
