Dave and Harriet, for connoisseurs of cant it’s a feast
DAVID Cameron went to the Oval cricket ground yesterday morning to talk, with customary restraint and judgement, about a ‘bomb’!!! going off under our economy if we wriggle out of the European Union.
Accusing Leave campaigners of being ‘reckless’, he said there would be ‘the shock impact, the uncertainty impact, the trade impact’ of quitting Brussels. ‘You put a bomb under the British economy,’ he cried.
Not for the first time this summer, the Oval was taking spin. Seconds later came my favourite part. Without a hint of a blush, Mr Cameron claimed he was laying out a ‘positive’ case for staying in the EU. Beautiful. This referendum really is proving a feast for connoisseurs of cant.
Reporters were barred from the event so for this portion of today’s bulletin I am relying on pooled footage from a single, approved camera crew. It showed a tight shot of perhaps 30 Remain supporters wearing IN T-shirts.
Much of the Westminster press corps had travelled to Stratford-on-Avon to see Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Labour’s Gisela Stuart visit a warehouse.
Word filtered down the telegraph wires that Mr Cameron was posing ‘with Harriet Harman and Natalie Bennett in minis’. For one shattering moment I envisaged them prancing up and down in mini-skirts (Harriet in a pelmet – a thought to waken Lazarus) but in fact they were with Mini cars.
Mr Cameron stood in front of a blue Mini, Miss Harman a red one. There was also a yellow Mini, a skinny young aide loitering in front of it. On closer inspection this turned out to be Tim Farron, leader of the Lib Dems. Can Minis ever again be cool?
No suitably- coloured machine was provided for Miss Bennett. As (soon to depart) leader of the Green party, she is more a lady for tandems. Aussie-reared Natalie, mistress of the brain fade, glurped out a few remarks but she stalled while talking about the number of NHS staff who were from abroad.
Oh no, not another mid-performance dry! Panic flitted in her eyes as she heard that familiar sound of wordless airtime.
THE silence lasted only a couple of seconds before her brain re-engaged but if a Mini kept conking out like that you might take it to your local garage. In Warwickshire, about 200 warehouse workers had assembled to listen to Boris, Gove and Miss Stuart, along with former small-business chief John Longworth.
He, too, was soon talking about bombs. What on earth was going on? Mr Longworth said that the Eurozone could soon ‘explode’ and ‘you don’t want to be in the same room when that bomb goes off’.
If the air in the warehouse ponged faintly of teenage son’s bedroom, that was because the DCS warehouse was a distribution point for Lynx deodorant, along with Mr Muscle, Vaseline, Vosene shampoo and something called Radox Passion Splash. It sounds the sort of thing Sir John Major might purchase for his London pied a terre. ‘Uwaga!’ said a sign. ‘Jezeli maszyna jest wlaczana w srodku tunelu jest bardzo goraco nie dotkyac!’ As you will know, this was Polish and told workers to beware a dangerous machine.
Unemployment in Stratford was almost zero, said the warehouse’s boss, Denys Shortt, so he had to employ foreigners. Nonetheless he was supporting Leave because he wanted to be able to do criminal checks on overseas recruits (this was difficult with EU nationals, allegedly) and he wanted to employ better-qualified Indians.
Mr Gove, asked if he was upset about Mr Cameron’s outburst in London, said cheerfully he was a great believer in ‘free speech’ and ‘shooting from the hip’. Some laughter.
But it was Boris who really connected. While he was speaking, the workers’ eyes sparkled. He noted all the soapy products on the warehouse shelves and said ‘no one can accuse us of not conducting a clean campaign’. Urging the crowd to Vote Leave, he said: ‘It’s time to wash these unelected bureaucrats right out of our hair.’