One thing we often hear these days from the commentariat is how “Project Fear” – trying to win a referendum by scaring the voting public into going the way you’d like them to – failed in Scotland and is failing in the EU referendum. Whether this strategy is actually deficient in regards to the current […]
Vote to leave the EU – if you want two more years of this at least
During the AV campaign, the No side had a whole wing of comms dedicated to doing down the idea of having the referendum in the first place. A “why are we having a vote on an electoral system that no one knows anything about when there are children dying in the streets?” sort of a […]
Does David Cameron have to quit as prime minister after June 23rd – regardless of the result?
Alexander Temerko, a reasonably large Tory donor, has announced to the world – via that well known, right-leaning outlet, The Guardian – that whatever happens in the EU referendum, David Cameron should step down as quickly as possible after June 23rd. “The Conservative party is fracturing following the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith and the […]
Why Boris is starting to remind me of Donald Trump
I have a confession to make: whenever I’m at Tory party conference (I attend all the party conferences every autumn), I try and clear time to see Boris’ speech. There is no equivalent at any other conference – I have never thought “can’t miss Emily Thornberry” while at Labour. To do this isn’t as simple […]
Homegrown reaction to the horror in Brussels demonstrates how deep the European divide is in Britain
After the attacks in Brussels yesterday, several Eurosceptic voices used the events as a way of arguing that Brexit was more necessary than ever. Alison Pearson, the columnist, wrote about how Brussels was the jihadist capital of Europe, and how its position as the de facto capital of Europe somehow discredited the whole European project. […]
The way the Right have turned on Osborne is laden with hypocrisy
I know many of you out there reading this have, it is fair to say, never been fans of George Osborne. However, spare a moment to consider how quickly the Right have turned on him – for supposedly moral reasons as well. This excerpt from Janet Daley’s Telegraph article yesterday sums up perfectly this new, […]
Could Osborne’s budget blues affect whether we stay in the EU or not?
It is a really weird time in British politics. There are strange currents going this way and that, breaking down traditional right-left thought patterns. Europe is the classic issue in this regard. Most Labour MPs want the UK to remain a member of the EU. However, the success of this partly rests on a Tory […]
If the country votes to leave the EU in June, the Tories could face a huge backlash on immigration
I’m Immigration is one of the key planks of the Vote Leave argument. No wonder: in terms of trying to get the British public keyed up about the EU, immigration is the one thing that does it for a large portion of the population. This is oddly one of the reasons the Brexiteers in the Conservative […]
Why Boris talking about Obama was a bad move
I know I’m writing about BoJo (BoGo now?) a lot at present, but I just can’t help it. He’s popping up practically every day with some new, ill-advised piece of “wisdom”. I never thought I’d say this, but Boris is the new Corbyn. Yesterday it was about Barack Obama. From his Telegraph column came this: […]
Why Boris is wrong about Canada
For a while I have been saying that the EU Leavers have no clear vision of what Out looks like. But finally, Boris has shown me what Brexit will mean. If we vote to leave on June 23rd, Britain will be more like…..Canada. “What I think we should do is strike a new free trade […]