Monday, June 08, 2015

Peter Hitchens: Great EU Stitch-Up.

The great EU stitch-up gathers steam. By Peter Hitchens.

Be careful what you wish for. Is it just me, or do I see a growing dawning of doubt about the referendum among anti-EU types?
Mr Cameron’s new friend Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Commission, was absolutely right when he pointed out that the Government is not seeking an exit from the EU, and ‘Cameron wants to dock his country permanently in Europe’. 
A defeat for the anti-EU side in a referendum will, of course, achieve this, diminishing all the ‘Eurosceptic’ poseurs in the Tory Party to the pointless blowhards they really are. What will they do then, to pretend they are patriots?
Oh, and talking of defeat, spending rules for the referendum have already been cleverly devised so that the ‘Yes’ side can spend up to £17million, while the ‘No’ side will be limited to £8million. It’s done by giving each political party an allocation, on top of the equal limits for the actual campaigns.
And a law which would have banned pro-EU promotions by public bodies in the last 28 days of the campaign has been quietly dropped. All this goes on undiscussed, while we obsess about Sepp Blatter.

Prayers of Jane Austen.

The little-known prayers written by Jane Austen. Jane Austen (1775-1817) on engraving from  1873.  (Photo: Getty/iStock) It is now 250 years...