If I could have stretched to a blog post yesterday it would have been exactly this. Chancellor Hammond, though, was not alone in grasping at straws. The Brexiteers were out in full force. Suella Fernandes, IDS and Jacob Rees Mogg. Worse still was Martha Carney and Eddie Mair. Still, after all this time, the political circus is still failing to master the basics - and have made no attempt to get themselves up to speed. Whatever they are told goes in one ear and out the other.
Yesterday we heard Rees-Mogg telling us that leaving the customs union was not a complex thing and that goods "fly off the docks" at Southampton. He and IDS were both referring to the AEO system - but that only applies to certain types of goods - not animal products or food - and says nothing of inspections, certifications and testing. A classic case of a politician not understanding a complex process and therefore assuming that it must be simplicity itself.
What we are looking at here is very typical of Westminster culture. Being bereft of ay answers they will latch on to the first piece of overheard technobabble and rinse it for all it's worth. It doesn't matter if it's nonsense just so long as the true believers keep believing. That is the fundamental dishonesty and cynicism of the Brexiteers.
We have seen this before from the same gang on Conservative Home, abusing terminology all over the shop in trying to justify a no deal scenario. The media won't be any the wiser and neither will their audience. This is how the game works. These people have no shame.
I think this explains, to a point, the smugness of Rees-Mogg. He doesn't have to be an expert in his field. All he needs is to be half a step ahead of the media to be able to get away with saying virtually anything. He won't be challenged on it. The media lacks the intellectual equipment. Thanks to the likes of Eddie Mair these poisonous creatures are able to tell virtually any lie.
After three years of intensive blogging and social media activity I am now reputed to be an angry person full of bile and bitter invective. That's because I've been paying attention. It is difficult to say who is worse - the idle politicians on both sides of the debate or the equally crass media who let them get away with it. Thanks to them the debate has barely progressed beyond the basics and we are still going round in circles even now Article 50 talks are underway. The future of the nation hangs in the balance and it has descended into farce.
For all that I get passive aggressive barbs from the likes of Allie Renison, we see an equally timid business community unable to say, unequivocally, that the government is making a royal mess of this. All we get from trade associations is mealy mouthed and vague recommendations when if they were doing their jobs they would be going on the attack. If their job is to defend business interests then they need to be pelting rotten tomatoes at these people. Figuratively and actually. There is an underlying assumption that we need be polite about this and uphold a sense of decorum while we are being utterly shafted. If we're not being impolite now, then when?
If there is one thing I have learned is that the Tory Brexit claque are in transmit mode only. They only put their heads above the parapet to make assertions and fill the debating sphere with lies before retreating. They are not honest enough to debate their ideas and the process is one way only. Why in gods name are we supposed to be polite about that?
Today the left are having a "day of rage". I am of the view that when it comes to government incompetence a single day is not nearly enough. It's a full time occupation. There is no justification for politeness. The bits of the government that aren't killing us are endangering the entire economy simply because they are incapable of fulfilling their basic obligation to understand the issues. We are way, way past politeness.
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