Yes, everything seems to have gawn mad.
Yesterday Rod Liddle plugged his upcoming appearance on Newsnight in the Speccie. He was a little apprehensive, and with good reason.
Reinforcements had been brought in to back up Emily Maitlis. Rod is never as biting or quick-witted in person as he is in print, but here he was at a distinct disadvantage; two against one. Emily Mailtis made a particularly revealing onslaught on Liddle's writing midway through, which I'm sure will have antagonised every one of his fans. What was it she called it? Bile something or other?
“The bile that you spew up has to be who you are”
“(Rod’s) paid a lot of money… to be a scourge on what he calls the establishment.— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) July 15, 2019
“The trouble is, you are the establishment.”
- Tom Baldwin from @PeoplesVote_uk says to author Rod Liddle #newsnight | @maitlis | @TomBaldwin66 pic.twitter.com/ne6G5tiO1p
The case for a people's vote made by Tom Baldwin and his cohorts doesn’t make any sense to me. In my opinion, it’s by no means ‘the only answer’.
First of all, surely a referendum is binary, like tossing a coin. Tails you lose, kind of a thing. The trouble arises when you fail to catch the coin and it lands on its edge and rolls off the table. When the result is close, but you’ve agreed to abide by it come what May, (sorry) you have to abide by it.
“Oh, sorry, wasn’t ready’” doesn’t cut it.
Remainers argue that the peoples’ vote is the ‘answer’. How can this be? Despite all their claims that “Brexit has divided the country!!”, they now assume that this time the result will be decisive - for Remain.
But what if it turns out to be another half-and-halfie? Worse, what if ‘Leave’ still wins, even by a different (greater or smaller) margin?
If it’s close, will the “Leavers” make a fuss and call for a third-time-lucky? Unless Remain wins (decisively) we’re back to square one with all the difficulties of the WA, the backstop and the added obstacle of a slightly different cast of negotiating partners?
Even if they get the outcome they want, and we vote for Remain, can we really remain after all that acrimony?
It doesn’t seem at all logical to me, and Tom Baldwin just seems deluded by his own wishful thinking.
*******
Yesterday the BBC was headlining with ‘Trump is a racist’. (Everyone’s a racist these days.) I must be one.
The missing bit is that Trump was criticising the congresswomen (who ARE actually racists) for their anti-Americanism and racism, but the BBC could see no further than an opportunity for splashing out on a ‘Gotcha’ over Trump’s ‘gaffe’ in omitting to mention that all but one of the four ladies were born in the USA. (Somalia)
Well, you can’t take Somalia out of the Somalian (or “Palestine” out of the Palestinian) can you? So to speak.
(We also had the spectacle of Jeremy Hunt’s absurd non sequitur about his half-Chinese (or Japanese) children. Has Jeremy Hunt’s wife ever influenced him to defend China’s totalitarian regime against Britain’s interests and has anyone consequently advised him and his wife to ‘go home and fix his own country’?’ )
I didn’t think so.
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| like to get you on a slow boat to China |
