We are building up to yet another Johnsonian U-Turn, in which department he is something of an expert! And he is being aided and abetted in his Ballet of Deception by the President of the EC who keeps to the script of “some progress” and “real differences” so that the final agreement (at the last possible moment) makes it appear as if Johnson has actually mastered his way to something real and acceptable.
Let’s face it, any agreement will be better than none. But when the final Johnson scrap of paper makes its appearance, I will be looking to informed commentators to explain when in the last four years we could have had something similar, or exactly the same or better!
In truth Johnson is no negotiator: he lacks the patience, application, wisdom, detail, ethos and everything else that a true champion of British interests needs.
Yes, he can trumpet meaningless three-word slogans and he can jumble metaphor and simile in a lurid word salad; but do the hard, detailed work for complex negotiations? Not a chance.
And his opposite numbers in the EU know him for what he is (a lazy chancer and liar) and know that they have to act as stooges to his stand-up to get anything done.
The professionals in the EU must shrug with weary resignation as they accept yet another session of baby minding as the nappy-wearing infant wiffles into view tousling his hair as he goes. They can’t treat him with the contempt that he deserves because they recognize (as he can’t) that there is more at stake in the negotiations than individual reputations.
It is indeed sad to realize that the only people with the interests of the United Kingdom at heart are the people that the Brexiteers have caricatured and rejected!
Ah well, I hope that the adults in the room are able to convince the baby that an agreement is there for the taking, by giving the crowd-pleaser enough belief that he has managed to achieve something of moment that will keep the rabid sections of his carnivorous party away from his all too solid flesh!
It is obvious from the latest news broadcast that this farce of negotiation is going to be drawn out until we are all bored with it and won’t look too closely at what Johnson will actually have achieved.
Well, on with the comedy, I’m still waiting for my first laugh!
On a more positive literary note, Tim Harford’s new book now shares a place with my first Peter Gabriel record. I heard a snatch of Jeux sans frontieres on the radio years ago and immediately went into town and bought the Gabriel LP; a couple of days ago I heard a snatch of Tim Harford reading his book and immediately went to my computer and ordered a copy from Amazon – which arrived the next day.
I am sure that there is an historical lesson to be learned from the different approaches of the two purchases which are 40 years apart!
Tim Harford is the presenter of the quintessentially Radio 4 programme, More or Less, a programme that studies and discusses the statistics and other assorted mathematical claims made in the media and gives a reasoned evaluation of the value of the numbers and how they have been arrived at. His voice has an undemonstrative yet compelling quality to it, as witness my immediate order for his book The book I purchased is called How to Make the World Add Up and is subtitled Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers. His style is conversational, authoritative with being preachy; it’s full of examples and reads like a novel.
The title might suggest a top-down sort of approach, but Harford writes as if he genuinely wants to inform and facilitate. He is fair and gently provocative and uses his considerable experience to explain and expand.
This is a book worth buying, not just reading! I recommend it without hesitation!
It is, by the way, exactly the sort of book that those in government should be forced to read and then be made to sign that they have done so and promise to let the Ten Rules guide their thinking! We would live in a much better world if they did!
