Ooof. 47?

How did that happen? How strange & how quickly time flies...

S

Making a desert & calling it peace

In todays political world, victory - it seems - must be absolute. Any deviation from complete, untrammelled success is screamingly decried as betrayal, sell out or weakeness.

When did this become the norm?

We should recognise that such scorched-Earth tactics will only serve to poison the well of discourse and endanger our own positions. If, after all, we need absolute victory and are prepared to do anything to achieve it - why would our opponents not reach for the same weapon?

Personally I think that this comes down to the accelerating effect of the current media & communications techology. Back in the 1960's it was not uncommon to have a 2-day cabinet meeting to thrash out all the various arguments and policy permutations around a position - but today that would be seen as a national crisis (how the description has been devalued!). It would be breathlessly reported by presenters live outside Downing Street & the Palace of Westminster along with a string of no-hopers who would opine loftily, puffing themselves up at their opportunity to be less of a "political mediocrity" & more of a "political mediocrity on television".

All of which brings me to the point of my post. There are too many absolutists in Parliament - most of them are Brexiteers who are incessantly moving the goalposts to secure an ever harder Brexit. Whilst Lord Adonis might have been tongue in cheek when he wrote 'Any brexit that doesn't involve us threatening the use of nuclear weapons and reclaiming Calais will be seen as a sellout by these people' - but I think that he has a point. These people dont take 'yes' for an answer.

There are, however, a sizeable number of sensibles in Parliament. Grieve, Morgan, Cooper, Kinnock and Boles - who we must hang our hopes on, following the failure of May and Corbyn. Nick Boles, for example, whilst someone who campaigned for Reman but has since put forward a credible approach to Brexit – and, when challenged has used his opponents own words back. It is worth reading.

https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2019/01/nick-boles-like-all-revolutionaries-once-reasonable-brexiteers-slide-towards-ever-greater-radicalism.html

But still, the true believers pronounce that the promised land of tax free milk & honey will be theirs if the people ignore the dissenters and follow the holy scripture regardless of all worldly impediments & pratfalls.

S