Cicero's Songs

The fact is that the Brexit camp is fighting an dreadful campaign.  The fish rots from the head, and leadership is the first problem that the Brexiteers face. Farage and Johnson posture, but do not lead. Meanwhile Michael Gove has made his case and quietly returned to government. Only IDS continues his angry way, irritating his Conservative colleagues, but not really landing a blow.  In the engine room, controversial but not competent figures such as Arron Banks or Dominic Cummings  have a set a hostile and provocative tone which has even alienated their own supporters. The campaign is divided- unable to put forward a clear vision of a post-EU future, because they can not agree on whether that should be completely separate, an association agreement, or full membership of the EEA. Meanwhile, despite the large amounts of cash available, the campaign is disorganised and increasingly dispirited. The polls are running increasingly against the Leave campaign. A badly le...

Although the opinion polls are close, the betting markets barely move: the punters are still backing the United States to vote for Hillary Clinton and the United Kingdom to vote to stay part of the European Union.  Yet, just suppose the punters are wrong? Just suppose that the polls are right and the UK does vote to Leave. Firstly this would trigger an immediate resignation from David Cameron. His luck would have run out. The Prime Minister himself suggests that his successor is most likely to be a "leaver", "that is where the heart of the Conservative party beats". Despite his unhappy performance so far, that still probably means that Boris Johnson would be the next Prime Minister. The new PM would have a massive pile of problems to deal with on day one. Quite apart from the critical choices that he will have to make on behalf of the UK and it future relations with the EU, he would also have to steady the economic ship, which would be more than a somewhat rattl...

Listening to the BBC one might think that, intellectually, the debate about British membership of the European Union was a finely balanced argument. It isn't. As Kate Hoey admitted to Andrew Neill , there is not one single independent study that suggests that leaving the EU would benefit the UK economy. The Leave campaign could have put up a "sock puppet" study up to suggest they were right, but they could not even do that- so damning is the factual evidence. The press is suggesting that they are reporting the debate evenly- but the reality is that there is no factually based support for any of the statements put out by the Leave campaign- it is not supported by any sustainable facts at all. I have made comments about the rise of stupidity in politics before, but quite frankly the utter failure of the media to recognize that one side is intellectually bankrupt implies either stupidity or bias. In the case of the Daily Mail, it probably implies both. O...