Wednesday 9 February 2022

Taking the long view

 

In 2018, Jacob Rees-Mogg informed us that it would probably take around 50 years to see the benefits of Brexit. One thing that we can say, with absolute certainty, is that fifty years from now, Jake will either be 102 years old or dead, and, whilst I make no judgement about the relative desirability of the two alternatives, population statistics tell us that the second outcome is considerably more probable than the first. That should make his new job, as Minister for identifying the benefits of Brexit, something of a doddle for the next four decades or so; he won’t have to look very hard to confirm his judgement that the benefits have yet to arrive. To make a real success of the job, he only needs to do three things. The first is to defeat the odds and remain alive, the second is to remain in government for a mere half a century, and the third is to find some benefits - or, more likely at that age, to remember what it was he was looking for. If the odds against the first aren’t good, the odds of his still being in post fifty days from now, never mind fifty years, are looking even worse. As for the third... Probably best not to get too comfortable in his new office.

3 comments:

dafis said...

JRM is wealthy enough to see himself through the long winter of a botched Brexit. I'd had enough of the EU, didn't fancy the chances of it becoming a better place because it was and remains a cosy club for the big boys which is why posh boy Remainers in the UK thought it was jolly nice to belong. So now we're in splendid isolation sinking into the slime while another small elite of rich creepy types (or maybe the same small elite) can afford to wait it out. It offends me that so little effort went into planning in detail between 2016 and 19, with everybody engaged in slanging matches and few if any doing the spade work for the post exit period. A solution for us in Wales is, of course, to leave the UK but the same uncomfortable question keeps arising - who is doing the detailed planning and preparation ? If I see Wales' equivalent of JRM flouncing around down the Bay I will be seriously tempted to curtail his chances of longevity as the absence of detailed vision is a mistake we do NOT need to repeat. For once the phrase "lesson learned" has real meaning.

Anonymous said...

'Lessons learnt' or 'lessons learned'?

We seem to get plenty of the latter but no real change. Perhaps it's time to switch back to the former and see what happens.

dafis said...

Anon - better still perhaps information gathered analysed and rigorous corrective actions embedded. Otherwise we get a repeat performance of the perfectly avoidable.