Only Corbyn wins from Tory disloyalty
THIS paper has long held significant reservations about Philip Hammond. instead of talking the country up, the Chancellor has been relentlessly miserable about Brexit ever since his appointment.
After a disastrous Budget in which he displayed his political tin ear by hammering the self-employed with national insurance increases, ‘spreadsheet Phil’ was lucky to keep his job.
And since the election, he has become a born-again remoaner, at every turn trying to keep Britain as close as possible to the clutches of Brussels even after we leave.
now, to his list of unappealing traits we can add another: treachery. For according to an – apparently undisputed – account of election night, at around 4am on June 9, while votes were still being counted, he offered Boris Johnson his support for a move against Theresa May. The price? Keeping his own job, of course.
Perhaps we should not be surprised by his determined self-preservation. But even by the vicious standards of Westminster politics, it was a blatant act of betrayal. And how deeply ironic that Mr Johnson, the man always painted as the scheming prince, was at the same hour declaring personal fealty to the PM.
For the Conservatives, the timing of this news could hardly be worse. After a week in which Tory divisions on Brexit were all too apparent, the last thing they needed was more headlines about plots and intrigue.
Mrs May’s Florence speech was a valiant attempt to preserve fragile party unity and should have drawn a line in the sand over Brexit. yet it has been followed by more anonymous briefings and backbiting, and fresh claims that dozens of Tory MPs are trying to remove her.
As a result, at a time when their guns should be trained firmly on Jeremy Corbyn, the Tories have been shooting at each other.
indeed, the Labour leader couldn’t have wished for a better start to party conference week. no wonder he’s publicly contemplating ten years in Downing street.
For months, he has been cynically twofaced about Brexit, to placate Leave voters in the north and southern remainers.
He claims to respect the referendum result but ordered his MPs to vote against the EU Withdrawal Bill. He flirts with staying in the single market and customs union, while in the same breath suggesting he would leave both so taxpayers’ billions could be spent on 1970s-style subsidies.
Despite this endless flip- flopping, ministers have barely laid a glove on him, while his sinister thug John McDonnell tours the picket lines and union rallies threatening to overthrow the government.
The Tories must stop behaving like lemmings and rediscover their discipline. if the mindless chatter about leadership plots and endless Brexit infighting continue, the disaster of a Corbyn government will only come closer to reality.
ANOTHER day, and yet another British technology company is flogged off to foreign predators. First chip designer ARM went to the Japanese, then payments giant WorldPay to the Us. And now, another microchip company imagination Technologies will be sold to a Chinese statebacked fund, which was blocked from a similar takeover in the Us because of national security concerns. How many more of our cutting edge firms will be sold off to the highest bidder before ministers fulfil their manifesto promises and introduce proper rules to block foreign takeovers?
THERE are a great many reasons why it is a terrible idea to allow gP receptionists – with little or no medical training – to become ‘care navigators’ and decide who is sick enough to see a doctor. Apart from medical privacy, and the dangers of denying treatment to the sick, isn’t it obvious that elderly patients, who may not want to cause a fuss, will lose out to the sharp-elbowed?