The Daily Mail has a leader today attacking Phillip Hammond in the most vicious terms. I don't provide links to the Mail's website since I consider it pure poison but you can read the article on PressReader (HERE). The newspaper, which really means Paul Dacre the editor and chief psychopath, tears into the chancellor and the CBI and just about anybody who does not believe Brexit will be an untrammelled success.
According to The Mail, Mr Hammond is:
- Inordinately self satisfied (coming from the Mail this really is rich)
- Treacherous
- A Jeremiah
- A gloom-laden undertaker
- Eeyore (i.e. a gloomy pessimist)
- A half hearted lugubrious appeaser
The CBI is doom mongering and Damian Green doesn't have the intellect to be deputy PM. He must change his mind on Brexit and believe the opposite of what he campaigned for last year. This is like asking the Archbishop of Canterbury to become an atheist after a vote about religion. We are back to the sixteenth century and Henry VIII with the persecution of anyone who doesn't have the right faith or belief. This is madness and cannot lead to anything good or helpful to the national well being.
The paper seems to look on the negotiations as if we are at war rather than trying to engage in the most complex set of talks we have ever been involved in with our largest export market and largest supplier.
The fifth round of the talks ends today with little hope of a breakthrough. David Davis is apparently going to sum up the state of the negotiations (HERE) but I assume the Mail will not think he is a doom mongering Eeyore but a national hero when he announces there has been no progress. It will all be the fault of the EU. But then this is the motive of Dacre, to drive a wedge between us and Europe. He does not have any influence in Brussels and he really wants to have meetings in Downing Street to force his own extreme views on a compliant prime minister without interference from the EU.
The government is desperate to get trade discussions started but instead of doing it in a constructive, collaborative way and dealing quickly and decisively with the separation issues so they were out of the way early, they are stubbornly refusing to be flexible (probably for fear of upsetting The Mail/Sun/Telegraph/Express) and are using up precious time on what are really no more than trivia in the big picture. This afternoon's press conference in Brussels will be fascinating.
