Off the record

Will Operation Brock work if a no-deal Brexit leads to the kind of congestion and delays that has been widely forecast?

We probably won’t know until it happens, but at a recent conference the chief executive of the Port of Dover, Doug Bannister, was seemingly doubtful during a Q&A session when asked about Brexit preparations. He ended his answer saying “then again this is a government that thinks Operation Brock will work”. We are told that this was intended as a quip and not to be taken seriously.

Still on the subject, the

Roads Minister, Chris HeatonHarris, announced this week that everything was in place should Operation Brock be needed:

“We want residents in Kent and hauliers travelling from across the EU to be reassured that there are robust plans in place to deal with any disruption.” We are never sure why plans are described as “robust” - it rather implies that plans that are not are somehow inferior.

Talks over a Brexit deal go on, and in the confusing world of the EU those talks went into “tunnel” negotiations last week. It left us puzzled as to what this meant. Apparently, it is a phrase used by negotiators to describe talks behind closed doors - otherwise known as private meetings.

Labour has had something of a pre-election fillip in the form of the takeover of Thanet council from the Conservative administration after a vote of no confidence.

The motion was tabled by the council’s independent group, formed after a split in the Ukip group that briefly ran the council. The irony of former Ukip councillors effectively facilitating a situation in which control of the council could change hands to Labour may not be lost on some.