Boris develops brilliant ideology combining conservatism and Nietzschean mood

Something near to overall balance in the Observer, although the usual imbalance between shouty headline and actual copy: 

Fury at Gove as exports to EU slashed by 68% since Brexit

The volume of exports going through British ports to the EU fell by a staggering 68% last month compared with January last year, mostly as a result of problems caused by Brexit, the Observer can reveal.

The dramatic drop in the volume of traffic carried on ferries and through the Channel tunnel has been reported to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove by the Road Haulage Association after a survey of its international members. In a letter to Gove dated 1 February, the RHA’s chief executive, Richard Burnett, also told the minister he and his officials had repeatedly warned over several months of problems and called for measures to lessen difficulties – but had been largely ignored.

A government spokesperson said: “We have had intensive engagement with the road haulage industry for many months and are still facilitating a daily call with representative groups.

“We do not recognise the figure provided on exports. Thanks to the hard work of hauliers and traders to prepare for change, disruption at the border has so far been minimal and freight movements are now close to normal levels, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We will continue to work constructively with the RHA as we adjust to our new relationship with the EU and seize the opportunities of Brexit.”

The editorial is even more determined to see the outcome as does the Irish Government/EU as:

the inevitable cost of Brexit. [not new opportunistic nastiness] People have spent their lives painstakingly building up a livelihood, only to find it wiped out almost overnight by a government that has eagerly embraced new barriers to trade. They are existing in a warped reality, where it suits neither the government nor the opposition to acknowledge the gravity of their situation. And so, even as jobs disappear and incomes plummet, there will be little political accountability for the flawed political choices that have brought us here.

Meanwhile,N Cohen has an extraordinary opinion piece developing a lengthy betrayal narrative from an Ulster Unionist perspective combined with told-you-so and serves-you Prods-right-for-rejectjng-May's-deal undertones.It also helps hims revile the Tories generally and Johnson especially, as in the first section:

Duped again: Irish unionists and the long, sorry history of Tory betrayal

English Tories [and probably a lot of voters] would rather accept a united Ireland and independent Scotland than give up on Brexit...Boris Johnson’s wives, mistresses and colleagues all learned he would rat on them in the end

[It is all rooted in] the irrational urge to destroy [beginning with the struggles for Irish independence in the 1920s] ....Tories became sick of caution and respectability....“Move fast and break things” is the authentic slogan of the Conservative party then and now.... In the early 21st as in the early 20th century extreme nationalism worked at the ballot box for the Tories because now, as then, the Nietzschean mood was the spirit of the age....you [Unionists] betrayed the best interests of your cause and country by allowing yourself to become a puppet in the political game to keep the Conservative party in power.

 

That is quite some ideology! An irrational urge to destroy  combined with a game to keep the Conservatives in power. Extreme nationalism and a Nietzschean mood as the spirit of the age.