Let's all have tea

Poor P Toynbee of the Uardiang. It really is getting to her:

Take fright on Brexit: even the civil service head is telling us to panic 

Stockpiling food. Civil unrest. After the latest warnings on a no-deal with the EU we must hope to God this is a phoney war

The last time she mentioned God, by the way, it led to letters in teh Gruan -- she is a leading light in the National Secular Society. He is hoped at twice in this piece.

The 'civil service head' is one J Manzoni. Toynbee quotes a BBC account of what he told the Public Administration Committee. The 'factual' bit was that the Department of Health is stockpiling medicines [more than usual?]. The rest is worst-case stuff about shortages of food and queues of lorries, and, most absurd of all, no flying if there were no bilateral agreements. The context seems to have been the need to take 'no-deal' seriously. The BBC adds that 'There is an element of needing to look tough under pressure in negotiations - "Don't think we won't walk away," and all that.'

Toynbee's article is a marvellous concoction of doom and gloom, with everything woven together to increase the 'panic' (her word) about no-deal Brexit, or maybe just Brexit:

looming Brexit Armageddon....Shameful conduct by the chief whip and the party chairman...every graph shows the north-east hardest hit by all cabinet decisions since 2010...more universal credit chaos, as poverty rises... rail mayhem....At health, new boy Matt Hancock picks up the underfunding fallout, not resolved by next year’s bung, with social care a yawning gap. In education, the legacy left by Michael Gove has created scores of failed free schools and academies, and a brutal curriculum driving children to worsening anxiety levels. At the Home Office, violent crime rises, police numbers shrink, and Windrush reveals a broken immigration system – as the leadership hopeful Sajid Javid gives the green light to capital punishment....[the latter refers to Javid not asking the USA not to execute two formerly British jihadists if they are extradited to the US for trial -- not exactly a 'greenlight to capital punishment']

For now, the Brexit crisis distracts from all its other failures...when Doug Gurr, the head of Amazon UK – no political player [so this gives him some authority?]  – warns of “civil unrest” within two weeks of a no-deal guillotine, we should all sit up and pay attention [do Guardianistas do this often for Amazon pronouncements?] ...Everyone will take fright at the government’s own warnings to businesses and households....Already the government warns that the M26 in Kent will be a “holding area” for 1,400 trucks to ease gridlock as 10,000 lorries a day are potentially delayed by new EU customs checks...Stockpiling food – that’s an order to panic! And why not – half our food is imported, of which 80% comes from Europe via Dover.... it will frighten most of us to see what no-deal really means. The EU has issued its own warnings, especially to the 5 million EU and UK expat citizens...You can only hope to God this is a phoney war – but as the historian Margaret Macmillan pointed out in her Reith lectures, in the runup to wars and trade wars, leaders misstep, and disasters happen [really ingenious link this -- even the current Reith lecturer opposes Brexit].

And the piece concludes:

 Conspiracy theorists claim a “deep state” really controls this country, a civil service and a dark establishment that prevent any radical change. That theory is now being tested to destruction. This has been the worst session of parliament in recent memory: the next may be worse. There is no deep state – nothing out there to save us from self-inflicted disaster. Only we can save us from ourselves.

I think the deep state conspiracy would show, if anything, the power of the Remainer lobby to protect finance capital, with Toynbee as a 'useful idiot', but let's not match paranoias. The intriguing thing is what 'we' are supposed to do to 'save us from ourselves' -- form a new party again as Toynbee did once? It helped the Tories under M Thatcher stay in power for 13 years.