Our future stands frozen on a ledge, and way down below two utterly dysfunctional groups of vested interests shout advice about jumping or standing firm.
My grandfather used to tease me with puzzles, one of which was: How do you drop an egg four feet without breaking it ?
The answer was to drop it from five feet, and my grandfather explained that falling never hurts anything: it is always the sudden stopping that does the damage.
The EU referendum debate, as conducted by the politicians, is a bit like the egg puzzle. The politicians are happy to talk about the first four feet of free-fall, but not about the actual stopping.
It has been a nasty, mendacious, deceptive campaign. Just like the ones they politicians run at elections.
And for me, the really annoying thing is already being able to hear the post-result commentary. The winning side will tell us that in the end their arguments prevailed, that the public saw the light and produced a great victory for common sense.
That will be the final lie of the campaign, and the elites will continue almost without pause for breath.
I wonder, though, if they will feel good about a result based on deliberate obfuscation and careful avoidance of so many issues ?
My sympathy is with this woman, who told Cameron:
“I’m voting Remain, but nothing to do with you guys. I hate the Tories. You’ve fucked everything fucking up in this country. You’ve screwed students, you’ve screwed the disabled, the vulnerable.
“I’ve heard you want to take the human rights act and everything as well. I can totally believe that, I wouldn’t put that past you at all.”
Well, exactly.
If you really were standing on a ledge, would a politician be your first choice to have yelling up advice ?
No. Me neither.
No comments:
Post a Comment