General Chat

in an answer to a direct question from the Tory Bob Neill, Lewis cracked and admitted that the government was planning to break international law, though only in a specific and limited way. Much like a shoplifter agreeing to steal only during an agreed 20-minute time slot each day. At which point all hell broke loose, with senior members of the government – including the prime minister – saying the deal they had negotiated last year, which they had insisted was “oven ready” and on which they had fought and won a general election campaign, had never actually been that good a deal and they had always planned on changing it anyway. The deal on the Northern Ireland protocol, which we had been assured was in place specifically to protect the Good Friday agreement, was now being held up as a dealbreaker that actively undermined the Northern Ireland peace process. It was the kind of U-turn that not even The Thick of It would have dared come up with, and if any other country had pulled off such a stunt we would be accusing it of being a rogue state. Something two other former Tory prime ministers were now doing. To add to the sense of the surreal, Boris Johnson talked of imposing fines for anyone who broke the law on social distancing just hours after he had declared his disregard for international law. Watch this space ...

J Crace

I know we don't always agree, Rollo, but in this respect I feel we are in accord - and not alone.

I think many of them make it up as they go along. They are clueless and feckless.

That term 'couldn't organise a **** up in a brewery' springs to mind.

Alas, I feel that all of us may suffer from their not-so wonderful ideas so gird your loins is the advice I am following.