There must be something in the air or the water at The Telegraph. Editors and columnists seem to exist in a totally different world to the rest of us. We’ve had Allister Heath as I posted about (twice) recently when he said : Entitlement Britain is becoming a poor country and too many people don’t care and which he followed up with: Brexit is on the brink – and the ultra Remainers are mobilising to cancel it. Now, associate editor Camilla Tominey seems to agree with him but is anxious lest anyone think the present myriad problems engulfing the nation is connected to or, God forbid, a result of Brexit. She blames Theresa May for it all.
Three years after Mrs May was replaced by Boris Johnson Tominey says: Theresa May is still ruining Britain
If it isn't the energy price cap, the NI protocol, net zero, the Modern Slavery Act then it's cuts to police numbers which started the rot into the lawless society which saw a nine year old girl shot dead in Liverpool. All down to the right honourable member for Maidenhead and nothing to do with Boris.
The principle in our constitution that no parliament can bind its successors has seemingly been scrapped. Johnson was absolutely shackled, not by his own disastrous Brexit, which Tominey and The Telegraph support whole heartedly, but by legislation passed by Mrs May! Amazing, eh?
This is all to distract attention from the appalling state of public services, raging inflation, soaring debt, falling living standards and trade and raw sewage being pumped by privatised water companies into our rivers and coastal areas. Not to mention the looming winter disaster when many will have to flip a coin to choose between bankruptcy, eating food or getting our frozen homes above single digit temperatures, all because of the massive hike in our energy bills.
Bad as that is, and again in case any reader might be beginning to suspect Brexit played any small part in what is by all accounts something approaching Armageddon, they publish another article, this time about how much worse things are in, of all places, Germany: How decades of complacency have left Germany facing a cold, dark winter. Things are so bad over there that "betrayed by its own elite, the country is at risk of social unrest."
You could not make this up.
The piece is by Daniel Johnson who apparently was previously the Telegraph’s correspondent in Germany and is now the editor of The Article. They obviously have had to draft in extra help.
In the midst of these multiple crises, they put out an op-ed which essentially says, things are truly terrible here but buckle up and to help you bear it, remember that Germany is suffering more.
It’s worse in Germany. https://t.co/hJd4Uwzvp6
— Lord Moylan (@danielmgmoylan) August 28, 2022
Of course Germany has problems but they also have competent government and have already got a plan to cut energy consumption. Their use of Russian gas is already below 10% and their gas storage - with a capacity of almost 200 days worth - is at 85% full and filling up quicker than they thought.
See this tweet:
Germany's gas storage facilities filling up faster than planned. Germany only received 9.5% of their gas from Russia in August (vs 55% last year) and they are at 85% capacity. As time goes on Russia will lose their most important customer. https://t.co/WIM467zsOm
— Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) August 28, 2022
Theresa May's chief of staff Gavin Barwell responded to Camilla Tominey's piece specifically answering the NI protocol accusation:
Camilla says "Consider the parts of [Mrs May's] Brexit disaster that Mr Johnson couldn't fix...we've ended up with a Northern Ireland Protocol which needs to be reformed" But the Protocol isn't something Boris couldn't fix - IT IS THE ONLY BIT OF HER BREXIT DEAL HE DID CHANGE 2/x
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) August 27, 2022
Finally, to demonstrate just how separated from reality they are at The Telegraph, a former adviser to Mrs Thatcher, Nile Gardiner, is given space to declare that: Liz Truss can be a powerful leader of the free world
When you've stopped laughing at the headline you might want to read what Gardiner says:
"US leadership is declining, and the EU is sinking, gravely weakened by decades of dependency on Russian energy,
"Enter Liz Truss. She is everything that Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz are not. A conservative, principled politician, she projects a strategic vision of a powerful West that is a bastion of freedom and self-determination. Equally alarming for the global elites, she is willing to reject the Big Government status quo.
"A Truss-led government could be the most radical British Conservative administration since Margaret Thatcher, a game changer on the world stage, willing to challenge the old guard and offer conservative ideas and solutions to global problems. Truss understands, as did Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, that strength and determination – combined with a belief in cutting taxes and regulations, and reining in the power of the state – are a tremendous formula for success."
Where to begin?
This is precisely how the communist party managed Russia for years. Block overseas travel, control the media and the message, blame the west, hide the truth, crack down on critics and dissenters and keep pledging sunlit uplands next year. Portray the leadership as being of unrivalled intellectual power and unshakeable resolve addressing the nation's problems in the only rational way possible. Couple this with lavishing huge amounts of money and privileges on party apparatchiks and you can keep a lid on growing discontent as shortages begin to bite.
Brace yourselves, we are going downhill fast.
