Mood changes......
The PM has been wounded by the corruption scandal and his scandalous response to it. Having to back down is obviously painful but it had to be done, then he bounced back and immediately broke his word about HS2 and the Northern Powerhouse, as if nothing has changed.
But I sense that in a small but significant way it has changed. The willingness to just say the PM says this and on the other hand the experts say the opposite, seems to have changed slightly in the last few days.
Maybe I am being far too optimistic but Boris Johnson’s comments on the rail network were plainly lies and he was called out by experts willing to say he was lying.
The next test will be the Northern Ireland Protocol, the Government is spinning that the EU is willing to compromise and resort to the ECJ “only as a last resort.” The kind of soft soap fob off that fools nobody. The idea that the EU goes to the ECJ every day for judgements is stupid, the fact it remains the supreme court in this matter is obvious.
It commits the EU to nothing and is barely enough to save the PM’s blushes.
But it is the coverage of any deal that matters most. Will the Tory press claim a victory, swallow the lies and wave the flag? Or point out that the government picked a stupid fight it could not win, and then retreated before threats to trade that would have gutted British industry?
It won’t be one or the other but somewhere in between. Quite where in between is the key, the media is sensitive to its audiences mood. A lot of the country seems to have realised the PM is not to be trusted.
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Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.