Comic turns

You have to know the UK is in trouble when the only person left making sense about Brexit is a stand-up comedian. Check out Nish Kumar on youtube after his appearance on the BBC's Question Time programme of 18 October 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na5RoTvELws

No, I'm not being flippant about Brexit. What I am being is worried. The Conservative Party is in charge of Brexit, and Brexit has revealed once and for all just what the Conservative Party is like. 

First of all, most of their leaders have shown themselves to be gutless cowards: Cameron, Osborne and Johnson, having landed the rest of us in the cack, are nowhere to be seen. One of the Tory grandees who led the Brexit campaign has even applied for naturalisation in France. (Man, I would be so happy if the French told Lord Lawson to sling his hook, but they won't because they're much nicer than I am). 

The Tory Party leadership now consists of Theresa May and Jacob Rees-Mogg. 

I'll pause while you laugh. 

The Tories still have lots of MPs and that's quite worrying in itself. No matter what happens, the Tories remain 4 percentage points ahead of the Labour Party in the opinion polls. 

The Tory MP who is minister of state for Northern Ireland admits she doesn't actually know anything very much about Northern Ireland or the Good Friday Agreement or The Troubles or the history of Eire. One of her Tory colleagues in the House of Commons is also under the impression that all English people are entitled to get a passport from Eire. 

Then a Tory MP argued that the UK had to have a single legal system because it would be ridiculous if different 'parts' of the UK had different legal systems. He was clearly unaware that Scotland is a country rather than a 'part' and it has always had its own legal system. It's history, you see: while England after 1066 was busy occupying or waging war on the European mainland, Scotland set up a range of links to Flanders, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Germany and Italy, some of which led to our legal system (not to mention our education system and our habit of making stuff and trading it in Europe) being more like the rest of Europe's, rather than England's. 

Another Tory MP complained that he couldn't understand what a Glasgow SNP MP was saying and asked for that MP's comment to be written down. Just how limited are these Tory MPs? Don't they watch TV or movies or listen to the radio or deal with the NHS - all of which would give them a bit of practice in deciphering accents? (Well, forget the reference to the NHS. Maybe the Tory Party goes in for private medicine and never meets foreign people).  

We've had a whole procession of Tory grandees lately who insist on telling us that Scotland only survives due to the generosity of the Home Counties, despite the sums that show that this is just not the case. Maybe the sums are too hard. Let's see: £70 billion into the Exchequer in taxes annually from Scotland and £42 billion back to Scotland from the Exchequer via the Barnett Formula. There seems to be a gap there. And that's not even counting the fact that some Scottish taxes don't appear on Scotland's balance sheet - like whisky. 

All in all, it looks as if the Tory Party has conned the great British (for British, read English) public for decades: this is not the natural party of leadership. This is not the party of fiscal responsibility. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that quite a few Tory MPs have revealed themselves to be a bit thick. 

What the Tories have been good at is getting away with it. And with Brexit, that era may just be coming to an end.