The letter below appeared in last Saturday's Daily Telegraph (HERE) from a gang calling themselves the Alliance of British Entrepreneurs. I reproduce it here to demonstrate the perils of drink, for it must surely have been drafted at the depths of a serious bender. How else is one to explain the utter delusion behind it. No sane, sober person could have put their name to it, which explains why the name of Tim Martin, Chairman of Weatherspoons is on it. He always seems half cut and under the influence of mind bending drugs, even at the best of times.
Note only four out of the 200 signatories are actually revealed in the print edition so perhaps some of them had second thoughts the day after and decided anonymity might be best. Anyway here it is - for your amusement:
The Daily Telegraph 29 Sep 2018
SIR – The Alliance of British Entrepreneurs is proud to be backed by the 200 entrepreneurs below. We believe that the Chequers deal is a muddled compromise that suits no one on either side of the referendum divide.
The “common rulebook” that it accepts offers the EU carte blanche to dictate policy, stifling innovation and leaving us a passive rule-taker. Chequers also hobbles the greatest economic opportunity of Brexit: that of free trade agreements with old allies and new friends round the world.
As shown at Salzburg, Chequers is doomed to fail. It will not make it through Parliament and is unacceptable to the EU. The result will be more uncertainty and continuing Government paralysis. Time is short. We must reset the negotiations to pursue a free trade agreement (like the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU), as offered by Donald Tusk in March 2018.
In tandem, the Government must immediately expedite preparations for trading on World Trade Organisation terms and should be ready to make the United Kingdom hyper competitive come March 2019. [my emphasis]
The message of the Alliance of British Entrepreneurs (ABE) is this: be bold, be resolute and be entrepreneurial. Britain deserves better than Chequers.
Tom Bohills Co-founder, ABE and Head of Legal, Red Deer
Edward Harden Co-founder, ABE and co-founder Justseats.org
Tim Martin Chairman, JD Wetherspoon
Lord Flight (Con) and 196 others; (see telegraph.co.uk - behind a paywall)
The bit about becoming "hyper competitive" by March 2019 caught my eye. This is something we've been trying to do for at least a century. Sterling has slumped in value by around 80% against the dollar since then and we have lost just about every industry (not just companies, whole industries!) to foreign buyers. We are 35% less productive than Germany. Just becoming close to competitive would take a couple of generations even if we knew HOW to do it and began next week.
By being "ready" I assume they mean the working population drastically slimming down by going on a strict diet of rice and noodles perhaps with forced marches over winter wearing loin cloths to get used to how things will be post Brexit. The welfare state and the NHS can be slashed, if not dismantled completely as an incentive to avoid contracting any sort of illness - or at least to motivate you to pretend you're not ill if you are - so you can carry on working barefoot for a few shillings a day at the steel plant.
It's hard to imagine how else it could be done in 180 days or so. They cannot mean spending billions investing in robotic automation, both physical and software since there isn't enough time and anyway, that's not what "entrepreneurs" like them actually do is it?
Whatever they meant (assuming they knew) I am afraid that becoming "hyper competitive" by next March is about as likely as finding Shergar winning an Elvis Presley lookalike competition in Bromley next week - or indeed Elvis winning a Shergar lookalike contest.
Lord (Howard) Flight by the way is the one who had to resign as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in March 2005, after being recorded accidentally blurting out the truth about the level of spending cuts that the Conservatives were planning after the election. In a Conservative Way Forward (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) meeting he said in office they could make more spending cuts than they were promising in their campaign (including in their manifesto). Michael Howard, Conservative leader, withdrew the party whip and said he couldn't stand as an approved candidate - in other words he was sacked.
In the same edition of The Telegraph some other readers (I assume they are real people not spoofs) have apparently been at the bottle too. All the emphases are mine by the way. Enjoy.
SIR – This is the moment I have been waiting for – Boris has spoken (Commentary, September 28). He thinks well, writes exceedingly well and says what he thinks, which is unusual in a politician. He has a vision of how things could and should be. Perhaps now we shall see some progress on this turgid “thing” that is Brexit. We can rid ourselves of this “conspicuous infirmity of purpose”.
Jenny Arnold, Kingsbridge, Devon
SIR – Hooray for Boris Johnson and his vision for Brexit. Why has it taken so long for somebody to see sense and put on paper all which is required to take us out of the EU? How did we end up with a wishywashy leader and self-confessed Remainer, together with a very drab Chancellor limping along to the position we are in at present? We should throw out Chequers and get behind Mr Johnson’s vision pronto.
Judith Borland Ely, Cambridgeshire
SIR – Lack of progress towards Brexit is almost entirely down to the recalcitrance, intimidation and blackmail by Brussels and not the failure of Theresa May’s efforts. The personal aspirations of Boris Johnson just do not help.
Peter Wilson Nuneaton, Warwickshire
May God help us all.
May God help us all.
