Theresa buys time to free us at last
WE ARE continually told that the Brexit this country democratically voted for could put lives in danger as we risk losing support in security matters such as helping to monitor and tackle anti-terrorism with our European counterparts.
Presumably this includes the French security services who blundered so calamitously last week when they raided the home of the man believed to be responsible for the fatal attack on the Christmas market in Strasbourg that killed three people.
Finding the apartment where Cherif Chekatt lived empty, they failed to put out any public appeal despite finding ammunition and a grenade in his home and the fact that he had been on a terror watch list for four years. Nor did they release his details or picture.
Given that level of “competence”, somehow we’ll cope I suspect.
AS THE Crossrail project that was designed to provide London with a gleaming new cuttingedge rail service lurches from world beater to national embarrassment, some intriguing figures concerning the pay scales at Transport for London, presided over by publicity hungry Mayor Sadiq Khan, emerge.
Crossrail could need a bailout of up to £2.2billion and be two years behind schedule. Meanwhile, average pay for staff at TfL is a healthy £83,000 and 63 staff earn more than £200,000 a year.
This is surely no way to run a railway.
IT WAS the most jangling moment of the discordant general election campaign mounted last year by Theresa May as she sought a resounding mandate from the electorate. Her social care initiative, harshly dubbed the “dementia tax”, had imploded around her and was causing the Conservatives to haemorrhage support.
If she and her cohorts had planned to try to offend a large slice of their support, they could have done little better than going after middle-class pensioners seeking to leave something for their children after a lifetime of endeavour. At a press conference, it was widely assumed the Prime Minister would show a degree of humility and announce a carefully phrased climb down.
She didn’t. Indeed, far from it, she crossly barked: “Nothing has changed... nothing has changed.”
Bizarrely, she was wrong 18 months ago but she’s spot on now. Because despite her “victory” in the vote of no confidence, the situation is depressingly the same. The maths are totally and implacably against her in the House of Commons. Far from being “flushed out” the plotters who schemed to bring her down bristle with fury at their botched attempt at political defenestration.
They cry foul and a source tells anyone who cares to listen that “the campaign of guerilla warfare will continue”. They weirdly assert that she still has to go, nothing new emerges concerning the actual wording of a deal that might pass muster and Brussels looks on, presumably in a state of bewilderment.
If this was a boxing match, the EU could stand in its corner and watch as its opponent, the UK, continued to mercilessly pound itself with its own fists.
Actually, one thing has changed, and that is the PM is safe from being booted out of her job – at least by her own side – for 12 months. The only way she can be toppled now is for Labour to mount a confidence vote and that seems increasingly remote.
Possibly the two most astounding facts to have emerged from another week that would surely defy the greatest fiction writers are these:
Firstly, to keep her job she had to promise she would quit her job. I don’t know about you but I’ve never worked for a boss who has openly admitted they’re only in their position because they’ve promised they’ll go soon.
Secondly, we are now led by a PM whom the Conservatives have agreed is not fit to take them into the next general election but somehow she is fit to navigate the nation’s way through its biggest constitutional test since a world war or abdication. How the hell do they work that one out?
In truth, her decision to stand down as leader ahead of the next election could well have bought her more time as Prime Minister than if she had tried to battle on through the full term giving the impression that, despite having never won one as Prime Minister, she was going to take their party into another election.
HOWEVER, there is the rather embarrassing issue of more than a third of her party making it plain they have no confidence in her. Loyalists had hoped the number of dissent could be kept to the 60s, the rebels boasted it could get into the nervous 90s or even three digits.
Again, as if the whole saga had been devised by scriptwriters or mapped out in the stars, the number of dissenters came in at 83. In the days of the old “swingometer” this would have been in the “ugly but workable” category.
As much as anyone can attempt to deduce what happens now – and bear in mind that since this time last week we’ve had a government pull the plug on the most crucial vote in its lifetime with hours to spare and the PM survive a no-confidence vote – here’s what to look out for.
One senior member of the Cabinet told me Brussels will now offer something. The reasoning being that until they were confident she could at the very least clear the hurdle of her own party, why would they give on anything before it would go to the entire house?
The fondness of EU negotiators to be seen to work through the night, at the eleventh hour, to make the impossible possible is akin to their love of lofty statements and long lunches.
At the same time, the Conservatives will become consumed with infighting as putative leaders position themselves to gain the adoration of the party.
There’s one possible benefit of that however. Will that freedom allow her to focus on getting through a revised deal that allows us to Brexit next March?
That is surely what is needed but she wields little power. Lame duck this Christmas, anyone? JUST HOW unaccountable can the BBC get? The project to replace the set for its show EastEnders is running £27million OVER budget and nearly FIVE years behind schedule.
Can you really imagine running your own finances like that? The report by the National Audit Office that exposed this shambolic soap saga says the total cost has leapt by 45 per cent to a total of £86.7million.
As the average cost of building a home in the country is £270,000, this is truly an extraordinary amount of cash.
For that sum, you’d be allowed to expect Victoria railway station, rather than just the Queen Vic pub.