From top: a lone EU star projected on the cliffs of Dover, England; Bernard Purcell
With only a few hours left….
Bernard Purcell writes:
When Boris Johnson was Mayor of London one of his much-trumpeted achievements was the new, 21st century Routemaster Bus with three doors for entering and alighting.
From this month passengers using those buses can only enter by the driver-side door.
It means that the hugely expensive buses – they cost a great deal more than others in service and cannot be sold on – have no real raison d’etre other than as a costly gimmick to bolster Johnson’s image as Mayor.
Most of the batteries on the hybrids failed meaning that they ended producing more diesel pollution than any other bus, they get hotter than thirty degrees in summer causing serious problems for passengers, cost a fortune to repair and they cannot be sold on as no-one wants to buy them.
To add insult to injury they were built and sold by a Northern Ireland company owned by one of the DUP’s biggest backers and a massive Brexit supporter.
But London commuters are stuck with them for many, many years to come…along with the truly staggering multi-million-pound bills for Boris’s aborted Garden Bridge and island airport among others.
Don’t even mention the former Olympic stadium home of West Ham.
But Boris Johnson has moved on leaving all this behind him, and as Prime Minister, on Brexit Day, is working with a much bigger canvas.
You might ask why these are being mentioned on Brexit Day and the answer is, as a cautionary tale of what may be before us.
We know that he accomplished Brexit where others couldn’t – by betraying the very conditions about the British border in Northern Ireland that he had insisted on and said were non-negotiable.
He doubled down on that with bare-faced assertions that there would be no customs or regulatory checks between Britain and Northern Ireland even though this has been comprehensively refuted by Michel Barnier, Simon Coveney, Leo Varadkar…and his own HM Treasury.
Even as this is being written there are moves afoot to banish the very word Brexit from the public discourse – led by Downing Street and some of its cheerleaders in the national media – on the basis that Boris has ‘got Brexit done’ – and the commemorative tea towel is available for Conservative Central Office.
This is despite the fact that it is only now beginning with the European Commission poised to publish its trade deal negotiating mandate on Monday and this transition period – enabled by Article 50 – due to expire in a year.
And all the indications are that this government is attaching greater weight to its deadline than the content or detail of the trade deal – no matter how much many of us might hope that common sense and pragmatic, if not even enlightened, self-interest kick in.
Meanwhile, ‘Sir’ Nigel Farage and his motley crew of ersatz poujadists are dialing down expectations for their victory gala in Parliament Square, blaming ‘the establishment’ for thwarting their promise of music, comedians and celebrations – when even the most cursory glance at the law covering gatherings would have confirmed that they, with alcohol, are prohibited in that space.
For the very many people genuinely deflated by today the former British ambassador Lord (Peter) Ricketts’ widely circulated advice has been to emulate that other enthusiastic European, Winston Churchill and raise a glass of good champagne. Because, Churchill said, ‘in victory I deserve it, and in defeat, I need it’.
Or words to that effect.
Bernard Purcell is the UK-born, Ireland-reared and London-based editor of The Irish World. newspaper.
Earlier: Brexit Rap Battle
Top pic via Led By Donkeys
“Most of the batteries on the hybrids failed ”
Ha, read it and weep all you electric car owners!
YUSSS! FOSSAL FUEL 4EVA!!!
Today would have been a good day for a brexit playlist. Here’s mine :
https://youtu.be/1se8_-fcxZs
See ya
Wouldn’t wanna be ya
At the end of the day I am less belligerent than at the beginning. Good choice! Makes you more the worthy winner :)
I’d go for A Song for Europe. Perhaps Roxy Music’s finest moment with it apt lament…
“Tous ces moments
Perdus dans l’enchantement
Qui ne reviendront
Jamais
Pas d’aujourd’hui pour nous
Pour nous il n’y a rien
A partager
Sauf le passé”
https://youtu.be/fFPQa-pEt9c
Alternatively
Old England (is dying) by The Waterboys sums up the whole sorry farrago.
https://youtu.be/j7_3bIM_K94
I’d go with “in every dream home a heartache” as their finest moment… although that’s probably apt too for the day that’s in it.
Let’s call it quits and go with Bill Murray singing More Than This?
https://youtu.be/dpwIbqm-umk
Boris was such a bad mayor that he was elected twice in what has always been a staunchly Labour city.
Is the Irish World one of those free advertising sheets you find knocking around Irish pubs in London ? This could explain why this bilge-drenched garbage reads like a Pound Shop Fintan O’Toole.
Get over it Bernard.
You lost.
Stop whining.
So says our own resident shrieking Dr Eva Orsmond
I feel like being petty tonight. Instead, I am sad. Farewell, friends!
Don’t be strangers!
I feel like (chlorinated) chicken tonight.
Brexit was RACIST a bigoted hate mob hijacked democracy away from the people with the help of Russia, I mean they hired Analytics firms to collect data to help them shape their campaign!!! There needs to be a people’s referendum to gibe the marginalized voices who were shouted down a real say and return the UK to where it belongs.
…all 17.4million of them?
Honestly can’t tell if this is satire or hyperbole
or dhrink involved…
Mr Russell is the king of satire here on the sheet.
Poor lamb. You are seriously deluded and need an education.
It’s more his sudden realisation that politicians use data to target their online campaigns.
As he waves his pitchfork at the passing Model T Ford horseless wagon.
I’m not really sure what this guff is all about. The issue with the doors on the bus is that there was a huge amount of fare evasion when anyone could just hop on and hop off. Essentially it’s a great idea ruined by people’s dishonesty.
I’m not sure either why he has a problem with the busses being built in the UK. There’s not to many options for right hand drive. Perhaps it’s because Optare didn’t get the tender
The Brexit link is nonsense as the contract to build these buses was awarded in 2009 which, despite what people may think given the interminable nature of it all, is still a wee while before Brexit
Top comment
‘ A Pound Shop Fintan O’Toole’ ? Ah here. I just think Bernard just dislikes Johnson even more than I do ( I remember O’Toole when he couldn’t afford a 16p pint of Smithwicks in the Belfield Bar)