Good news and bad news. First the good news : David Davis is not quite as stupid as he appears, having realised that this is a ridiculous job and there's no way he can complete it unscathed. The bad news is that means he's a liar. So we are forced to attribute to malevolence what we can no longer attribute to stupidity. Cameraon, Farage, Davis.... if Brexit is so great, why does it keep neutering every politician who touches it ?
David Davis plans to retire in 2019 and leave Boris Johnson to steer the UK through the transitional period, The Telegraph can reveal. The Brexit secretary told friends that Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, "needs this to work more than I do" because he plans to step aside in June 2019 whereas Mr Barnier will still be in post. Mr Davis believes Brexit will be his "last big job", friends told this newspaper.
Asked why he does not plan to stay on during the transitional period Mr Davis said "someone else... Boris Johnson" can deal with the two year period after the UK leaves.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/02/david-davis-plans-retire-brexit-secretary-uk-leaves-eu-2019/
Rats, sinking ships. Too bad Ryanair and Monarch are having problems, it will be harder to leave.
ReplyDeleteThe Spartans used to put their rulers on trial after their terms in office: make them justify their actions. I think that would be a grand idea. Anyone running for office would know, from the moment he took his oath of office, that he'd end up in the dock, having to explain himself.
ReplyDeleteMuch as I loathe his party, I have a grudging respect for David Davis. He's been the voice of reason on civil liberties and especially on torture - often the only one. Now, there's no denying he takes positions I don't agree with, but on civil liberties, he's a good man.
Indeed, it's not so long ago that the Tory party as a whole was quite properly standing up to Labour on civil rights issues. Cameron was a mixed bag, restricting internet rights yet, to his credit, promoting gay marriage. Even Jason Rees Mogg, while holding some pretty loathsome views, at least behaves with dignity and respect for opponents. Stupidity, of course, can be a highly selective feature that ironically has precious little to do with overall intelligence. When I say someone is being stupid, I try to mean with relation to some particular issue, though Davis' treatment of Brexit has proven... irksome.
ReplyDeleteMay, on the other hand, appears to be a wholly detestable creature. I don't think I have a single good word to say about her.
I have probably mentioned this book before, Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd .
ReplyDeletesocserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca - socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/lebon/Crowds.pdf
Written in 1896, the examples are woefully out of date - though they shouldn't be to most educated people - the insights GLB provides into mob psychology are as fresh today as they were in his time.
You point out how Brexit neuters everyone it touches. That's because Brexit is a collective madness. I've survived three wars. I know what collective madness looks like. There's a sense of inevitability to war, some dire sense of necessity constantly presses down on everyone who gets sucked up into them. It's October 3, 2017. A century ago today, the Battle of Polygon Wood had just ended. The British took 15,375 casualties, the Australians 5,770.
Mass delusions are more compelling than any realistic conclusions people might reach. The Tories, like those wretched Tommies, are willing to feed the meatgrinder at any cost - and the more they lose, the more they'll throw.... nobody's thinking realistically about Brexit anymore.