With reports circulating that Liz Truss is planning to tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol, and Sinn Fein sweeping to victory last week, voices across the Irish Sea are turning to what might come next: a diplomatic breakdown with the EU? Threats to the union? Maybe nothing at all? Or maybe, as Professor Cathal McCall argues on Irish national broadcaster RTE’s website today, a full blown British invasion…
According to mad McCall, it’s not “beyond the realms of probability” if Boris steps down as Prime Minister that his bloodthirsty, imperialist successor – Gove, Truss, Raab, Rees-Mogg or Priti – decides it’s not worth the hassle of negotiating with Sinn Féin, so Britain may as well call them “terrorists and bandits” and get the battleships ready. The fact RTE published this, even with an inevitable disclaimer at the bottom, is incredible.
McCall explains how it would play out:
“Such a Tory Prime Minister, less than wedded to democratic principles, may well eye the size and purpose of the Irish Defence Forces and conclude that reclamation would be a doddle. No Provos roaming around the drumlins of South Armagh and Louth or lying in wait in the bogs of Tyrone and Monaghan to worry about either. No heroic Ukrainian-style resistance likely. And all done in the name of ‘peace and security’.
Would NATO care about the fate of non-member, neutral Ireland? NATO tends not to care about non-members and neutrals, especially when the neutral in question has just been subsumed within the Organisation’s key member, the United Kingdom.”
Yes, because if there’s one thing the Ukraine war has taught us, it’s that NATO doesn’t care about non-members. He even suggests that the government would spin it as a way to fix the Northern Ireland Protocol. Whilst it’s certainly one way of removing the border, Guido thinks it might cause a few diplomatic repercussions…
It’s time for Guido’s daily Piers update, and last night’s figures make even worse reading for his TalkTV team in West London, which is now disowned by many of the executives in the Baby Shard. Piers was once again beaten by Nigel Farage, though the margin of his hammering rose from 14,800 views shy of Nigel to 36,500, two thirds higher. Dan Wootton also beat Piers, by 20,400 views.
This is especially embarrassing for Piers and his team given they were so excited at having an ‘exclusive’ interview with the Taliban spokesman – after he’d been interviewed by almost everybody else in the media. Farage managed to knock these ratings out of the park with… The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope. Until tomorrow…
Now that Sir Keir is feeling the heat from his boozy lockdown curry night, Labour MPs are bending over backwards to explain why their leader’s Covid rule-breaking is somehow completely different to Boris’s, and why it’s right that Starmer remains in post provided he isn’t fined. One particular MP who might have some trouble with this is none other than the Honourable Member for Durham, Mary Foy…
Foy is probably best known for hosting the Beergate bhuna session in her constituency office, laughing and drinking merrily with her colleagues while the country was still in stage two of lockdown. She then went on to scream at Richard Holden for his asking Durham Police to reinvestigate the event. It turns out, however, that when Durham Police announced they wouldn’t fine Dominic Cummings over the infamous Barnard Castle trip, Foy had a few ideas about what should happen next. None of which involved Cummings keeping his job…
Here’s what Foy wrote in a public letter to Boris after the Cummings story:
“The vast majority of constituents who have contacted me have expressed the view that Mr Cummings’ actions have been insensitive and unacceptable at best, and many feel that they warrant further investigation by the police.”
“While I understand today’s decision by Durham Police to take no further action, many of the constituents who have written to me would like Mr Cummings to resign or be sacked. Clearly, whether you stick by him or not is a matter for you, but the perception from my constituents, and I would hazard a guess that this is a common view across the North East, is that you are currently putting the interests of your chief adviser above that of the people of the region and the country as a whole.”
Even though Cummings received no fixed penalty, and the police decided they’d take no further action, Foy still took the time to write a two-page letter informing the Prime Minister how upset her constituents are, and politely suggested Cummings lose his job. Presumably her office is inundated with similar letters now, all demanding Sir Keir does the honourable thing…
Read Mary’s furious letter in full below:
Michael Gove used his morning media round appearance on BBC Breakfast to deny rumours of an imminent emergency budget in one of the strangest ways possible – using a range of over-excitable accents ranging from a 90s radio DJ to Liverpudlian. Guido’s not saying they were bad…
Trying to focus for a moment on what Michael actually said, he accused journalists of “chasing their own tail” with regards to the rumour:
“We are constantly looking at ideas to ensure that we relieve the pressure on people facing incredibly tough times, but that doesn’t amount to an ’emergency budget’, which is what some people immediately thought it did.
It is an example of some commentators chasing their own tails and trying to take a statement that is commonsensical, turning into a major – capital letters – Big News Story, and when the Treasury quite rightly say ‘calm down’ people instead of recognising that they’ve overinflated the story in the first place, then say ‘oh this is clearly a split’.”
It’s a fair point. Guido just hopes Michael’s aides ensure he puts less sugar in his morning tea ahead of his next broadcast round…
Guido’s campaign to get Labour to publish their shadow cabinet meetings with media proprietors and editors, as pledged following Leveson, seems to be going nowhere, despite repeated promises from Labour HQ to pull their finger out. Yesterday Labour’s relationship with press transparency got colder, when Sir Keir invited just three tame broadcasters into the room, blocking any hacks who may have asked difficult questions from attending. GB News’ Tom Harwood was told this was due to “limited space”. Guido is old enough to remember when the Lobby was collectively outraged when only selected broadcasters were invited by Lee Cain for a briefing…
Bad look for Labour after running away from Lobby all day. pic.twitter.com/wpI7VbfDFj
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 9, 2022
Now Guido’s spotted another press frontier on which Labour’s dropping the ball: publishing press releases. Labour’s website hasn’t published a press release in over 40 days, the most protracted period of policy publishing paralysis since Starmer took over.
Prior to David Lammy’s speech the pace of uploads had already slowed down, with seven press releases uploaded in February and just five in March. Perhaps not a good look when even the Labour-supporting press is starting to suggest Sir Keir needs some policies to win, not just claims of personal sainthood…
