Designated Driver

There’s a stereotype about male drivers that they would rather drive twenty miles in the wrong direction than stop and check a map. Broadly speaking, this is what happened in the UK General Election. Despite the fact that there is considerable evidence that a majority of the electorate believes that the Brexit referendum came to the wrong decision (neither a “stonking” majority, nor a “thumping” one, but a majority nonetheless) UK voters made the net decision to drive on down the road in the hope that they would either locate a convenient and well-signposted junction on which to change direction or, better, would discover that they were on the right road all along.

What this means is that the issue of Brexit has been settled for a generation. (That's about eighteen months if you live North of the border.) What will they all argue about now?

It seems that the Labour Party is going to be riven (at least for the three months that it will take them to coalesce jubilantly around a new leader) by the question of what is to blame for its ignominious defeat. The analysis from the Left (for how could it be otherwise) is that the party was effectively run down in the street: it had been minding its own business, embracing ideals that were being warmly endorsed by the population in general, when it was brutally mown down by the issue of Brexit.

Labour Centrists, on the other hand, argue that holding a Marxist rally in middle of the South Circular was asking for trouble in the first place. A muddled message on Brexit was as nothing to the suspicion with which Corbyn himself was viewed by “traditional Labour voters”.

There’s room for both sides to be correct.

The sunny days of Corbyn’s Indian Summer, when he gambolled at festivals in the company of gaggles of doe-eyed supporters, seemed already long past when this election was called. He had done little enough to earn their adulation in the first place and little enough to estrange it in the last two years. It was just gone.

Certainly there was still enthusiasm for Corbyn, but it was the grim resolve of Jonestown rather than the febrile tunnel vision of a popular mass movement. The “Youthquake” had moved on to Extinction Rebellion with a more direct means of expression than the quiet anonymity of the ballot box.

Boris’s advantage was not that he was easy to like but that he was difficult to hate. Many managed to do so but nowhere near enough. It’s difficult to associate the image of a racist, sexist hard-Right politician with the photo ops that he gave in a fishmarket or delivering milk. Boris’s lies were legion, but they appeared, somehow, to be little white lies.

Corbyn’s truths were also legion, but they were great big scary truths full of class envy & social division. There was much in them with which voters widely sympathise, but ideals such as Corbyn’s are perhaps best viewed through the prism of a more pragmatic leader.

Finally, a word about Jo Swinson, the “blink and you missed her” leader of the Liberal Democrats. She has never appeared before in these pages as a label, nor is she likely to do so in the future, but there was something bitterly unfair about her constituency defeat. Her candid & straightforward approach to politics was a refreshing alternative to the cynicism of the Right and the fanaticism of the Left. This is one nutshell, however, where the middle of the road is a bad place to be.

Boris Treads The Boards

The Commons (currently of no practical use as a place where the country's laws are written) has reverted to its alternative use as a theatre. When a theatre goes dark it does so in the expectation that a bold new production is in preparation. That is what our freshman Prime Minister managed to deliver yesterday.

As it turns out, we could have all saved ourselves the trouble of learning the word prorogation because The Supreme Court decided that Boris’s attempt to prorogue parliament was void. Consequently Boris was now up before the Beak: dragged back to the Commons to be served with as many of the best as UK MPs could deliver before their arms got tired. And none of them looked like their arms were going to get tired any time soon.

This was make or break for Johnson. His one & only Question Time - during which his bumbling delivery sounded rather clueless in the chamber - had not gone well. That, mind you, was before the highest court in the land had ruled that he had broken the law. Media coverage the day before had depicted this as a humiliating defeat and, worse, the Queen (talismanic to the majority of Conservative voters) had been caught in the crossfire, threatening to divide the government's core supporters. But early notice was given that the show might run as expected when Attorney General Geoffrey Cox gave a surprisingly feisty performance at the matinée. Like or loathe his manner (which is not so much that of a great barrister as that of a ham actor playing a great barrister) Cox steadied the ship, giving the Tories something to cheer about with more heartfelt sincerity than most of them can have thought possible.

The set piece debate that Johnson opened with a statement on the legal ruling was meant to go like this. Opposition MP after MP was lined up to say, again & again, that he had been found to have “mislead the people” by a “unanimous” decision of the court, was “unfit for office” and would, “if he had any shame” resign. This basic template was only varied by the SNP, who mixed in other sentiments in keeping with their nation's long cherished desire for liberty.

None of this needed to be said for the purposes of proceedings in parliament: it was all designed to send a message as many times as possible to television viewers. As such, like so many Commons deliberations, it was all hot air, if rather hotter than usual.

Johnson came back with a debater's trick: the Supreme Court judgement was a sideshow & in his opinion wrong ... the real issue was Brexit. And, surprisingly, it worked. Many opposition MPs, attracted both by the shiny word Brexit and the Prime Minister's gall in criticising the judgement, started responding to his narrative instead of following the agreed script. They were supposed to be furious about one thing ... now they were being furious about something else, or perhaps everything.

Then Johnson unleashed the phrase “Surrender bill” which has been kicking around for a while: it's like a nickname that the unpopular boy at school keeps using in the hope that everyone else will think it's as clever as he does. And, amazingly, the fish bit down hard on this unpromising bait. MP after MP stood up to say that it was quite improper, and probably dangerous, to describe a piece of legislation that had been written into law as a “surrender bill”. At which Boris would neatly reply that it certainly was a surrender bill, or capitulation bill if you prefer. Terms that had never had much currency before were suddenly being used on both sides of the House. And the angrier the Opposition got, the more strident they got while Johnson (after a couple of veiled but unambiguous appeals from the Speaker) dropped into a conciliatory tone, looking reasonable and - it has to be said - rather pleased with himself.

Boris had lost the judgement and won the debate.

Sordel says “won the debate” not “won the argument”. Many people, perhaps most people, will feel that Boris's bad guy act (especially on the subject of Jo Cox) was in poor taste and his thespian artistry was nothing more than Public School playacting, far removed from national concerns of pressing importance. But if this parliament has nothing to legislate - if it is essentially a bear pit in which the most vicious rhetorician prevails - then Boris managed to turn the tables on his opponents. They will consider their strategy more carefully before giving him hours at the despatch box next time.

The opposition emerged bloodied from the encounter: none more so than Jeremy Corbyn, who looked ashen when Nigel Dodds reminded a silent house that the Labour leader's new-found respect for the Rule of Law came too late for judges murdered by the IRA. Politicians who had sued for the right to recall parliament must have ended the day bitterly regretting their victory. As so many disinterested onlookers must do.

If this Boris show is not swiftly shuttered it may run & run.


(Illustration copyright Simon Haynes. Ironically it is reproduced from an article from July 2018 on whether that month would finally see the end of Boris Johnson.)

The Prisoners of Number Ten

The problem for the Conservative Party is not that it won too few seats, but that it won too many.

Being out of office for a political party is an occupational hazard and in some respects one of those healthy burns that Nature uses to keep a forest growing. Had the Conservatives lost, they could have taken Theresa May out back with that 12-bore reserved for the purpose, and cleanly begun the task of replacing her with a new leader. Boris, encouraged by the thought of years jeering from the Opposition benches at the hapless Corbyn, would joyfully come off the bench, affording both the Tories and the General Public great entertainment without anyone having to risk giving him any actual responsibility.

Moreover, not being in government would be something of a gift right now. Tories on both the Remain & Leave sides could come together to make common cause in criticising whatever slim pickings a Labour government might be able to secure from the EU by way of Brexit settlement. All the problems that currently fall to them would be pushed off onto Labour.

Were Corbyn to underperform against the high standards that he has set himself (as he surely would) he would disappoint the hopes of his younger supporters who would - like every starry-eyed generation of dreamers before them - become cynical inactivists. As it is, they will continue to support Labour in opposition, building a head of steam for the moment when he gets his next chance.

Due to their inconvenient success, the Tories can obtain none of the benefits of second place. Since neither Boris (nor anyone else) wants to lead a minority government tasked with impossible and critical negotiations with the EU, it will be very difficult to replace Theresa May. They are saddled with a lame duck leader who got the job because no one wanted it and will now keep it for precisely the same reason. How long they can tolerate the sight of her limping on with shattered authority is very questionable: John Major pulled it off with some aplomb, but Theresa May is nothing like John Major.

Worse, Tory hands are completely tied: if they opt for a soft Brexit they will be pilloried by their own Eurosceptics & eventually face a General Election at which the votes of former UKIP voters will bleed away; if they opt for a hard Brexit they will be defeated by a grand coalition of the Remainers.

The Tories felt that another period of government would be their reward but it is becoming increasingly obvious that it is actually their punishment.

The Last Gasp

Compared with the EU Referendum the 2017 UK General Election has been conducted in a spirit of considerable decorum. But then, compared to the EU Referendum, The Jeremy Kyle Show is conducted in a spirit of considerable decorum.

The Conservatives had two ideas at the outset: Jeremy Corbyn can't be trusted with the Brexit negotiations; and, Jeremy Corbyn can't be trusted. (It's one idea really.) In terms of positive campaigning, we have Theresa May's proud adoption of the "bloody difficult woman" nickname (an equivocal compliment at best) and her eleventh hour promise to do away with some of those pesky human rights. Otherwise, the strategy was to keep reminding people that the "leader" of the Labour Party is someone that the Great British Public already dislikes. If Corbyn is unthinkable then May is inevitable.

More significantly, the attacks on Corbyn have largely been matters of fact & record. He's opposed to the use of nuclear weapons and would not authorise a retaliatory strike. He is a Republican sympathiser (both Irish and, for that matter, English) and does not condemn the IRA. He is anti-Israeli and more comfortable than is entirely proper in the company of some of Israel's extremist enemies. He is ideologically wedded to a significant expansion of government spending based on tax-raising calculations that are at best back-of-envelope guesstimates. While Boris Johnson certainly went too far in describing Corbyn as a "friend of Britain's enemies" who "opposed shoot-to-kill" you can say quite a lot against Corbyn without actually having to make stuff up.

Yet precisely because Corbyn is seemingly willing to stand by so many of his past statements, it makes it difficult to use other innuendoes against him. Corbyn is opposed to "shoot-to-kill" in the sense of state-authorised assassination, but he has been unambiguous in his approval of the use of lethal force against terrorists during an incident. He opposes Israel but condemns anti-Semitism: some regard that as an implausible distinction but he doesn't seem to be lying.

On the other hand, there is too much that we don't know about May. Her stated policies - taking apart human rights legislation, taking away free lunches in primary schools, charging directly for social care provision - are, frankly, the stuff of The Left's most paranoid nightmares, yet these are the very measures which the Conservatives hope will enthrall your vote. Not to mention the free vote that they are offering on fox hunting: Sordel doesn't have strong feelings about that one, but it's hardly the most pressing business to which Commons time might be devoted.

Looking at Theresa May it's difficult to argue with the feeling that she has run a "Hillary Clinton" campaign: assuming that she will be elected on the basis that she is clearly the lesser of two evils without offering any sort of social vision around which voters can rally. Public approval of Mrs. May was tepid at the outset: she will be breaking ice to swim in it now.

Whoever wins this week there are dark days ahead since neither Labour (consistently behind in the polls & with an ungovernable parliamentary party) nor the Conservatives (with a badly wounded leader & recovering from a nasty scare in terms of their poll decline) are in the best shape to govern Britain.

On balance, it seems that the most likely winner of this election will be the E.U.

The Blame Game

The Independent had some interesting results on public opinion regarding the party leaders. The idea was to compare how much of a net drag the leader's popularity was on the party. Theresa May scored a healthy +6%: of those who liked either her or her party, more liked her than liked her party. Jeremy Corbyn, in marked contrast, scored -24%: of those who liked him or his party, far more liked his party than liked him.

If you were planning the campaign for the Conservative Party, you would probably push May into the spotlight, and this is of course what the Conservatives have done. As campaign planner for the Labour Party you would probably bind & gag Corbyn and lock him in a broom cupboard, yet Labour has also pushed Corbyn into prominence: he, Diane Abbott & John McDonnell have become the three-faced goddess of the Labour campaign.

Partly this is probably recognition from the party leadership that if Corbyn doesn't speak for himself then none of the moderates are likely to speak on his behalf. But it also seems highly likely that the Parliamentary Labour Party - seeing inevitable & swift defeat racing towards them - is isolating Corbyn so that he can become the scapegoat of their collective failure.

Unfortunately for them, this may backfire.

Corbyn cannot win this election, but to a certain extent he doesn't need to. Since the election was announced, Labour has stubbornly risen in the polls from a low point of 24% (probably an outlier) to a high of 32%. Even allowing for errors and the fact that Labour historically performs better in polls than elections, that suggests a 5% rise against a very popular government during a period when most Labour MPs have either been sitting on their hands or publicly saying that Corbyn is poison on the doorstep.

Moreover, the visuals of the campaign are playing into Corbyn's hands. The Prime Minister, attempting to sit on her lead and disinclined to take any risks, has thus far underperformed to what in another election would be an alarming degree. So far, the stories about Theresa May have been about an unconvincing performance as human being on The One Show and an attempt to eat chips sponsored by Photoshop. Her disciplined focus on the phrase strong and stable (which will probably help to win her the election but does nothing to endear her to journalists) only reinforces an impression of tedious stolidity.

Corbyn, however, has made some running. Appearing to cheering crowds of the faithful, he has reinforced the impression that those who like him do so less grudgingly than May's supporters. The likelihood of a landslide against Labour is now all but discounted: Corbyn could come away with a win by showing a roughly equivalent performance to Ed Miliband, which is what current predictions suggest will happen.

After all, there is a lot in this election that is not Corbyn's fault. He cannot be held to account for the collapse of UKIP or the good will currently extended to Theresa May by those who backed Brexit. He's hardly responsible for the fact that the Liberal Democrats (last bastion of the self-proclaimed 48%) are languishing at a dismal 8% of the vote in current predictions. It's difficult to see what he could have done to strengthen Labour in Scotland, where the battle lines seem to have been drawn on The Union & the EU.

It's not entirely impossible that both of the antagonists in this gladiatorial competition will come away with a win.

And whom will Labour MPs (such that remain) blame then?

Lore Of The Excluded Centre

People have a tendency to put cast their ultimata by using that very useful small word: or. "Back me or sack me." "Put up or shut up." "Go big or go home." But The Labour Party currently has got itself into a position where ors no longer seem to count for anything.

Things began badly when the Parliamentary Labour Party discovered that it wouldn't back Jeremy Corbyn and couldn't sack him either. Let's be clear: if Corbyn was on fire and the greater proportion of his MPs had uncomfortably full bladders then they would burst before they assuaged the least part of his discomfort. Backing Corbyn was out of the question, but the manoeuvres to remove him backfired almost beyond belief. Corbyn now has a tame Shadow Cabinet and a renewed mandate; his opponents have given up their cabinet positions (with such dubious eminence as these conferred upon them) and been forced to slink to the back benches where - due to the paucity of MPs willing to sit any closer to their leader than absolutely necessary - they are presumably packed like a small wardrobe towards the end of a particularly populous game of Sardines.

Next, they decided that they wouldn't shut up, but weren't going to put up either. None of Corbyn's most vocal detractors actually stood against him in the leadership election with the consequence that the job of running against him fell to a man more anonymous than his surname; a man, in fact, whose only discernible political achievement had been to trip the hapless Angela Eagle as she stretched out for the prize. The Labour Big Beasts hung back, hoping to dine on another's kill, and all that is left for them now is dispute the pickings of Owen Smith's lean & hungry carcass.

Now it is left for them to go big or go home. But going big is going to be difficult: a vote of No Confidence is difficult to top, and the near unanimity with which the Parliamentary Labour Party attempted to remove Corbyn looks considerably more fragile today.

And, given the difficult conversations that they face with their constituency party members, Labour MPs can't go home.

So it comes down to that most famous of literary disjunctions: "To be or not to be." True, collective self-destruction seems to be option for which Labour MPs have boundless appetite, but this seems to be a case where even making their quietus with a bare bodkin can hardly spare them a proud man's contumely.

Owen Goal

If we believe the polls (which, of course, we shouldn't) Owen Smith is all-in & drawing dead in his bid to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Smith has hitherto not troubled these (or any other) pages, but has nonetheless been anointed as the brightest & best that the Parliamentary Labour Party has to offer which, unfortunately, is not hard to believe. In an article based on interviews with constituency party members The Guardian sheepishly revealed that no one really had a word to say about Smith whose main drawback is also his key virtue: anonymity. The assumption by Labour MPs, for better or worse, is that the least known of them is probably also the one least hated by Labour's members.

Although Smith is regarded as "soft Left" however, there is nothing soft about the approach that he is taking as his campaign ratchets up. And this is a problem.

His lines of attack are familiar: surrounding himself with women, he has branded himself as the sexual equality candidate while female Labour MPs have pushed the narrative that Corbyn is not doing enough to quell the abuse that his less evolved supporters are flinging at them. Surely the next step will be for Smith to reveal Jewish endorsements while saying that Corbyn has failed to confront the anti-Semitism of the Left. He will pose with British soldiers while saying that Corbyn is weak on security. He will appear at Battersea Dogs' Home to criticise Corbyn's lack of a full-voiced opposition to mistreatment of animals.

And the problem in all this is not for Corbyn but for the very people who want to unseat him, because Smith is effectively re-running the tactics of the failed Remain campaign: relentlessly attacking the very voters whom you expect to deliver your victory.

Brexit voters were treated as credulous & racist. This is the strategy used during the EU referendum campaign, and in that context it is worth remembering that MP Jo Cox was actually murdered: powerful proof that at least some Brexit adherents seemed to be exactly what the Remainers were claiming.

Yet an event that might have been expected to swing the entire course of the Referendum, in the end, did not turn the tide, and possibly for the same reason that Smith's strategy is doomed. People's attitudes had been hardened by weeks of abuse, to the point at which they were no longer willing to give any credence at all to the people who were trying to persuade them.

Right now there is no accusation that could be flung at Jeremy Corbyn that people are likely to believe: especially if they continue along the same lines as today's tale of a Watergate-style office break-in. It looks at first appearance like a stunt at best and a blatant smear at worst.

It may well be impossible for Smith to engage with the Labour rank & file but for sure he will not do it by pursuing his current path.

A Laboured Analogy

The Parliamentary Labour Party makes for a lousy boyfriend.

For a start, he always expects you to pay for his round, and he's always playing Lord Bountiful: treating everyone who comes into the pub, whispering to you that all this "networking" is really going to pay off down the line. Though whether it will be paying off for the both of you, or just for him, is a bit difficult to tell.

Then, he always seems to be gossiping about you with his friends. He tells them that you're a bit dumb, and boring, and whiny ... even that you're a bit anti-Semitic, which he seems to think makes him look enlightened & tolerant in mixed company.

Worst of all, he's always making a spectacle of himself chasing after other women. Every few years you'll find him making a play for some stray piece of skirt, even though he knows full well that she prefers the posh boy with the nice car from up the street. He'll put on his best suit, which doesn't even fit him, take her up West and, from what you've heard, make out that you and he broke up years ago.

Of course, once she's dumped him (like she always does) he's back, telling you that he should have listened to you more and say if you let him back then it'll all be different this time. He'll even go to the restaurant you choose before the pub on Friday night. Except, when you do choose, he sits there sulking through the starter and then says that he'd be eating his favourite bhuna by now if he'd made the choice for you.

Then he says that no real girlfriend would have made him eat this filthy Greek muck in the first place: you only do it to annoy him and if he wanted to eat goats cheese he'd have been a goat. And he's had it with you and your fucking stupid ideas of where to eat and you'd better get your coat you dumb bitch because he's off for a bhuna and if you don't like it you can lump it, see?

And when you tell him that you haven't even had your moussaka yet and you were looking forward to it he tells you: "Look, the moussaka's off, no moussaka, this restaurant's a bust. All of my friends keep telling me: there is no fucking moussaka, okay? I'm not sitting here to find out whether some fucking moussaka that doesn't even exist warps into existence and appears on a plate in front of you, because I'm pretty sure that if I get to the pub by nine tonight then that girl from up the road is going to be there, gagging for it."

But this time you tell him: no, she's not gagging for it because she's going steady with that other guy, and the other guy says he's keeping her until 2020 so you can whistle for your bhuna, Parliamentary Labour Party.

And he just looks at you. That look. That look that says "if I have to eat Greek salad one more time and look at your stupid face I'll kill myself".

So that night you throw a brick through his window, obviously.

Go To Your Happy Place

At a time when Plan B is desperately needed - when UK MPs are required to process the narrow but unambiguous rejection of their advice and get on with the job that they were elected to do - those who have found it easiest to adjust are the ones who are just pushing Plan A. The SNP (led by the person who is currently probably today the UK's most popular politician on any side: pocket dynamo Nicola Sturgeon) thinks that Scottish Independence may be the answer. Sinn Féin feels that Irish Independence may do the trick. Conservative MPs are getting down to the serious business of trying to stop Boris Johnson getting to Number 10. And Labour MPs are trying to remove Jeremy Corbyn.

Removing Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, not so much the Plan A of Labour MPs as the One Plan To Rule Them All. Since this mild-mannered and rather bland specimen of Far Left extremism was foisted on them by the contemptible rank & file they have been waiting on the steps of the capitol with a murderous gleam in their collective eye hoping to catch sight of him cycling by, but have been repeatedly cheated of their prey. They were already to pounce after the Oldham West & Royton by-election last year (which confounded their hopes by resulting in a ringing Labour victory) and almost did so at the time of the underwhelming council election results in May. Had he delivered in terms of the election failure that all Labour MPs so clearly covet, he would have been gone by now.

Under the circumstances, the Parliamentary Labour Party has picked now as its time to strike (if strike be quite the word for the centrist wing of the party with its inherent mistrust of unions). Seemingly, the EU referendum result is to be laid at his door due to the tepidity with which he campaigned for a Remain victory.

Well, that's the ostensible reason at least.

Setting aside for now the question about whether changing the leader is wise at such a time of convulsion, what is the benefit to the party to remove anyone, let alone the leader, on the basis of a lack of Euro-enthusiasm? Broadly there are two options: Brexit or a rejection of the Brexit vote by the political elites. If the political elites refuse to enact Brexit (which may still happen) then it doesn't really matter where people were on the referendum. On the other hand, if Brexit is going to be enacted then it will require Brexiters, Bremainers and everyone between those two camps to come to the aid of the country.

Labour can turn itself into the perfect pro-Bremain party, but that transformation will be too late to be anything but position the party on the other side of the question from the majority view of its voters, and any leader palatable to the PLP will almost certainly be someone whose wisdom on the question has just been rejected by the electorate.

Of course, Labour MPs are not thinking straight at all. They know that Cameron is going, that a general election may be years closer at hand than expected and that the bloody business of decapitation needs to be done now. In response to the crisis, they have gone to their happy place not by means of calm meditation & positive visualisation but with a massive intracardiac injection of whatever high-potency variant of cocaine fuels them. They think that - like Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction - all they will do is thrash around the floor for a second and sit bolt upright with everything alright again.

Except - like Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction - what they think is cocaine may be a fatal overdose of something else.

The Little Train That Couldn't

If you believe the mythology of these things, Neil Kinnock sunk Labour's chances of victory in the 1992 General Election at a rally in Sheffield where he uttered the deathless soundbite "We're alright!" The rally - which fittingly took place on April Fool's Day - is notable as being just about the last time in British political history that a politician ever made the mistake of showing spontaneous feeling at a conference podium. But the sentiment was at least positive.

Two days out from the EU Referendum, Sordel is ready to capitulate to the prevailing logic. Cameron has me convinced. The Department of Trade & Industry can't negotiate trade agreements. Countries investing in Britain are not after anything that we have to trade; they are primarily interested in our access to the Continental marketplace. Membership of NATO and the United Nations counts for nothing, and if you're pining for The Commonwealth, pine on Grandad. Britain cannot make it on its own, and certainly not with any of the likely potential pilots at the helm.

And this isn't sarcasm.

There is, admittedly, a positive argument for remaining in the EU. We're better inside helping shape the decisions than outside suffering the consequences of them. This affords the UK to effect genuine global change through multilateral action with European partners irrespective of their frankly waning power and relevance. None of that is wrong; people join exclusive clubs for a reason and they don't give up membership on a whim or without qualms.

But the positive logic is as nothing compared with the negative logic of staying in Europe. The UK didn't need an EU to shape international affairs in the past, but then it had leaders who would not have dreamed of devoting months of their time fighting a completely unnecessary referendum on the basis of the UK's fundamental weakness.

This is not party political sniping: Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems (whatever happened to them?) are as one on this point. It can't be done, and - if it could - we can't do it.

Maybe some other UK with some other leader. Not this one. Not with Cameron, or Corbyn, or (let me check my notes) Tim Farron. Not with Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage or Michael Gove either, lest you think that Sordel dreams of princes across the sea.

If you can't trust your politicians, Brexit is too big a risk to take, which is why I cannot vote for it.

Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Slogan, and the slogan for these times is this: "We're All Wrong."