'They haven't a clue'

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Things do not seem to be getting any clearer on where we are supposedly heading. We left the story last week with our gallant PM in New York telling others that migration was the big issue and that she had the answer. It looked mighty like Donald Trump's wall only it was full of water and labelled 'The English Channel'.

In the margins of the same event, President Obama reminded us of the pictures of bodies being washed up in the Mediterranean and invited us to show some humanity.

Donald Tusk helpfully pointed out that a large referendum result was a systemic failure by British politicians who had managed to blame Europe for their own failings over the years. This did not go down well with the government - nothing Tusk says ever will, especially if it is close to the truth.

Other European leaders and their ministers joined in and reminded us that we could not have access to the single market and avoid free movement of people. Boris Johnson naturally regarded this as complete baloney.

At a joint news conference the French Foreign Minister and Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble responded:
If we need to do more, we will gladly send her majesty's foreign minister a copy of the Lisbon Treaty [Kind of them not to mention that this was willingly signed by HMG]. Then he can read that there is a certain link between the single market and the four core principles in Europe.

I can also say it in English. So if clarification is necessary we can pay a visit and explain this to him in good English.

The French foreign minister added:
There are four freedoms and they cannot be separated. So if we want to make good European pate then there are four freedoms that together make up the pate in question.
Ouch! Who says the Germans do not have a sense of humour?

An unnamed diplomat told the Financial Times that there are six Boris Johnsons. Boris is generally perceived as a bad joke so everybody waits to see that face he will put on this time: clown, liar, joker, manipulator, master of insult or serious responsible politician. Expectations form him are very low based on his track record so far.

We were once again reminded that there would be no running commentary on progress with Brexit. This left commentators to wonder again exactly what it meant.

Some clarity did begin to emerge as discussions are at last beginning to focus on the two key issues: trade and migration. Talk of 'taking back control', of reducing bureaucracy, of funding the NHS and other mysterious Brexit promises have faded from the scene and we are faced with a straight and simple dilemma.

But, since there is no running commentary, nor updates, we are all in the dark as to which is seen as the lesser of the two evils. Are we surprised that businessmen are eyeing Liam Fox's golf course?

It was a harsh week. On Monday, Nick Clegg pointed out that the government had not a clue - and although critics dismissed him as an unreliable has-been, he knows the main actors well and characterised the Tory mindset well. His briefing paper on the complexity of arriving an WTO trade agreement was a brilliant piece of work which showed just how complex and overlapping the process would be.

Monday was also the day that Nicola Horlick defected to the Lib Dems, taking a side swipe at Liam Fox on the way, claiming that his comments on businessmen confirmed that the Tories' reputation for economic competence was now in tatters. She also reminded people of the warning by the Japanese that it would make eminent sense for them to move investment if we left the EU.

The Lib Dems were in the news again on Tuesday when Tim Farron made his conference speech committing to an open, tolerant and united country, preferably in the EU, and actually got coverage on the mainstream media even if he was upstaged by a celebrity marriage break-up.

By Wednesday, we learned that the areas that had backed Brexit were those that had been historically starved of government support. A later and rather longer report tracked the rise of the far right in both the UK and USA and showed that it was about lack of empowerment and resentment at 'new' people which easily translated into a hatred of immigration.

Tory Alan Duncan then spiced things up by saying openly that Boris Johnson had not expected to win the referendum but was only interested in being seen as the PM heir-apparent. I guess they had a meaningful discussion in the Parliament bar afterwards.

The publication of the first of the memoirs to hit the bookshops confirmed many of the things we had expected, to the effect that Boris had been wavering until the last moment and had only sent the then PM a text nine minutes announcing that he would be running for Brexit.

In an effort to cheer us up, the Mail reassured us that the results of Project Fear had yet to emerge. Um ... have they not noticed that the pound has fallen through the floor and that we have not yet left the EU.

By Friday the topic of Hard Brexit was being mentioned and George Osborne who is clearly going to enjoy being a distraction to the government, pointed out the question paper had not said anything about Hard Brexit.

Actually, the question paper had not mentioned anything other than a straight in/out question and so it is only spin and interpretation of the polls that allows any of us to work out what the referendum answer actually was other than a vote for out (just, almost ...)

Left alone to mind the shop, Boris could not resist telling someone that Article 50 would be triggered in the early part of 2017. Even though this was a repeat of what the PM had already said, he was also slapped down, making it a trio of public hand-slaps for the three wise monkeys in as many weeks.

Oh, and Northern Ireland started looking into mounting a legal challenge against Brexit.

The weekend continued in like vein and by Monday we were being told that British diplomats were (understandably) telling European businessmen not to believe a thing coming out of the three Brexit ministers. Presumably they have worked out that the PM holds the reins and has no confidence in her three primates.

At the end of a depressingly directionless week when sense has once again been hard to find, there is this witty customer complaint to enjoy.

The madness continues ...

The Last Night of the Proms was an occasion when the competing sides in the Brexit debate sought to hijack things to suit their different agendas. Remainers planned a mass-waving of EU flags but were stymied by the Brexiteers who tried to swamp these with UK flags. As it was, the result was the usual collection of flags of many nations.

The NewsThump satirical website reminded us all that waving the flag was tantamount to treason and outlined the punishment likely to be meted out to perpetrators.

This did not stop the social media trolls. One charming posting gave a satisfying reminder of the importance of proof-reading.

On Monday, the Sun ran a piece suggesting that the EU would charge UK citizens for visas to visit Europe. This, the Sun suggested, was a piece of spite by the EU.

... charging ordinary Brits to visit the Continent when countries such as Germany and France have had wide-open borders for decades is simply absurd. 

It is no surprise spiteful Brussels wants to punish us for Brexit.

How does one even begin to argue with this sort of logic? Germany and France have open borders because they are both in the EU and because their (democratically elected) governments have agreed not to have visas. Oh bother! I have used some long words. Let me start again ...

Poor Justine Greening then announced what we had been told last week: that grammar schools were back on the agenda.

Two extra points emerged: that the cap on the proportion of children of specific faiths admitted to 'faith' schools was to be lifted from 50%. It is hard to see how this proposal goes any way towards broadening the social mix in such schools, nor why the government sees fit to include it. Where is the political pressure for this coming from?

The second observation was that the Green Paper on grammar schools cuts right across the proposals in the awaited White Paper on academies, demonstrating how incoherent the government 'strategy' for education actually is.  

Elsewhere, David Davis told us again that there would be no second referendum and that parliament would not be given a say on any part of the Brexit process, not at the beginning, not during, nor when it was completed. It did not take people long to recognise that the Brexit manifesto objective of 'taking back sovereignty to the UK parliament' was to be another broken promise.

By 'UK Parliament' it did not mean the 'UK Parliament' but a closed-shop of utterly reliable Ministers, working in deadly secrecy to avoid 'our negotiating position' to leak out.

On Wednesday we had an announcement of the proposed parliamentary constituency boundary changes which, surprise, surprise, lead to a predicted increase in the number of Tory seats by 40. Gerrymandering was coined to describe just such adjustments.

Fun stuff this democracy. It is just as well that the Human Rights Act is to be replaced by ... oh yes, Liz Truss has not worked out what with (or why), has she ...

As the week got into its stride, we were told that the Hinckley Point deal had been agreed. So we have 'taken back control' to hand it over to the French and Chinese governments.

Much as I love China and its people as a country, it is hard to think of a major regime whose human rights record is dire as that of China except, perhaps Saudi Arabia and we would not want to do business with them would we ... Oh, you mean all those arms sales? Well, those are different because ... Brexit is taking us in some dubiously moral directions.

And less we should sound a little sanctimonious, the parliamentary report on Libya laid the responsibility for the chaos in that country on the personal lap of David Cameron. He caused the political chaos, it said, and he is responsible for the wave of refugees crossing the Mediterranean and ... yes, landing up on the doorsteps of Italy, France and the UK.

Talk about kicking a man when he is down. Did foreknowledge of this report encourage him to resign to avoid being a distraction to the PM: to avoid sitting on the backbenches sulking as Ted Heath did after being ousted?

Tellingly, the report said that Cameron had started the bombing campaign without a clear strategy for the aftermath. So both the Chilcott report and this one have said the same thing. Will we make the same mistake with Brexit?

From vacuum to golf course

David Davis' speech summarised by the
Have I Got News for You Facebook page

Last week was not the new government's greatest week.

On Monday, Brexit Minister David Davis opened the batting with a statement to Parliament about 'progress' with his work which said absolutely nothing that we did not already know: that there was no plan and no clear direction. Out for a duck?

The PM, fresh from her tough time being left out at the G20 discussions and no doubt reeling from Japan's dire and unusually direct warnings about investment, confirmed that she did not feel committed to the Brexit commitments on Immigration or the NHS which were two of the main planks for the Manifesto of Lies. She has already rejected the Australian points-based system for immigration. (It is strange how newly promoted people prefer to carry on doing their old job, undermining the newly-appointed replacements.)

On Tuesday, a cameraman's long lens spotted a document about the expansion of grammar schools, a policy which had been resisted by the Cameron regime. Caught at slip off a thick edge?

By Wednesday, No 10 was publicly slapping Davis down - sorry, saying that 'he was expressing a personal opinion' - for some of his remarks while the PM confirmed that grammar schools were back on the agenda. The timing was interesting as it took the focus off Brexit.

The education industry and others predictably weighed in with thousands of reasons why grammar schools were the wrong answer and this guaranteed that the weekend news agenda would be about education and not about Davis' incompetence.

Wednesday was also the day when new Minister Liz Truss appeared before the House of Commons Justice Committee to announce ... and showed that she has not yet got her head around her agenda or brief.  Prison Reform is now dead in the water. So that is Grayling, Gove and now Truss, all with different ideas and we are no further forward.

On Thursday, Donald Tusk appeared to have breakfast at No 10 and to press for an early lodging of Article 50, saying the ball was in the UK's court. This gave the headline writers a field day ranging from reference to 'balls' to questioning whether Breakfast meant Breakfast.

Friday resulted in a couple of quick wickets. The PM did her 'big speech' about the sort of society she wanted to create which included her commitment to grammar schools. Was this a late, and rather over-specific, insertion following the leak?

Liam Fox then surrendered his wicket very cheaply by saying that Britain is 'too lazy and too fat' with businessmen (sic) preferring 'golf on a Friday afternoon' to trying to boost the country's prosperity.

The balloon went up with respected notable entrepreneurs like Richard Reed of Innocent Drinks saying 'He is a representative of us, of this country, and he turns round and slags us off, calling us fat and lazy. He's talking about business people who were absolutely clear in saying that we want to export - and that's why we do want to remain in the EU... 

'How dare he talk down the country that he damaged, how dare he? He's a terrible, terrible voice for British business.'

Even the normally supportive Telegraph was moved to hint that businessmen might be playing rounds of golf while they waited to see what wonderful new trading arrangements Mr Fox had arranged.

So that was pretty much all out for nil. Mind you, with the Labour Party engaged in its self-destructive election, the bowling was hardly threatening.

Getting our grammar right

Just when one thought it could not get any worse, the government has announced that it is considering re-introducing a form of grammar school: not, we must all understand, grammar schools like they were before. No. These grammar schools will have all the good bits of the old ones. What they did not say in the initial announcement is what will happen to those students who do not get into grammar schools.

What a contentious choice of subject to have opened with, Mrs May. The reaction was inevitable with instant condemnation from the Chief Inspector of Schools to the Tories' own former Education Minister, Nicky Morgan (who has at last said something useful).

The most pithy reaction was from Nick Clegg who described it on the Today programme as 'A new government foisting their evidence-free prejudices on the rest of the country. There is no evidence at all that that is the answer to many of the problems in our education system.'

In the aftermath of Brexit, I suppose evidence-free is the new orthodoxy, even if it was famously articulated by the derided has-been Michael Gove.

But where does one start in discussing the idea?

Selection in education is fine. We are familiar with selection at the age of 16 when some students go on to do A levels, others to follow more vocational course. These are familiar and sensible for maturing teenagers plotting their future lives. Many schools and colleges are more than comfortable with providing both types of course in one campus.

But how? This is a government that has singularly failed to produce an effective new SAT test. The English grammar test was recently described as 'being more suitable for a 14 year old than an 11 year old'. No doubt they will suggest the mindlessly dull IQ tests of the past. I am sure someone has copies from the 1950s. We could re-use those. Oh yes, plus all kinds of social-engineering indicators 'Do you vote for the Tory party?' 'Are you newly poor because of the EU?' ... and so on.

It is a government that  been in power for just over a year and is already re-organising its half-finished mess of a re-organisation of education. Have we voted on it? Is there a mandate for it?

Has anyone actually joined up the dots between the perceived problem and the proposed solution? I doubt it. It is all prejudice stuff. Provided I say it loud enough the principal sounds sensible. Logic can go hang.

And then there is the manner of the thing. Grammar schools were originally replaced after a series of detailed studies and very careful thought. Passing the Bill through Parliament involved hours of careful deliberation with Three Readings and Committee Stages. Amendments were made and details refined. It was signed off by the Commons and the Lords.

In comes a new PM (with no new mandate) who stamps her foot like the Red Queen and says 'Off with their Head': no studies, no evidence and in the teeth of advice from the experts.

She is supported, of course, by her cabinet, many of whom went to grammar or selective schools. If it worked for me - and look where I have got - it will work for others. Mummy used to read me a bedtime story and that inspired me with a love of reading. Why don't we make that compulsory too?

What a way to run a country.

An after-thought. I am not normally one for conspiracy theories but quite happy to believe anything of spin-doctors. What were the chances that the 'leak' of the policy was not quite accidental as it seemed.

On Monday David Davis gave an appalling performance in the House of Commons, reporting no discernible progress on his Brexit brief over the summer. The following day - surprise, surprise - a photographer 'happened' to catch sight of a briefing paper about grammar schools, three days before the PM made a major speech about it.

They would not have engineered the leak of a potentially controversial policy to draw attention away from Brexit would they? No, it cannot be true. Surely.

The Silly Season is over

The Silly Season is over. Or is it?

Our gallant PM called a meeting of her cabinet at Chequers to which Ministers were bidden to arrive with ideas on how to make the most of Brexit. This photo shows that Boris came well-prepared. He seems to have followed his usual practice of talking without any facts at his disposal.

She appeared on the Andrew Marr show today, her first major interview since the summer and prior to the G20 meeting in Tokyo. She warned that 'Brexit may bring some "difficult times" ahead'.

That's funny. When people warned that Brexit would lead to such problems during the campaign, they were shot down in flames: accused of lying and indulging in 'Project Fear'. It is OK now is it?

And I bet the 'difficult times' will hit the poorest and most-remote-from-Westminster hardest.

Arch-Brexiteer, Crispin Blunt supported the line that migration was the one issue that needed sorting. So it was not about 'taking back control'; not about kicking Westminster in the teeth; not about the disparity of investment in different parts of the country; not about providing another £350m a week to the NHS ... no, it was all about migration from Europe (the smaller part of migration into the UK). As banners at the March for Europe said this weekend 'Fixit not Brexit!'

At the G20, Obama and Tokyo's Prime Minister have both repeated their view that Brexit is the wrong answer for the UK.

It will be interesting to see how the Hinckley Point decision changes once the Chinese have 'had useful conversations with' (aka 'done over') our Prime Minister (who was advised by her spooks to undress under the bedclothes to avoid spy cameras). It is so good to think that we are making the big change to cut ourselves off from our nearest neighbours to be able to do business with such luminaries of human rights as China, Russia and Brazil.

Then President May said that an Australian points-based system was not a silver bullet, overturning yet another of the Brexiteers' favourite policies.

Leaving the EU is the wrong answer to all the Brexiteers' questions. When will someone put a stop to the nonsense?

The only light relief is the New Statesman's schedule to assist the Brexit spin doctors on reasons why the milk and honey is not yet flowing.