Borisphobia, the ruse of Reason and resurrecting the dead

The Observer keeps up the pressure (to maintain the morale of its own side rather than convince any doubters), with three interrelated anti-Johnson stories:

The editorial is perhaps the most outspoken:

a man within spitting distance of Downing Street is getting away with deploying utterly misleading information about what might happen in the aftermath of a no-deal Brexit, in order to strengthen his leadership bid....Johnson’s claims [that both sides could invoke a no-tariff provision] contradict the views of trade experts.... no such “clean” break from the EU exists. Britain is not legally prepared for a no-deal Brexit: at a minimum, the government needs to get at least five more bills through parliament. Britain would need to re-establish its independent status as a member of the WTO, not necessarily straightforward if other WTO members try to extract concessions. And the UK’s negotiating position with the EU would be significantly weakened

There are a few old sores to pick at once again:

That Johnson is happy to wilfully mislead voters should come as no surprise. As the public face of Vote Leave in 2016, he claimed that leaving the EU would free up £350m a week for spending on the NHS, which saw the head of the UK’s statistics watchdog accuse him of “a clear misuse of official statistics”. During the campaign, he stoked fears that Turkey was on the verge of joining the EU, despite the fact its application had stalled, but earlier this year claimed that he said nothing about Turkey during the campaign.  

Project Fear is dusted off:

A no-deal Brexit will have destructive economic and political consequences for the country. The government’s forecast is that it would depress GDP between 7.7% and 9.3% over a 15-year period and it is the least affluent areas of the nation that will be hit worst in terms of jobs and growth. Moreover, a no-deal Brexit risks the breakup of the UK; it would increase the pressure for a vote on Irish unity and fuel the campaign for Scottish independence.

There is incomprehension and despair that few seem moved by this obvious' common sense':

But his propensity to stray from the truth is doing little harm to his leadership campaign....with Conservative members: more than half say they prefer no deal to the withdrawal agreement.... One poll last week suggests they are so ideological about Brexit that they are happy to countenance significant economic damage, the breakup of the union and the destruction of their own party in order to see it happen. Johnson is currently expected to secure a comfortable victory among them, despite the fact that 40% believe he cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

No liberals have ever polled people to ask what the opinion is of them, of course. I suspect it would be that they cannot be trusted to tell the truth, that they lied about the net benefits coming from EU payments, that economic damage from remaining in the EU and the EU's imperialist plans have been covered up, and that sloppy liberal tolerance and English cultural cringe has encouraged support for 'Europe' and for SoctNattery

Elsewhere in the organ, straws are floating past temptingly. N Cohen seems to have abandoned plans to take to the streets, and instead takes small-c conservative comfort from the trend for all radical movements to end in failure or reversal:

Revolutions devour their children because what is radical one day in a crisis becomes a sellout the next....Brexit has pushed the right into a demonic orgy. It is throwing off the standards it once pretended to abide by – parliamentary sovereignty, family values, monarchism, unionism. For all its rage, don’t underestimate how much it is enjoying the release from its taboos.[Polarisation works both ways] 

Not so long ago, a Conservative who had left two wives, walked out on his children and jumped into the bed of a woman almost half his age could never have been prime minister. The Tories were the party of the family and traditional values. Now they are the party of broken families and no values apart from leaving the EU.[ah yes, the days when we all had proper values.But why leave out the nasty ones? Patriarchy? Heteronormativity? Eurocentrism?]...the party of throne and state [!] is willing to provoke a constitutional crisis by ordering Elizabeth II to prorogue parliament....

Johnson gives Conservatives permission to stop pretending they believe in family life or personal responsibility. They can let it all hang out now. Who cares about their divorces and affairs, their dirty secrets and their little swindles? [Only the hypocritical petit-bourgeoisie, and that only for tactical reasons?]

By any empirical measure, the Tory party has ceased to exist. Half of its members support Nigel Farage, who has an effective veto over Johnson’s Brexit policy. Unless Johnson clears his actions with him [ a conspiracy theory?] , Farage can split the rightwing vote by running Brexit candidates against Conservative MPs who provoke his disapproval.

There is a come-uppance for bounders and demagogues nonetheless in the way History itself resists radical change:

He is too fatuous to be a frightening leader, as it is far from clear whether he is leading anyone....When I think of how his supporters will turn on him when his promises prove to be false, or of how his cocky words of June 2019 will turn to dust by October, I could almost feel sorry for the fraud. Almost.

Finally, there is still hope for the Great Parliamentary Coup:

Constitutional experts say new Tory leader could be blocked from becoming prime minister without a Commons majority

Johnson’s legitimacy would be challenged if just a handful of Tory MPs declare that they could not support his administration, according to professors Robert Hazell and Meg Russell from the constitution unit at UCL...“One possible scenario is that a group of Conservative MPs is so concerned about the winning candidate that they declare their withdrawal of support immediately the result of the leadership contest is known – ie, before the new PM is appointed. This would pose a serious dilemma for the Queen and those advising her, because it would not be clear that the new Conservative leader could command confidence.”... "...Theresa May could remain in place and facilitate a process in parliament to demonstrate that the winning candidate – or indeed an alternative candidate – can win a confidence vote, before recommending that person to the Queen.”

Zombie politics indeed. 

STOP PRESS Parliamentary Coup #124  failed last Monday (1/6) when an amendment sponsored by D Grieve and Dame M Becket failed to get enough support and was therefore not called by theSpeaker (how did he know?). It would have been attached to the regular Government Finances statement and made it necessary to take no deal off the table. BBC News said it could call on the support of only 6 rebel Tory MPs. Then they said it was 'too soon', fanning hopes for Parliamentary Coup #125

Last-minute hate session (again)

Actually, these will probably continue until the voting is over next month.This one is the Graun's S Moss, conveniently listing one more time all those racist insults uttered by Johnson, and making the link to Brexit,of course:

The would-be prime minister’s racist vulgarity is childish – and reveals the nostalgia for empire that underpinned Brexit

Johnson, who has spent much of his career being beastly about those who had the misfortune not to be born British. This despite his own Turkish ancestry – a severe case of over-compensation perhaps. His rude poem about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan having sex with a goat (“There was a young fellow from Ankara / Who was a terrific wankerer”) certainly seems to bear out this psychological interpretation.[Freud for beginners?] ...He thinks they [the French]  are “turds”, a remark disgracefully pulled from a BBC documentary...Calling the French “turds” for being intransigent on Brexit is a sign of Johnson’s vulgarity and stupidity. As his second-class degree [I thought it was a Third, in Classics] suggests, his is a second-rate mind trying desperately to persuade us it is a first-rate one by using Latin tags and improper jokes. His useless, vapid books are the measure of the man.[Classic petit-bourgeois class hatred of nobs here,of course] 

Everything that Johnson has ever said about the world is jokey, insensitive, stupid and needlessly provocative. His racism is well-rehearsed. ... “What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England,” he wrote. “It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies.”...He went on: “They say he [Blair] is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and their tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.”...In 2006 Johnson had to apologise when he suggested that the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea were cannibals. “For 10 years we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing,” he wrote (in the Telegraph again, of course), “and so it is with a happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour party.” 

“The problem is not that we were once in charge [in Africa],” he wrote in the Spectator in 2002, “but that we are not in charge any more. The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.”

What does all this tell us? That Johnson has an upper-class aesthetic compared to Moss's petit-bourgeois one [and that both are very limited] ? No -- self-taught psychology is required:

Johnson is a classic example of arrested development: he remains the eternal privileged 15-year-old having everything done for him at Eton, devoid of empathy, failing to understand that words have consequences, useless with money (as his current inamorata has noted), utterly self-centred, childlike....Arrogance and lack of emotional intelligence no doubt explain many of his remarks but, as others have noted, beneath the endless layers of bluster there is a yearning for empire and a kernel of nationalism that ultimately led him to support Brexit in 2016. Reciting fragments of Rudyard Kipling’s poem Mandalay on a visit to a Buddhist temple in Myanmar in 2017 suggests that a nostalgic imperial vision still lurks in that atrophied adolescent brain.

Johnson did not quote Kipling, certainly not these bits, but Moss does:

“An’ I seed her first a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot, / An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot: / Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud / Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd / Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ’er where she stud! / On the road to Mandalay …”

Kipling was himself doing populist ventriloquism here, of course. Is it possible Moss thinks these were simply just Kipling's views though? Or that anyone who might quote Kipling must share the views of his protagonists? There might be the usual tin ear for indirect speech. Moss solemnly ends his piece with the constant bafflement Graun writers have that many others do not share their aesthetic or their constant seriousness and literalness either:

Johnson’s racist remarks – set alongside equally outrageous examples of sexism and homophobia – should disqualify him as prime minister. [not his economic views?]   Instead, they appear to endear him to the Tory membership

According to the Grunida,:

Stephen Moss is a naturalist, writer and broadcaster [lots of programmes with Bill Oddy] , who also lectures in nature and travel writing at Bath Spa University. His latest book is Mrs Moreau's Warbler: How Birds Got Their Names.

I also found this online in the South Wales Argus:

A NEWPORT-born Guardian journalist has defended his portrayal of the city in a piece which provoked anger today....Stephen Moss, who grew up in Ringland and whose parents and brother still live in the city, wrote in his editorial piece for today’s newspaper that Newport was a town, that it was “culturally confused” as to whether it was English or Welsh, that it was “industrially depressed” and that its train station was “hideous”....[obvious over-compensation here then?] He told the Argus he meant the piece to be “affectionate” and that he admired many strands of its history, such as its “radical edge” [clearly an evasion]

He also wrote a piece for the Graun in 2015 about the need for a non-Tory alternative to the Labour Party, which gives some idea about what he takes to be proper politics:

predicated on a belief that Corbyn was never going to sweep Labour back to power. That view, which may reflect the fact that I live in Surbiton...Class politics are dead; Labour’s day is done....[we petit-bourgeois, media branch, are the masters now]

He talked to some Labour figures, then wrote a brief for the new party -- which he described himself 'as several pages of this waffle' -- and then 'signed up hotshot design company Havas Work Club'.These authorities quickly came up with a name 'This is Britain' . Then:

“We started to write the brand into behaviour [said HWC]. This is Britain democratised the brand.”...This debate, though, proved to be academic, because This is Britain was quickly history, replaced by a party name we really liked – “Just”. Within 24 hours we had a logo, and some snazzy posters. It was bright, modern, convincing, classless....[then]... David Owen, co-founder of the SDP in the 80s [that went well] ...suggested a “progressive alliance”  

Moss talked to C Lucas, then the East Devon Alliance [one good idea at least] , and:

...warmed to this notion of a disparate band of locals demanding greater transparency and accountability in local government, drawing support from all parts of the political spectrum and taking on the might of the Conservative political machine....This sounded like fluid, grassroots modern politics, not the class-based trench warfare of old. I mooted a national Citizens’ party to Arnott, the EDA writ large. “If you are prepared to launch the Citizens’ party,” he said, “the East Devon Alliance would be interested in opening talks with you.”... Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens will hold national talks to agree a common set of values. Shirley Williams, former Labour cabinet minister and now a Lib Dem peer, told me to take it slowly: values first, policy later [SDP to a T] . Once that is agreed, local parties will – as Lucas suggests – cooperate to decide on a common candidate...Work Club and I decided to [re] brand [the party as] “Platform”....The branding is clever [job obviously done then] : a single bar that echoes a train platform, beneath which is the word “Platform”, and on top of which sits the name of whichever party is contesting that constituency....With a majority in the Commons, a progressive alliance – backed by the SNP and Plaid Cymru – could introduce proportional representation, push through federalism, decentralise power to the English regions and replace the House of Lords with an elected senate.

After all that sketching of unicorns, Platform seems to have sunk without trace. Back to the old purely negative politics...

Another Pearl Harbour,but this time with an ultimatum ?

Big business Japanese allies of the Gurdina are quoted in the main story on the website in an Oriental Operation Osore:

Japan says next British PM must not lead UK out of EU without deal 

We see the return of an old favourite -- JIT stocking-- here as well:

“There are a few Japanese auto manufacturers operating in the United Kingdom and some parts are coming from continental Europe, and right now they have very smooth operations....“Their stock for each part is only for a few hours, but if there is [a] no-deal Brexit and if they have to go through actual custom[s] inspection, physically, those operations may not be able to continue. And many companies are worried about [the] implications, because they don’t know what’s going to happen.

Meanwhile, staunch defender of the Union M Kettle is, well, banging on and on:

If Boris Johnson becomes prime minister, Britain will be sleepwalking towards the break-up of the United Kingdom. The minority who want this to happen [including ScotNats?] are rubbing their hands at the prospect. The separate minority who say they don’t care if it happens [after years of ScotNattery?] seem beyond reasoned debate at present

Kettle pauses the thumping for a paragraph:

This is a problem with very deep and entangled historical roots. It embraces the centuries-long uneasy relationship between Britain and Ireland, and the increasingly confrontational modern one between Britain and Scotland. It highlights the failure of successive constitutional settlements to give a particular voice to Englishness.  

But it soon gest focused again:

Of the original contenders, probably only Rory Stewart possesses what one could call an intuitive understanding of Scotland and the union. This week’s offer by Jeremy Hunt to include Davidson in any Brexit negotiating team is a rare recognition that the union is genuinely at stake in the Brexit battle., [while Johnson is quoted as hostile] “Allowing the Scots to make their own laws, while free-riding on English taxpayers … is simply unjust,” he once wrote. He said in 2012 that public expenditure in London was of greater value to the country than public expenditure in Strathclyde – and says that when the Scottish government overspends “they will come cap in hand to Uncle Sugar in London. And when they do, I propose that we tell them to hop it.”

I suspect that the Gruan would be horrified at the popularity of those views too, and has no idea that it has probably increased Johnson's support by quoting them  Scottish unicorns are left unchallenged:

The SNP’s offer in 2019 is more separatist than in 2014. Back then, it said it wanted to keep the pound and maintain customs and market alignment with the UK. Now, post-Brexit, it feels confident enough to reject those links.

And there are hints of an old Tory campaign slogan:

If a future Corbyn government finds itself dependent on the nationalists, it seems certain that he would give the SNP the independence referendum it seeks – and might even support its yes campaign.

I never thought I would say this about a Murdoch owned newspaper, but the Times has a much more useful, informative and balanced piece on the pros and cons of 'no deal' . If only we could have had this earlier!

 

Who is the greenest of them all? *

Is the EC green or not? More green than the UK? A Green MEP (M.Scott Cato) speaks in the Grudnia. As usual, the headline is uncompromising:

Brexit is political poison, and it’s green policies that are suffering 

The body text is a bit different:

As pro-European MEPs we grow weary of the government claiming credit for European achievements while blaming Brussels for its own inaction or mismanagement.... finger wagging at Brussels to deflect from British government failure is a well-rehearsed strategy. The latest blame game is about household solar batteries, which HMRC claims must be subject to the higher rate of VAT because of EU state aid rules. 

The proposed new [EC] rules [on VAT] also offer more flexibility for countries to set rates and to extend VAT exemptions – including a zero rate and some reduced rates – but the proposals are being blocked because there is still no unanimous agreement between EU countries. The UK has been one of the countries showing a reluctance to push for reforms that could provide the flexibility to reduce or zero-rate VAT for energy efficiency measures.

Lots of conditionals already. There's more:

But the government also likes to point towards a 2015 European court of justice (ECJ) ruling, which concluded that the reduced 5% rate of VAT on the supply and installation of energy-saving materials was in breach of EU rules.  

However, this rule could have been worked around: 

However, the ECJ also ruled that a reduced rate could apply if it was “part of a social policy”...As unhelpful as the ECJ ruling was, there are a number of ways that the British government could have engaged constructively with it....First, it could have explored its breadth and almost certainly found that energy-saving materials used in home insulation do not include batteries...Second, it could have changed domestic legislation to defend energy efficiency as social policy – which would allow the reduced rate as the ECJ ruled

So he UK Government should not have been so silly as to take  the ECJ ruling seriously in the first place. Of course,the ECJ could legislate later to close any interpretive loopholes, just as it did with UK power supply subsidies. So a longer term  remedy might have been necessary:

Third, it could have influenced the current debate over the revision to the VAT regime and supported the Greens in demanding that all products that support the sustainability transition will be zero rated for VAT.

Not exactly autonomous policy making though is it? First you have to work around some irritating new legislation, with a promise only of short term results. Then engage in a minority-supported lobby to try and move the ECJ - the same body that was pretty unmoved in the first place. Scott Cato sees it differently:

The government decided first to ignore the EU rules it was signed up to, then pick a fight with Brussels, [which seems to be a problem now, not heroic campaigning at all] then over-interpret the result of a legal case and use it to undermine support for the EU among the green lobby [a bit of old-fashioned party paranoia]... it is a perfect example of how our national politics under the Tories has become subjugated to Brexit posturing while urgent environmental and social priorities are ignored.

The VAT proposals in question are actually quite far-reaching, according to the European Commission press release Scott Cato links to:

In its 2016 VAT Action Plan, the Commission announced its plan to introduce definitive arrangements based on the principle of taxation in the Member State of destination. This is a departure from the current system where VAT is paid in the country where the goods or services originate. For the current system to work, VAT rates in different countries needed to be as similar as possible so that unfair competition between Member States is kept to a minimum. The recent EU decision to move to the so-called 'destination principle', as proposed by the Commission, means that such a restrictive approach becomes unnecessary. ...At the same time, the Commission proposes to abolish the list of goods and services to which reduced rates can currently be applied.

Consumers are likely to see more products being subject to reduced VAT rates. Member States should ensure that this lower rate is reflected in the final price paid by the consumer. [nice hope] 

There may be some particular advantages for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME):

It will reduce SME's VAT compliance costs by up to 18% per year, leading to an increase in their cross-border trading activity by about 13%. It should also have a positive revenue impact in the longer term due to the general positive effect on the small enterprises' output.

And what is an SME? Not really your corner shop or window-cleaning outfit:

the simplifications of the VAT Directive [also] target businesses operating on a much smaller scale, which under the general definition would be considered as ‘micro-enterprises', namely, those with annual turnover not exceeding €2,000,000. The review of the current exemption scheme will affect in particular a much smaller group of firms, i.e. those with less than €100,000 annual turnover.

There is a political agenda too, of course:

[The reforms will produce a] robust single European VAT area fit for an increasingly globalised world..The current process by which a Member State can seek to alter the rules on rates ultimately requires unanimous agreement by all Member States..  

So more power to the Commission, represented of course as an extension of freedom:

a new proposal granting Member States more flexibility to set rates [but within the new standard limits of course,with far less room for the current] patchwork of rates that vary from one country to the next. It has also created inequalities within the EU. Some Member States enjoy derogations, [rather a nasty word] while others are not allowed to apply a reduced rate or zero rate to the same products or services.

No really bad news on the economy.

The Graun has kept up a series of monthly reviews of key economic indicators to chart the economic damage done by the Referendum vote and the prospect of Brexit. The problem is the data have not been as damning as hoped, requiring a bit of backing and filling. However,that only makes the task of isolating the specific effects of Brexit more difficult. As today's example shows, other factors affecting economic activity include the economic policies of other governments and the EC,  the beliefs and guesses of managers, the weather, and the uncertainty over Brexit as much as the decision to leave itself. Today's is no exception:

The rising likelihood of no-deal Brexit has dragged down the pound on the foreign exchanges over the past month, as the prospect of a no-deal-focused Boris Johnson as prime minister becomes more likely. Sterling had fallen sharply to less than $1.26 against the US dollar and to about €1.12 against the euro. However, the US Federal Reserve coming closer to being forced into cutting interest rates amid fears over a slowing US economy has dampened the strength of the dollar in the past week. This has helped to inflate the value of the pound. The outgoing head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, also suggested that the eurozone requires more economic stimulus, which has sapped the strength of the euro.

However: 

Stock markets surge amid stimulus talk

Back to the body text:

UK inflation fell for the first time in four months, dropping back down to the target set by the government for consumer prices inflation of 2%,  ...After ballooning as companies rushed to import goods to avoid Brexit disruption, the UK’s trade deficit – the shortfall between imports and exports – narrowed to £2.7bn in April from £6.1bn in March...Surveys of business activity used as early warning signals for the British economy by the Bank of England and the Treasury suggested that UK economic growth remained weak last month....The IHS Markit/Cips services purchasing managers rose to a three-month high of 51 from 50.4 in April, following a rise in domestic orders. A figure above 50 indicates growth...After months of employers appearing to shrug off Brexit concerns, jobs growth slowed in the three months to April. Employment in Britain increased by 32,000 to reach a record high of 32.75m, according to the ONS, [but] significantly down on the 99,000 jobs added to the workforce in March....An unseasonably cold May prompted a sharp decline in summer clothing sales last month, raising fears over the strength of the economy as consumers reined in their spending....Falling corporation tax receipts [connected to Brexit?] damaged the health of the public finances in May, which in turn fueled a rise in government borrowing....The Brexit uncertainty serving as a brake on the housing market appeared to ease last month, as a survey of chartered surveyors showed that prices picked up on relief that the UK hadn’t crashed out of the EU without a deal this spring. 

After another shouty subheading, recycling some'news':

And another thing we’ve learned this month … Brexit stockpiling set to fuel economic slowdown

There is this:

After fuelling an upswing in economic growth earlier this year, the stockpiling rush ahead of the original Brexit deadline is poised to drag on the economy over coming months. UK firms face renewed risks around how to plan for no deal after the delay until the autumn

It's been a while since I did any Economics, but stockpiling can 'drag on the economy' if we consider sales of stocks of raw materials, but stimulate the economy in other ways at the production end (eg if the cost of buying new stocks increases). There are also storage and other costs of stockpiling , it is true. I want to see the argument, but after years of partisan banging on and on, I no longer trust the Grudian to offer me one.

 

 

Graun (re)discovers elitism -- more widely spread than they thought

The Graun is among those complaining that the election of a new Tory leaders and thus PM by a small constituency of Tory members was unspeakably elitist in this day and age, although this is the first time they have complained about the system -- I wonder why. The echoing silence about the other elites in the country was filled a bit today with their revelation that 

Britain’s top jobs still in hands of private school elite, study finds

a tiny elite of privately educated people, many of whom went to Oxbridge, continue to dominate high-ranking jobs, where 39% had an independent education, compared with 7% of the general population. Critics described the figures as “scandalous” and called for urgent change.

Revealingly:

39% of the cabinet (at the time the analysis was carried out) went to fee-paying schools compared with 9% of the shadow cabinet – down from 22% during Ed Miliband’s reign as Labour leader – while 29% of the 2017 intake of MPs were privately educated....In the media, 43% of the 100 most influential news editors and broadcasters, and 44% of newspaper columnists went to fee-paying schools; 33% of those went to both private school and either Oxford or Cambridge....“These scandalous figures show that the UK is far from being a meritocracy..."

Implications for all those boasts about press and Parliament speaking in the name of national interests? None. Doesn't stop P Toynbee:

The Tory party’s hardcore membership would head us off a cliff. We need to rebel against this democratic outrage

 our fate [is] fixed by the votes of a tiny self-selecting oligarchy....The Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission’s report [the one above] lands today with perfect timing, showing that private schooling and Oxbridge still govern every British commanding height. How apt, with a “choice” between an Etonian ex-president of the Oxford Union or an admiral’s son, head boy of Charterhouse and president of the Oxford University Conservative Association....70% are men, 97% white, 60% southern, 86% higher social classes, average age 57, a high proportion no longer in work. Six out of 10 want the death penalty back. These are oddballs.

So what of the even odder and narrower elites that dominate her profession and the Remainer Parliament? Or those that make up the EC?  Will she generalise the debate? Nearly:

Both [Tory candidates] are so sociologically and ideologically similar that “character” is the only cigarette paper between them...They are not Britain...

We can move on to the real issue for Toynbee, the real problem with elitism:

... members’ Brexit position has hardened considerably since 2015, reinforced by 30,000 new hard leavers. Here’s the crunch: 84% are opposed to a referendum and two-thirds are for leaving the EU with no deal – ready to sacrifice the union, the economy and their own party. Out in the real world, only a quarter of voters want a no-deal Brexit. For more than 18 months YouGov founder Peter Kellner has recorded a majority who now think the referendum result was wrong. For a year there has been an eight-point lead for remain, among all polls. This has become a remain-majority country.  

Toynbee calls for fighting in the streets -- well, more motions for the Labour Conference:

Where is the rebellion against this democratic outrage?...Each day more phoney “solutions” to the Tories’ Brexit dead end pour out: Labour should be out there knocking them down like skittles....How profoundly depressing that Corbyn-backing Momentum has proposed 10 conference motions but not a single one refers to Brexit....

Scary headline but more balanced article vol 345

The Graun today has this:

Boris Johnson 'could face Tory coup' over no-deal Brexit stance

Tobias Ellwood says MPs would vote against government as Jeremy Hunt accuses rival of cowardice

Ellwood told the BBC. “I think a dozen or so members of parliament would be on our side, would be voting against supporting a no deal and that would include ministers as well as backbenchers.” [while]...Hunt was scathing about Johnson’s decision to avoid almost all media interviews and debates, calling it “very disrespectful to Conservative party members”.

Other than that, the article discusses the weekend row, no doubt trying to give it legs. However, it is more 'balanced', containing the sorts of points any reasonable newspaper would have made at the time:

Priti Patel, the former international development secretary and another leading Johnson supporter, told the BBC that Johnson was facing “a very clear, politically motivated series of attacks”...“The very prospect of someone taping someone in their private home, frankly, tells me that is politically motivated,” Patel said. “And that is not the type of behaviour that you would expect in our country. It’s the type of behaviour associated with the old Eastern Bloc.”...“Quite frankly this has now become very much, I think, remain versus leave, and a personal attack and campaign against Boris.” [And]...Defending Johnson on BBC1’s Breakfast, Hancock said the dozen-plus party hustings and other events amounted to “endless and constant scrutiny”....Hancock added: “Of course, the question of whether Boris’s private life is private is, perfectly reasonably, up to him. I don’t think anybody would like their conversations late at night to be listened in to and snooped on by a neighbour.”

A Graun editorial continues to pontificate from the high ground:

Contrary to some of this weekend’s commentary, what happens behind closed doors should not always stay there. When a woman screams at her partner to “get off me” and “get out of my flat”, calling the police is a responsible thing to do...When police say no offences or concerns are apparent and no further action is needed, as on this occasion, the matter would in normal circumstances end there. But running for prime minister is not, by definition, a normal circumstance.... The public, denied the right to choose our leader, have at least a right to know who is being imposed upon us. Scrutiny is not only appropriate. It is necessary.

We look forward to public scrutiny of the finances of the Graun and the personal lives of its journalists. 

A former ambassador to South Korea is quoted as saying:

British ambassadors have been sending messages to the Foreign Office describing Brexit as a political shambles that is destroying the UK’s reputation, the serving UK ambassador to South Korea has said.

Meanwhile, the Grauun keeps up its campaign for the UK's reputation for serious commentary with this:

Wink murder: is the lascivious gesture dying a death?

and this
 

The new feminist armpit hair revolution: half-statement, half-ornament

Why the personal is the political and vice versa

A Rawnsley in the Observer makes the case for moralising about Johnson:

 the Johnson team moved around some of their votes to get Mr Hunt into the final because he is their preferred opponent....Mr Johnson is overwhelmingly more popular with the Tory membership, an audience that is predominantly white, male, southerly, affluent, very Brexity [all these are condemnable?] and much keener on the former foreign secretary who campaigned to leave the EU than the current holder of the office who did the opposite.

This contest is an opportunity to kick the tyres, inspect the engine and check the brakes of the men who want to be Britain’s next prime minister...[Hunt]...will never match the other man’s gift with the flamboyant phrase and the outrageous untruth...so he should campaign as the candidate who invites Tories to think soberly about themselves, their country and the qualities that ought to be required of a prime minister....Mr Hunt should take a leaf out of Rory Stewart’s campaign book and make himself the honest candidate who asks the hard questions.

Meanwhile, there is always the old option:

He is entitled to make character an issue. Not as in personality, but as in moral character....[As examples of this high-flown sober approach?] is [Johnson]  actually all that lovable? The spotlight has been swivelled on to his torrid personal life by the episode in the early hours of Friday morning at his girlfriend’s home....Carrie Symonds complaining that a sofa had been ruined with red wine: “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.”...[is]...an unattractive character reference from someone who goes to bed with him...the least flattering descriptions come from those who know him best...Sir Max Hastings, who employed him at the Daily Telegraph, describes him as “a gold medal egomaniac. I would not trust him with my wife nor – from painful experience – my wallet... He is also a far more ruthless, and frankly nastier, figure than the public appreciates.”...Politicians can change their hairstyles, waistlines, tax policies, views on transport projects and sexual partners, but they can’t change their essential character.[ah yes --essential character.One instinctively knows what that is by the cut of a chap's jib]

One duty that falls on Mr Hunt is to use the next month to direct fierce scrutiny at his rival’s often shifting and contradictory propositions about Brexit...How exactly is he going to do a deal by Halloween with an EU that says it won’t reopen the withdrawal agreement? If he is in possession of a magical solution to the Irish border conundrum, why didn’t he reveal this masterplan to his colleagues during the two years when he sat in the cabinet as foreign secretary? How is he going to take Britain out of the EU without a deal when there is no mandate from the people for a crash-out Brexit and no majority for that outcome in parliament?... even if he is defeated, he can fail honourably by making this a contest, not a coronation. He will be doing a vital service to both his party and the country if he interrogates the character, punctures the fantasies, nails the evasions and unravels the deceptions of his opponent. He should strive to compel a little more honesty from the other man.

Then a hint of the dangers of unintended consequences:

Of course, Tory members probably know [all]  this already and perhaps they do not care. An eye-popping poll suggests that a majority of them will sacrifice almost anything in order to get Brexit, including the United Kingdom itself.  

Gruany libs can never grasp this.They think Brexit only has great symbolic significance for them. For Leavers it's just a matter of racism and ignorance

N Cohen expresses a new option for Remainers -- resignation with hints of revenge. He seems to have gone off calling for protests in the street to stamp on rivals. It is quite insightful too:

Clegg said Brexit was a battle that had to be won, then fled the field as the struggle began. The same temptation in a different form diverts people who see themselves as committed activists. If they but realised it, they would understand that they too are opting out of necessary fights and making a nonsense of their professed principles. They say Brexit is a calamity, but their behaviour shows they don’t believe it [because all they can do is oppose, and there is no real social root to their protests in the disorganisation of the restless petit bourgeoisie]

Cohen is playing the long game, or maybe going back to a cause decisively lost in the 2011 referendum on alternative voting.Let's re-run that one too?:

They say they oppose an archaic first-past-the-post system that forces the public to choose between two discredited parties. But they do nothing to overcome its biases....Explain the need for Remainer co-operation and activists shudder. They prefer the purity of failure to the compromises that breaking out of our decaying system entails....As the triumphs of Boris Johnson and Corbyn are teaching us, activists are cursed by tribalism and an overweening vanity that makes them believe the country must want what they want.

I saw apathy set in during the 18 years of Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997. People who were full of fight were worn down by four election defeats. I see it now when I visit liberals in the authoritarian states of Hungary and the Czech Republic. They can protest occasionally and laugh at edgy comedians, but the knowledge that their protests can never hurt those in power weighs them down....Millions are now bouncing between parties, looking for leaders who can provide a credible opposition. If they can’t find them, they will retreat into private life and do their best to ignore Brexit Britain. If the choice continues to be between Johnson and Corbyn, they will suffer the worst fate of all: they will opt out

You could argue that Remainers would feel left behind? Would they get resentful and blame  outsiders? Or would the bandwagon move on to climate protest?

Johnson row exposes gestural class politics

The press desperately try to escalate the row between Johnson and his partner C Symonds into some legitimation crisis. The neighbour who called both the police and the Guardian has issued a statement. 

In the Observer:

Penn, 29, said: ...I heard what sounded like shouting coming from the street....“I went downstairs, on the phone to the driver, and collected my food. On the way back into my flat, it became clear that the shouting was coming from a neighbour’s flat. It was loud enough and angry enough that I felt frightened and concerned for the welfare of those involved, so I went inside my own home, closed the door, and pressed record on the voice memos app on my phone....“After a loud scream and banging, followed by silence, I ran upstairs, and with my wife agreed that we should check on our neighbours. I knocked three times at their front door, but there was no response. I went back upstairs into my flat, and we agreed that we should call the police.... My sole concern up until this point was the welfare and safety of our neighbours. I hope that anybody would have done the same thing....“Once clear that no one was harmed, I contacted the Guardian, as I felt it was of important public interest. I believe it is reasonable for someone who is likely to become our next prime minister to be held accountable for all of their words, actions and behaviours.

I, along with a lot of my neighbours all across London, voted to remain within the EU. That is the extent of my involvement in politics....I would ask that you leave private citizens alone and focus instead on those who have chosen to run for power within the public eye. “The attempts from some areas of the press to instead focus their stories on us, and in particular my wife, have been eye-opening, and very alarming. 

Lovely Observer copy with people feeling frightened and wholly concerned with others, which inevitably led to a contest among the vulnerable (see Symonds below) oddly combined with what this plonker thought was the national interest.The BBC repeated this story with no comment  No-one asked him how he knew what the national interest actually was, whether he had shown any concern for it before or how it somehow trumped his own interest in gaining attention for his views. Did the Guradian pay for the story or the recording  I ask myself?  HIs concern for privacy is also rather amusing in the circumstances.  

The Sunday Times had a different take:

The neighbours who called police about a row between Boris Johnson and his partner are Tom Penn and Eve Leigh, a left-wing dramatist who boasted only a few days before that she had “given the finger” to the former foreign secretary....even after officers called back “to let us know that nobody was harmed”, the couple decided to pass a recording they had made of the incident to The Guardian newspaper....[Symonds] believed her neighbours’ decision to record the incident and give the tape to a left-wing newspaper was a “dirty tricks story” and she felt “very unlucky” to have Penn and Leigh living across the landing from her.

Symonds accused Leigh and Penn of “eavesdropping” on the couple during the event....“Carrie feels trapped in the flat and does not feel safe after this,” one friend said. The friends said that neither Symonds or Johnson had heard Leigh or Penn knocking on the night of the argument. Penn and Leigh knew Symonds’s mobile number but had not called it, they said.

Leigh is an enthusiastic Buddhist, saying she has “been chanting for 10 years” and describing the religion as her “biggest influence”. However, she appears to have ignored the faith’s advice to avoid rudeness, tweeting only last weekend that she “just gave Boris Johnson the finger, this weekend is unstoppable”.... Leigh responded with the insulting gesture after Johnson said hello to her while he was removing posters and stickers attacking him, which had been placed on their car and front door...The stickers bore the slogan “F*** Boris” and the logo of an anarchist group. The posters said: “We’d rather endure him as our neighbour than our prime minister.” Leigh and Penn said they had not been involved in putting up the stickers or the posters....

Leigh’s work was performed as part of the Brexit Stage Left festival in London, which was supported by Eurodram, an agency part-funded by the EU.... Leigh said she thought of herself as an “outsider”, saying her work attacks the “huge ugly edifice of capitalist heteropatriarchy”...The Guardian described her play The Trick, staged at London’s Bush Theatre in February, as “emotionally manipulative” and “eye-rollingly cringeworthy”....Penn, a percussionist and singer, claims to have performed at the Royal Albert Hall and St Paul’s Cathedral. A biographical site says he is noted for his theatrical productions for babies. Reviews have praised his “comfortable, inviting and baby friendly” shows and even his “quirky use of socks”.Leigh and Penn are not untypical of Camberwell.

less well-off residents, including neighbours in the house next door, which remains in council ownership, were more tolerant...A woman in the building, who did not give her name, said: “From my point of view, I expect privacy. I don’t want to use this opportunity to get on TV. Even if something happened once, so what? We are all human.”

Personal abuse mounts up

Both Graun and Times, a gleeful Newsnight and several others give prominence to a story about Johnson having a domestic with his girlfriend at their home. It looks dramatic -- 'police were called' -- but the drama was introduced by the neighbours who heard crashing and banging, knocked but got no answer and then called the police.

The police gave a statement:

“Police attended and spoke to all occupants of the address, who were all safe and well. There were no offences or concerns apparent to the officers and there was no cause for police action.”

For some bizarre reason (not really), the neighbours recorded the argument, then rang the GUrdiudnai, providing newspapers with juicy quotes. The Times, but not the Guadrian (yet),  said this would raise questions about Johnson's personal fitness to lead. Perhaps it was just obvious to moralistic Graun readers? 

More direct stuff from M Hyde. Of course she is a light humorous gossip columnist, although she is recorded solemnly in the 'Opinion' section of the Graun website:

Collectors of vignettes displaying Johnson’s contempt for the public will have enjoyed the spectacle of a takeaway being delivered to his house while the other candidates debated on Channel 4....['The public' means the 1.4 million who watched C4]...the Tories’ Papa Lazarou, [a bizarre YouTube figure -- down with the kids and all that ] with his grotesque circus, his free-form gibberish, his expanding collection of wedding rings. And the rest. AND THE REST. 

Hyde chastises the supporters as well:

MP Johnny Mercer found himself on Monday, repeatedly pressed by Emma Barnett on whether it wasn’t a bit weird that we didn’t know how many children the likely next prime minister would own up to having...Johnson proxy Kwasi Kwarteng, who appeared on Channel 4 news to fume: “The idea he is racist is completely ridiculous. To say he is racist is scurrilous, offensive and completely wrong.” [just must be a shameless lie for the Graun,of course] ...Asked if he would buy a used car from Johnson, Nadhim Zahawi trilled: “I would buy anything from Boris Johnson!” In that case, I have a garden bridge to sell you. Also some water cannon, and a line about NHS funding....there is a very particular type of chap who goes in to bat for the Old Etonian Johnson with the somewhat tragic deference of a man who knows his own public school was one of the minor ones. This peculiar type of longing underpins much of the writing of Quentin Letts (Haileybury), with his most recent Sun column a case in point. Here he is on Johnson: “At an age when some blokes find their virility drooping, he still plainly has some lead in his pencil, with a new and much younger girlfriend … He has swanned through life breaking the rules, laughing and bonking. That INFURIATES [the elite]!” Always a pleasure to take lectures on “the establishment” and “the elite” and “the ruling class” from Rupert Murdoch’s highest-paid columnist.

There is a nice twist at the end:

little encapsulates the stage-four clusterfuck the UK is facing as totally as the fact that it is about to be run by a journalist. And, incredibly, by the worse of the two journalists in the final three....Is it in any way surprising to find that the UK is very drunk and has already missed two deadlines?...As for all Johnson’s proxies and the backers who should know so much better: every one of them must carry the mark of Cain when it goes tits up, as it assuredly will. It’s like the old saying goes: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me literally hundreds of times, shame on me.