Tuesday 3 March 2020

What Am I Bid?


Psst - I can do you a deal.... It's the Special Stuff - 99.9% pure alcohol rub. Kills viruses.


I wonder when we'll see the first case of Corona virus caught from handling a bottle of hand sanitiser in Tesco?

Tory MPs have said they will not support Boris if he ignores expert advice on Corona virus. Boris' entire career has been based on ignoring expert advice, so what's going to change? Corona is a Godsend to him as he can blame any Brexit fallout on it and it would be very hard to disentangle it all. Same with the floods. Plague and floods - some of a religious bent might see a biblical, divine retribution connection.

Boris is essentially engaged in a game of dare with the EU and has to portray himself as driving toward the EU at full speed in a no-deal scenario, cabriolet GTi, having removed the steering wheel and brakes. It's a very high risk, all-or-nothing strategy and involves a lot of subterfuge, such as the removal of workers' rights from the binding part of the Withdrawal Agreement to the non-binding part, the utterly ridiculous timetable, negotiating with Trump on chlorinated chicken, saying there will be no border checks, etc. He has to portray the UK as heading inexorably toward the position of an off-shore, deregulated sweat-shop that would be a permanent thorn in the EU's side, regardless of the consequences for the UK workforce or economy. The ERG are appeased by the thought of an economy in collapse and ripe for easy pickings in a fire sale and are thereby neutralised.

The question is whether this is actually what he wants. I don't believe he does, but he has to make the EU - and indeed everyone, including us - believe he does in order to convince the EU that he does. However, the EU could see through the smokescreen (as many in the UK have done) and call his bluff, which would leave us in a very precarious position which would in all probability lose him the next election. If his bluff were to be called, he would need to act very swiftly to get us back to a safe position as a rule taker, if that were even possible. Very high risk - but that's Cummings' style.


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