Dave is still dodging, but Boris is coming. Be very afraid.
Brussels-am-Berlin is telling him he can’t have what he wants. Boris Johnson has told Davos his government’s austerity policy is a crock. The IMF says the same thing. As predicted here, last Friday’s ONS economic ‘growth’ figures showed Q3 to be a blip before a triple-dip. The Barclay brothers are now seriously on his case: this morning alone in the Daily Sarkograph, the omnipresent Bojo calls any refusal to hold an EU referendum ‘undemocratic cowardice’, there is talk of a business backlash against Camerlot attacks on corporate tax avoidance, Grant ‘Identity Crisis’ Shapps is already talking about leaving the EU once Cameron’s renegotiation fails, and there’s a feature on the ‘four mavericks’ who would replace Dave once he has fallen from his two-headed horse.
Other omens are ominous, ominous being what omens usually are: he has fallen foul of the Newscorp hydra, the shady old Tories behind Jeremy Hunt are working hard at his demise, Michael Gove already has one foot in the lifeboat, and across the length and breadth of southern England Conservative MPs are queuing up to make way for a return to the Commons by the Mussolini Man in London’s Town Hall. The liberal press can’t stand Cameron, and the latest ‘post-speech’ opinion polls show no appreciable impact on voting intentions: depending on who you believe, the Tories are still 6-9% behind Labour, and the success of the Coalition can be measured by the Liberal Democrats continuing to languish at around 11%.
Holy wagon trains Camerman, looks like we’re surrounded.
The thing about Dave’s speech is that nobody now can remember WTF he said. And this is the way with our Prime Minister: his mind and his mouth move in obfuscating ways. In the current climate, I think I’d advise that this is both a weakness and a mortal illness. I am unable to discern any strengths.
The heads-up is this: we’re going to have a renegotiation in which the other side won’t be listening, then an election, then a referendum about whether we leave or stay in the EU two years after an election Mr Cameron may well lose. It’s that straightforward – as straightforward, in fact, as his recreational habits, his relationship with senior Newscorp executives, the influence of Jeremy Hunt and George Osborne on his actions, and what he really thinks about the gathering paedophile storm down in Barnes.
Over that same period, it is very likely bordering on almost certain that the world will fall into a deep economic depression….with or without the collapse of large parts of its banking system, the dangerous inflation of at least one sovereign currency, and the default of perhaps three major Western States.
The sloppy lightweights who surround this ethereal man are no doubt arguing that will o’ the wisp is the only way to be under such conditions, but they could not be more wrong. The only way to be is searingly direct and frank, for one simple reason: the worse things get, the more the man with myriad answers but no solutions will be seen as a brief interregnum rather than a national crisis leader who can pull us through. Cameron talks a great deal about Churchill – and come to think of it, except for their differences on guts, principles, vision, diplomacy and statesmanship, they’re really quite similar. Foot off irony pedal, proceed to next paragraph.
The advantage would swing to Labour, were it not for the fact that its leader is no leader either, and has been outflankedon Europe (for the time being) by Cameron’s yes-no-possibly-definitely-unshakeably-wobbly speech last week. The real coming man at the minute is Boris Johnson. This is, I’m sad to say, what I most dread short of Harriet Harman succeeding to the Throne.
Stay tuned.
The Slog 