EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Tory betrayal. Show all posts

Via the blogs, we learn that feed-in tariffs are a total rip-off. But how can that message possibly prevail when the BBC's "take" is that buying in to the scam offers "a great return on investment!" And, needless to say, the Beeb is also talking up the news that the world's biggest offshore wind farm off the Kent coast has been officially opened.

As always, the BBC sprays out figures, but no information. We get told that there are 100 turbines in the £780m wind farm, and that these "are expected to generate enough electricity to power 240,000 homes" – perhaps the most dishonest way going of describing the capacity of these machines.

In fact, getting proper statistics from the media is a losing battle, but Vattenfall, the project owner, has it on its website that there are 100 Vestas V90 wind turbines, with a total capacity of 300 MW. This is sufficient, it says, to supply more than 200,000 homes per year with clean energy.

By the time you take in the load factors (about 26 percent), however, and apply the rather understated government-inspired domestic consumption factor, you actually get 131,000 homes – but even then the figure is fiction. On cold, windless days, the number is zero. On a breezy summer night, when the power isn't needed anyway and the National Grid is having to pay suppliers not to produce electricity, it could be a lot more. Such are the games they play.

But there are no games when it comes to the subsidies. On top of the £40 million in electricity sales, Vattenfall will collect at least £60 million a year in Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) top-sliced from our electricity bills so that we do not notice the theft. And theft it is, an undisclosed tax paid to these rip-off merchants for producing unsustainable electricity.

Over term for the 20 years these turbines are suppose to last, we are looking at a public subsidy of £1.2 billion – enough to build a 1GW nuclear power station – a plant with a deliverable capacity more than 13 times this wind array. That is the extent of the rip-off to which we are being subjected.

And for that, it appears, we get 21 full-time green jobs. But if we gave them a million each and told them to get lost, that is not even a rounding error on the amount we are dealing with. We would get to "save" (i.e., not spend) £1.2 billion, less £0.021 billion. Instead, we pay - effectively - nearly £60m per job for the 20 years. These must be the most expensive jobs on the planet - we could even have 20 David Camerons for the price of each worker.

As with my previous thread, I ask why we tolerate this. That much, of course, is rhetoric. We tolerate it because, individually, we are powerless against the might of the state. But that will not always be the case. We need to make it so before the state ruins us.

COMMENT THREAD

"Defence decisions must be determined by foreign policy, not by the Treasury," says the lead letter in The Daily Telegraph.

This is from Col David Hills retired. You can see why he is retired, and still a Colonel rather than a General. He talks far too much sense.

But, of course, to recognise that principle also requires looking at the Elephant in the Room. That is not allowed. So we have acres of newsprint, a torrent of comment and thousands of overpaid backsides warming God-knows how many committee chairs – all to absolutely no avail.

There is no getting away from it though – determining defence policy without first working out your foreign policy is a complete waste of time - and some. But to do it when you know that the real reason is because you can't bring in the "elephant" is just dishonest. Then, that's what they call politics.

COMMENT THREAD

The European Movement is getting terribly worked up about the EU Referendum Campaign, offering a line-by-line fisking of the Campaign's position statement.

The trouble is that the statement is the usual identikit "euroscepticism" which shows that the authors know nothing and have learned nothing about the enemy they confront. Here is a sample:

It's a sad fact that Britain is sleepwalking into the European Super-State and Britain must wake up to the nightmares hiding under the sheets of Brussels. EU laws and directives made without our knowledge or consent, behind locked doors of the most complicated clauses and sub-clauses imaginable.

Equally predictable is the European Movement response, the bores leading the bores, making this very much the fight of the bald men. But the European Movement should know that any campaign which features as its pin-up boy the egregious Dale, gurgling about the "Westminster Village", is going nowhere.

The first and foremost requirement of any campaigner is to "know your enemy" - Wellington's finding out what is on the other side of the hill, and all that. And the most crucial thing you will ever learn about the EU is that it is not a super-state, has no ambitions to become one and will not become one. But it is, increasingly, a super-government - and that is where it intends to go.

Primarily, the EU is a means by which the political élites in each of the member states by-pass the democratic institutions in their own countries, imposing their rule without the inconvenience of people participation. That is why the construct is so popular and enduring. The élites have created their own government without the interference of the pesky people.

In short, the EU is not an external agency imposed on us by foreigners (the UKIP/little Englander paradigm) but a conspiracy in plain sight, so glaring and obvious that it is ignored by all. It is the mechanism by which the political élites of Europe by-pass democracy and keep themselves in power. Thus, the EU is what the power élite in the British establishment impose on their own people - replicated in each country of the Union of Elites.

But, as long as we have the spectacle of bald men fighting over combs, the proles can be kept occupied without ever getting near the truth. The conspiracy goes marching on. The European Movement is part of it, and the EU Referendum Campaign looks like it is joining it.

COMMENT THREAD

Damian Reece, Lord Turner, the EU and the European Supervision Authorities.

Of Lord Turner, Reece says: "If the EU had its tanks on our lawns, such brave words would be an effective shell burst to drive them off. Except the tanks have already rolled over our lawns and are now camped outside the FSA’s HQ in Canary Wharf, with a division trundling along Commercial Street towards the Bank of England ...".

And that is why there are no politics any more – just revolution.

COMMENT THREAD

There is a point when you have to give up, because you can go further and achieve nothing more. Commenting on the Strategic Defence Review is one of those things where this must apply.

In dealing with defence, there is a single absolute – a sine qua non. Defence policy is the handmaiden of foreign policy. It is subordinate to it and cannot be determined until and unless you have decided on your foreign policy.

What then must happen, of course, is that you must then staff, organise and equip your armed forces in such a way that you can, within reasonable limits, pursue your foreign policy – to the extent that it relies on armed intervention or the threat of such intervention.

What we seem to have in the current discourse, however, is the "yes, but ... " syndrome. Yes, we know foreign policy has not been decided, but let's get on with deciding our defence policy anyway, they say.

But no can do. Without being firmly anchored in a workable foreign policy, the armed forces is so many expensive but useless toys and a bunch of highly-paid time-servers, awarding themselves badges and baubles and holding endless parades. We can do without them.

And another "but". It is so boring, I know, so one can understand the reluctance to talk about it. But we are in the EU ... foreign policy is a shared competence but primarily one dictated by the EU. Increasingly, we do not have independent decision-making powers with regards to foreign policy.

On that basis, since we are entirely dependent on the EU for the core foreign policy choices, there is absolutely no point in constructing an independent defence policy or having a strategic defence review, unless that just means chopping the budget, which it appears is actually the purpose of the exercise.

For the rest though, discussion is just so much hot air (see picture above – the 22nd common mounted military committee in action). We are in the EU, and that is the way it is. And that is why there are no politics any more – just revolution.

COMMENT THREAD

All but one of the 48 Republican hopefuls for the Senate mid-term elections in November deny the existence of climate change or oppose action on global warming, reports The Guardian.

Spluttering in its muesli, the paper goes on to report that the strong Republican front "against established science" includes entrenched Senate leaders as well as the new wave of radical conservatives endorsed by the Tea Party activists.

Some pundits are predicting a bloodbath in November, making it a pity that only a third of the Senate seats are up for grabs. But we can see the Senate fall very firmly into the Republican camp, and not just the good ol' boys, but hard-edged, in-your-face activists who are prepared to rip throats out.

We can then, or shortly thereafter, start seeing the death of the climate change miasma, with the chances of Obama getting anything through the House becoming vanishingly small. And then we see the bonfire of windfarms – not so much the wind of change as a change of wind.

Some time, very much later, we might possibly see British conservatives follow suit, if there are any left by them and just supposing we haven't been completely taken over by the evil empire.  But then, when you're heading for a civil war, nobody really gives a stuff about renewable energy anyway.

COMMENT THREAD

There is a degree of, shall we say, discord in the Labour ranks at the Cleggeron decision to drop the Queen's Speech from this session, with complaints that this is "an affront to Parliament and an abuse of power".

It is rather ironic that one of the lead dissenters is the great Europhile Denis MacShane because, if he had stopped to think about it, there was an event last week he should have a look at. This was when the leader of our government gave the state of the union address. Look at the wording and the style of the phrasing – and the context:

Today, I will set out what I see as the priorities for our work together over the coming year. I cannot now cover every issue of European policy or initiative we will take. I am sending you through President Buzek a more complete programme document.

Essentially, I see five major challenges for the Union over the next year: dealing with the economic crisis and governance; restoring growth for jobs by accelerating the Europe 2020 reform agenda; building an area of freedom, justice and security; launching negotiations for a modern EU budget, and pulling our weight on the global stage.

For sure, President Barroso did not precede his statements with, "... my government will", but this is purely a stylistic difference. That was the Queen's Speech. MacShane and his cronies missed it.

COMMENT THREAD

I notice with interest that the promise to scrap hospital car park charges has itself been scrapped and the charges are to continue.

These charges have always been a bone of contention. First, they closed down the local hospitals and then replaced them with huge district generals, out in the sticks and poorly served by public transport. For those that have them, the car then becomes the obvious (and necessary) form of transport.

Having thus created this situation, the hospital authorities then slap huge, punitive taxes on car park use – and of course the roads approaching the hospitals have yellow lines. Thus, in this man's NHS, going to see a doctor might be free, but it'll cost you at least a fiver in car parking.

Then along comes the new, whiter than white coalition – which promises to abolish charges. Then leave it a few months ... and the promise is broken. That is politicians all over. How do you know when they are lying? When they open their mouths.

The trouble is that we take it. People dutifully roll over and cough up even though the charges are barely, if at all enforceable.

However, occasionally some of us have the good fortune to find that all the payment machines have been "repaired" with a liberal dose of superglue. Amazing how effective that stuff is. And if the machines don't work, you can't pay ... shame that! But it keeps the politicians honest.

COMMENT THREAD

Booker has a go at the EU in his column, and very good it is indeed. It covers many of the areas we've looked at recently, plus a few extras, and the headline says it all: "Brussels has broken our power to rule."

The trouble is that Booker doesn't go far enough – but he cannot, as long as he is writing for a national newspaper. In another place, perhaps, he could have drawn the obvious conclusion from what he has to write. We need the most fundamental changes in the way we are governed. And, quite obviously, that goes way beyond changes in the faces of those who occupy the front benches in Westminster.

This occurred to me some time ago. As eurosceptics, we are not just going for the standard rotation of politicians. Inasmuch as Brussels is an integral part of our government, and our provincial government is an integral part of Brussels, we are seeking to overthrow the government and replace it with something else. There is a name for that – it is called a revolution.

That revolution is not just against Brussels – that is only part of the problem and in many ways just a symptom of the bigger problem. There are many ways in which our government behaves, which are objectionable and which owe nothing to Brussels. We have needed a revolution for a long time – perhaps since before 1926, when the wrong type of revolution was on offer and we missed a major opportunity.

Now, it is possible to have a bloodless revolution, and it can be perfectly legal – especially as successful revolutionaries are able to re-write the rule book. ex post facto, to legalise their assumption of power. But the fact of the matter is that revolutionaries cannot play by the "white man's rules" and expect to win. We have to devise our own.

The most obvious need, though, it to stop pretending and call a spade a spade. True "eurosceptics" – i.e., those who want the UK to leave the EU and become a self-governing nation again – are by definition revolutionaries. And if that is what we are, then we need to behave accordingly, learning from successful revolutions and adopting their methods where they have proven to work.

But one of the most important things we must do is reinstate a sense of fear in our rulers. In any healthy society, a government fears its people. From that stems respect. That they treat us with such open contempt is good enough evidence that they have lost their fear.

The other thing we need to appreciate is that no revolution starts off as a mass movement – any more than did the revolution and the slow-motion coup d'état that brought us into the EU in the first place. Small numbers of people, dedicated to a clearly defined cause, working closely together, are far more effective than large, public groups in the early stages.

But, for all that, no revolutionary movement ever succeeds unless the wind of history is blowing in the right direction. For decades becalmed, many of us now feel the stirring of a breeze.

It blows from the very continent that has brought us so much grief in the past, and will do again. It is not strong enough yet even to scurry a fallen leaf, but there is most definitely a whisper. When sometime soon it reaches gale force, we need to be ready. At the moment, we are not ... but we do at least know what needs to be done.

COMMENT THREAD

Sorry about the quality, but this is from The Ferryhill and Chiltern Chapter, a freesheet circulating somewhere oooop North, taken on a mobile phone. We profoundly hope they gave the bus counselling and that it has now recovered from its ordeal.

Possibly, the headline was generated by Google Scribe, the latest attempt by Google to destroy a once valued service.

The images search is completely useless since its revamp and the word search, now fashioned as "Google Instant", is distracting, irritating and unhelpful. Blogger, also owned by Google, has also undergone a makeover. The once robust and reliable posting system has become a nightmare.

It is like so many things these days ... you have a perfectly workable system, they "improve" it – and it never works properly again. When things work, why don't they just LEAVE THEM ALONE, including poor defenceless busses.

COMMENT THREAD

The features section of The Daily Telegraph is (rightly) making a song and dance about the working time directive, as it affects doctors. Our only caveat is a wish that it had complained with the same force when the directive was first proposed in 2003 and subsequently when it was coming into force.

But one also wishes that the paper would tell the full story. There is more to this than meets the eye, as the immediate driver for the current furore is the EU commission itself, which – as this document admits stems from the inability of the EU Commission to amend its own legislation, which it knows to be flawed.

This really does make the case for getting out of the EU, when we read: "In the Commission's view, the present situation is clearly unsatisfactory: it does not ensure that workers’ health and safety is being effectively protected across the European Union in line with EU law, nor that sufficient flexibility is afforded to businesses and workers in the organisation of working time."

One wonders how many people must die, and how much cost and disruption will be occasioned before this mess is sorted out – one that could be resolved within weeks if we were still a sovereign nation. One also wonders what the Eurocrats would make of the story of Sister Mary Gantry who was working in West Hill Hospital in Dartford, Kent, on 5 September 1940. It was then, early in the morning that a Luftwaffe bomb demolished the maternity ward block, killing two nurses and 22 new and expectant mothers.

The episode is marked by the bravery of Sister Gantry who crawled in and out of the wreckage with a bowl of hypodermic needles, giving injections of morphine to the trapped women. She was dressed in her night clothes with an overcoat on. The following day she refused to go to bed and worked her normal shift – in what would now be a clear breach of the working time directive.

After my piece on The Europa, I am told that I should avoid these allusions to wartime Britain and the EU – but I beg to differ. The central ethos of the EU is of an institution devised to prevent a new war between France and Germany, and we are currently paying the price for that period of hostilities. To replace one evil with another is not an answer. The more we know of the former, the less enthused we will be of the latter.

Even now, I fail to see how killing patients through bureaucratic stupidity is somehow going to stop a newly resurgent Luftwaffe dropping a bomb on a maternity wing in Dartford.

Incidentally, and a propos nothing at all, I was highly amused to see that one of the ships damaged by a Luftwaffe bomb in the Port of London on 7 September 1940 was called the William Cash. I am saying nuffink ... nuffink at all.

Speaking of eurosceptics, I have been watching the contortions of the Hannan/Helmer duo, and their attempts to kick-start the EU Referendum campaign.

One sees the "usual suspects" in place and the same intellectual poverty that has hampered euroscepticism from the very beginning. But then, rather unkindly, one could note the endorsement and know that this is going nowhere. Tories supporting an EU Referendum campaign? Yeah, right!

The only thing that is going to get euroscepticism off its backside and into action is some serious thinking on strategy, the development of an intellectual case for withdrawal, and the working up of a plausible alternative to membership of the EU.

None of these things have been done and nor is there the money or interest in doing such things. So, instead, we have time-wasters like Hannan and Helmer, playing their dire, self-aggrandising games – and half-arsed articles on the working time directive.

But then, if this current activity is a political dead end, as some have remarked, that is precisely why it is being promoted. It offers the impression of activity with no danger of actually achieving anything, thus soaking up time and money which might be usefully expended elsewhere. This is the classic establishment trick, which ends up with us all going nowhere.

If we do eventually see any action, I guess it will eventually come from the same people who bombed William Cash.

COMMENT THREAD

That is from the New York Times blog. It continues:

"We welcome the creation of architecture at the European level that can coordinate national supervision," Mr. Osborne said in Brussels, where he was meeting with fellow European Union finance ministers.

"But we were obviously concerned," he said, "that the interests of the British taxpayer were protected, that the voice of London was heard and that we did nothing that would undermine the competitiveness of Europe."

Typical Tory cant, demonstrating once again that the Conservatives are the party of the EU. One wonders if there is anyone out there who still claims Mr Cameron is a eurosceptic ... or that Mr Hague will look after our interests. In fact, the whole ghastly thing is so damn predictable that it's not even worth saying "I told you so".

Meanwhile, there is this - the idea is that employer pay wages directly to the taxman, he works out what tax is due and pays the balance to the employee. I had to check the date, but yes this is a serious proposition from a government with supposed conservatives in it.

We're doomed, I tell you ... doomed.

COMMENT THREAD

David Cameron is happier sharing power with the Liberal Democrats than he would be with an all-Conservative government, according to "one of his inner circle".

If this is true, and it could very well be, it sort of confirms a lot of what we have been saying – the man is not a Conservative, never has been and never will be. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that he would be more at home with his own kind in the Lib-Dims than with a Tory majority.

What is surprising is that so many Tories fell for this imposter – but then the Tory Party always has been known as the "stupid party". It really has. This is not something we've invented. Now they're stuck with him, having to pretend they like it, that this is what they wanted all along.

Frankly, we have no sympathy at all. They chose him, they supported him and they fought for him. They deserve everything they get. I don't know about you, though, but I don't. I don't accept the man as my prime minister. I don't even think of him in those terms. He is an imposter and the sooner we are rid of him the better.

COMMENT THREAD

Booker this morning on the EU proposals to introduce a series of direct taxes.

You have to forgive the journalistic hyperbole, but it isn't the "ultimate surrender". It is just one more in a long line of surrenders. There are plenty more to come, as the political classes fall over themselves to give more powers to the Brussels machine, of which they are an integral part.

Harry Phibbs actually thinks that "Nations will turn Eurosceptic when pressed for hard cash", and will resist relieving the EU of the indignity of having to rattle the tin at the governments of the nation states. But as long as we have the slime illustrated above, that ain't going to happen.

But it was only yesterday that Mary Ellen Synon asked whether the British would tolerate it? Or would they let themselves be humiliated in a way that even the small ragtag population of 13 British colonies would not allow in 1776?

Sadly, the answer to both questions is probably "yes". As a collective, there are not enough of us even with sufficient balls to vote against the slime, much less rise up and send them to a better place. As a nation, we deserve what we get, I suppose.

But, until we get, at the very least, a referendum on the EU, there are no politics. Whatever the slime do - not interested. There is only one thing we want to hear.

COMMENT THREAD

"This is getting too boring to be worthy of comment," says Janet Daley, catching up as always.

COMMENT THREAD

You did ask. Not as long as The Boy and the rest of the Cleggerons are around.

COMMENT THREAD

Householders face a £300-a-year rise in their gas and electricity bills and significant cuts in how much energy they use if Britain is to "keep the lights on" and meet its climate change targets, the "Government" has said. Actually, this is that fool Huhne, who has said people would have to make "ambitious" cuts in their own consumption.

So, what he is proposing is that we should use less electricity and pay substantially more for it, ending up with higher bills despite cutting consumption. As a motivational message, this is little short of moronic, although we've stopped wondering what these people do for brains.

The worst of it is that Huhne is almost certainly under-estimating the costs. Earlier estimates have gone as high as £5,000 a year for our energy bills.

There is a third element here, as well. Even though we are set for higher costs, and reduced consumption, at this rate we will almost certainly have power cuts as well. Huhne's grasp of the electricity supply industry makes this almost a certainty.

And, run not away with the idea that this is a maverick minister, indulging in his own free-lance fantasy. This fatuous policy very much has the support of The Boy, who is seemingly happy to drive the entire population into fuel poverty.

We appreciate that there was not much choice at the last general election – but choice there was. One trusts now that those who thought a vote for Dave or his minions a good idea are fully appraised of their foolishness.

COMMENT THREAD

The mantra within what passes for the brain of your average "one nation" Tory like "Call me Dave" (who isn't a Tory at all really), is that the EU is a GOOD THING for trade.

All that nasty stuff about European integration that those continentals rabbit on about can be sorted by continued enlargement. This dilutes the rule of Brussels and allows the classic British stratagem of "divide and rule" to apply, over which the mandarins from Whitehall can benignly exercise their arts.

Being a "one nation" Tory also means that there are not enough brain cells to carry two ideas simultaneously, which means that the species goes around bleating "wider not deeper", as the answer to all things EU.

Needless to say, they remain sublimely oblivious to the fact that the last round of enlargement with those Eastern European Johnnies went wider and deeper. Enlargement thus remains the cure for all ills.

It is in that context that we must understand the latest exudation from The Boy. He is to urge the EU to drop the anti-Muslim "prejudice" against Turkey, which he says is blocking Turkey's membership.

It is not that the man is stupid, or even so detached from reality that we have difficulty believing he is on the same planet. Neither is the case. The real explanation is that he is a "one nation" Tory. This transcends stupidity.

Generations of inbreeding, combined with careful nurture within a microcosmic society which dictates the one permitted strain of thought of which the breed is capable, means that the likes of "Call me Dave" must come out with this tosh. It is the only thing for which he is programmed. It really is not capable of anything else.

Were he an animal, societies like the Kennel Club would intervene, and we would have pity on the poor creatures. But it is our great tragedy that the "one nation" Tories believe that they have an inalienable right to rule the planet. It is our even greater tragedy that so many of our fellow British are stupid enough to believe that they should. That is where the stupidity lies.

However, our fortune here is that enough people will judge The Boy's exudation as stupid (which it is not: see above) - so stupid as to be unbelievably crass. And, by and large, having had just as much of the "religion of peace" as they can swallow, they will most likely regard the call for greater tolerance as somewhat inappropriate.

Even more fortunately, many people will interpret this as a political death wish on the part of The Boy. And many, many more will now be willing to oblige him, and see that he gets his wish.

COMMENT THREAD

To all those happy, gullible little bunnies who were so convinced that "Call me Dave" was a eurosceptic, and just needed to be given a chance, there is only one word – schmuck. We could use other words, but that conveys the sentiment.

Our Dave never was a eurosceptic, is not now and never will be. A typical Tory, he runs with the hare and the hounds but, in the end, goes with the "colleagues" for an easy life. Voting Tory was never going to make the slightest bit of difference.

As so its turns out to be. In The Daily Mail today, we get the headline: "European police to spy on Britons: Now ministers hand over Big Brother powers to foreign officers."

Sadly, what the paper says (this time) is true – or close enough to the truth as to make no difference. Ministers are ready to hand sweeping Big Brother powers to EU states so they can spy on British citizens. Foreign police will be able to travel to the UK and take part in the arrest of Britons.

They will, says The Mail, be able to place them under surveillance, bug telephone conversations, monitor bank accounts and demand fingerprints, DNA or blood samples. Anyone who refuses to comply with a formal request for co-operation by a foreign-based force is likely to be arrested by UK officers.

The move, we are told, will spark a damaging row with backbench Tory MPs opposed to giving such draconian powers to Brussels. And, for the "money quote", the Tories were opposed to the directive in opposition, saying it showed a "relish for surveillance and disdain for civil liberties." But hey! Now they are in what is laughingly called "in power", ministers have made a dramatic U-turn and are agreeing this latest move from Brussels.

Perversely, this is all about the "Hague Programme" – which is rather appropriate, given the dismal excuse we have for a foreign secretary. We used to warn about this quite frequently, until we gave up because no one took a blind bit of notice. But now we have the Tories back again, we can look forward to another leap forward in European integration, just as we do every time we have a Tory government.

There is, I spose, one small comfort. We will hear less from those brain-dead retards who were telling us that The Boy was a eurosceptic. But it is a very small comfort.

COMMENT THREAD

Tory+fail[i-Tory+fail]
The Sunday Times reports on the latest YouGov poll which has the Tory lead slump to just six percent. The not-the-tory-party makes 39 percent, down one point on January, Labour gets 33 percent, up two and the Lib-Dims drop one point to 17 percent.

We are told that the six-point gap is the narrowest since December 2008, the results suggest a hung parliament with the Cameron's party set to take 290 seats, 10 seats more than Labour.

Even worse news awaits the Boy over in The Sunday Telegraph though. There, a tracker poll by Politics Home has his personal lead over Gordon Brown halved in six months.

The centrepiece of the Cameron experiment has always been that call-me-Dave has been more popular than his own party, dragging it up in the polls.

When voters were asked in September whether they thought he was doing a good or a bad job, Mr Cameron scored a positive performance rating of 36 (calculated by subtracting the percentage of people who thought he was doing a bad job from the percentage who thought he was doing a good job).

However, that rating fell by several points each week until it was 12 by the second week of February. By contrast, Brown's performance rating, was minus 55 in September last year and climbed steadily by several points a week until it was minus 33 by mid February.

If the trend continued, says The Telegraph, Cameron and Brown could be neck and neck by the time of the election on 6 May, each with performance ratings of just below zero. Neither Autonomous mind nor Your Freedom and Ours would be surprised.

But what is especially significant is that Cameron's fall from grace began in the first week of November, which coincided with him ditching his EU referendum pledge. He can't say he wasn't warned – he was in no uncertain terms, but the Boy thought he knew better.

He didn't.

COMMENT THREAD