Saturday 27 July 2019

Airport Fever: Here We Go Again

Brussels is making it clear he should go to capital cities first so he can be disarmed of his irrational exuberance.  (Jonathan Powell, Graun)
I thought we'd learned what happens when a PM with airport fever flits in and out of personal meetings with euro-leaders.
... Clause by clause, one by one 
'Til you shout, “Enough, I'm done” 
But there’ll be no ducking out, or break for rest 
Only after you’ve been beat up 
Will we let you put your feet up 
Don’t protest - be my guest, be my guest!
And there must be no "you wait outside the door - and we've arranged for you to be photographed looking lonely - while we all decide what's going to happen to you", either.

ND

12 comments:

Dhruvsingh27 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Raedwald said...

He must resist being summoned to Brussels, Paris or Berlin like some supplicant Satrap.

Only European Council heads of government meetings should take him to the EU. Brexit talks should in future be held in the Hague, Zurich or Oslo.

dearieme said...

For HoGs meetings he should send Larry in his place.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9579041/downing-street-larry-cat-survive-boris-johnson-cabinet-cull/

Anonymous said...

Jonathan Powell is the person who tried to claim that "Mrs. Thatcher would have voted Remain" -- despite clear and repeated evidence, drawn from her own statements, to the contrary.

The Guardian appears to be his natural milieu.

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andrew said...

Anon

Thatcher was complex.

Personally i think she was pro europe and anti referendums.

I think the was pro eu for the eu as it was when she was in office.

What she would make of it now... unfortunately unknowable, but from her warnings on bureaucracy and centralization and political powergrabbing, i suspect she would have voted leave.

A good question would be: how would thatcher have handled the leave process?

Anonymous said...

@andrew - hard to say how Thatcher would have handled it. Before the rot of arrogance set in, probably via sheer force of will and cold tactics.

I could easily imagine her setting her stall out with something to outrage the EU, but hard to disagree with. Dealing with the Tampon Tax unilaterally before the EU did, for example, would have had the white male apparatchiks of Brussels in high dudgeon, and thus managing to make an enemy of the liberal media.

May was missing a Malcolm Tucker type, I suspect Thatcher would have found one, and the UK's advertising industry deployed to sink Remain before they could cause any trouble.

Once arrogance had set in, probably in a similar vein to May, but without the same amount of missteps. The EU wanting the withdrawal and trade agreement done sequentially, rather than in parallel, would have been given short shrift. Would still have destroyed her career though.

Nick Drew said...

Errr ... it did!

E-K said...

Hopefully Boris is reading this or something similar.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully Boris is doing exactly whatever hes told by Cummings.

Anonymous said...

Have to say the timing is excellent.

Boris has all the media coverage as Parliaments are closed, closing or likely to close for the summer. Only governments are operating over the next few weeks so these tete-a-tete will be under the scrutiny of the media and not Parliaments.

Powell points to the ace that Boris has which is the potential pact with Farage (Or Lord Farage of Brussels when the Resignation Honours are announced). Oppositions should be worried but appear to be soothed by the mistaken belief Boris is seen as clown. The first few days are looking like a political blitzkrieg - with the emphasis on krieg. Cummings work(?)

There is also the work being done to underpin support at home and to negate the potential problems at home from the other home nations (see comment about parliaments and holidays)

There has been a lot of planning for this holiday phase as come the next session of the UK Parliament, it could all blow up. He has to make progress with Brexit now or risk the prize being seized from his hands.

Anonymous said...

There are numerous comments from Mrs.Thatcher in her later years about the EU, as recorded by friends and associates.

"We've got to come out!" was one such, and among the more trenchant.