On the day we are set to learn what the prime minister's Plan B is, the great helium-filled gas-bag and political lightweight Boris Johnson has his regular Monday Telegraph column published (£5.5k a pop to the Barclay brothers, but you can read it HERE). It is typical Johnsonian claptrap. Amusingly written but with all the serious statesmanship that you might expect from a plumbers mate. All things in BoJo world must be Janet and John simple otherwise it would tax the microscopic amount of cerebral matter lodged inside his head.
To demonstrate how smart he is we get a lot of esoteric words and phrases like plotmanship, whither, a conclave of parliamentary cardinals, valhalla, delectable disputations, caduque (a French word meaning void - I had to look it up) and other fugitives from a thesaurus in his column. But serious answers to the crisis about to engulf us, nothing.
He is like the blokes (it's always men isn't it?) you meet in business who can't be serious about anything for more than a millisecond and are constantly wise cracking, making what they think are clever remarks and looking around to see how funny people think they are. Everything has to be explained to them several times and even then you're never sure they've understood it. They're invariably the first to become bored and start talking about when lunch is arriving. In my experience, the higher up a British organisation you go the more of this type you come across. Board rooms are full of them. No wonder he was foreign secretary and aspires to be PM.
The main thrust of his article today is about the 'feeble plots' which he says are not going to stop Brexit. He describes as a 'giant fact' - as opposed to the tiny 'facts' that ordinary people use, "this country must leave the EU, by law, on March 29". He literally still believes it's going to happen on March 29th. Trust me it isn't. Any half sentient human being knows this.
And then he wants to adopt the Trump style of international negotiations:
"The most important thing now is for the Prime Minister to go back to Brussels – armed with the mandate of 432 Noes – and tell Michel Barnier that the backstop is, as they say, caduque. Take that backstop out, or at the very least give us a legally binding change – within the text of the agreement – that allows for the UK to come out of its own accord, and then we will be able to say that the agreement is imperfect but at least tolerable. Take out the Irish backstop, and the deal, on balance, is better than staying in the EU, and it should be seized in the hope that we can make a better fist of the next phase of the negotiations".
This is how Old Etonians think isn't it. You spend eighteen months in serious, detailed negotiations with a 27 country bloc and when your legislature baulks at what you've agreed, you simply trot back to Brussels and say sorry about this chaps, can't quite get that ratified, can we just start all over again, rub out a few of your red lines and get something else?
There is no attempt on his part to think what their reaction might be or whether they might ask why a modified WA is any more likely to get ratified? He says that "we will be able to say that the agreement is imperfect but at least tolerable". Really? How does he know?
It is all there, the swaggering confidence, the polished word smithery, the insouciance and the sheer concrete-solid stupidity. Listen to this:
"Some day soon, if we go down this route [go with a take-it-or-leave-it offer] and stand up to Brussels, we will be able to devote all our political energies to the main concerns of this country – our housing, our productivity, our wages, our environment, you name it".
He literally thinks the EU has prevented us addressing our housing, our productivity and our wages - and more amazingly it is the EU that has blocked us addressing environmental concerns! We owe virtually ALL our environmental improvements to the EU. Our own local Tory MP, Nigel Adams, even blamed the EU for trying to improve air quality!
The other 'main concerns' we have always been responsible for anyway. What an idiot he is. After Brexit this is the calibre of people who will have total responsibility for the nation. God Help us all.
