Toby on Tuesday

'Bovine Spongiform Europepathy'

Those of us who relish the comic genius of the great P.G. Wodehouse can never forget the preposterous figure of Sir Roderick Spode.   He appears in “The Code of the Woosters” as the leader of the Saviours of Britain, otherwise known as the Black Shorts, and a parody of Sir Oswald Mosley who went on to found the Europe a Nation movement.   But the bullying, hectoring Spode has a dark secret.   The wealth that maintains him comes from the sale of ladies’ underwear and his company Eulalie Lingerie.   Once the secret is out, no one takes his campaign seriously again.   So it is only appropriate that the chairman of the EU “Stay” campaign, Britain Stronger in Europe (BSE), the 21st century equivalent of the Saviours of Britain, should like Sir Roderick Spode also have a background in selling ladies’ underwear - none other than Sir Stuart Rose, ex-Chairman of Marks & Spencer.   And of course in a farming constituency like Thirsk and Malton, the acronym BSE means something very different and more wretched still.   The memories of Mad Cow Disease have not gone away here, nor the extent of so-called “European co-operation” when that particular tragedy hit our farmers.   It is a measure of the sheer haplessness of the “Stay” campaign that the connotations of the letters BSE did not occur to a single one of its founders.

But behind Sir Stuart Rose, who is really only a front for BSE, lie some far more Machiavellian figures, Peter Mandelson for the Labour Party, George Osborne for the Conservative Party and, back from the dead, Nick Clegg for the LibDems.   And the word at Westminster is that they have already lost patience with the weakness of the “Stay” campaign and are starting to exercise their dark arts.   The old friendship between George Osborne and Peter Mandelson, which first flourished among the Greek islands on the yacht of the Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, has been rekindled to the point where, in the words of one Tory adviser, “George is goggle-eyed in the presence of Peter Mandelson.   He behaves like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”   And to prove the point, George Osborne, obsessed as he is with China, has just appointed Peter Mandelson as President of the Great Britain China Centre.   As to Europe, their plot is now becoming clear.   As well as the usual fear tactics and bullying already underway, it is to delay the Referendum until as late as possible in 2017.   By then EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will have set in train a series of treaty changes for further integration as the EU moves towards the superstate foreshadowed in June’s “Five President’s Report”.   At that stage the 19 countries that form the Eurozone will effectively become a single nation dominated by Germany.   However, those countries not in the Eurozone, including Britain, will be offered some kind of so-called “associate status” on a basis to be determined by Brussels and Berlin.   This will enable David Cameron to return to London claiming not so much “peace with honour” but rather “the best of both worlds”   On this basis, he, George Osborne, Peter Mandelson, Nick Clegg and the whole of their tawdry campaign will press for a “Stay” vote.   The truth, however, is that nothing at all will have changed for Britain, while the struggling Eurozone members will have been drawn yet deeper into the abyss.

Our Nigel himself put the reality of David Cameron’s negotiations in his customarily succinct way the other day when he wrote under the headline ‘Britain will be flattened if it stays in the EU’, “Instead of standing up for the national interest, Mr. Cameron has staked his premiership on supporting EU open borders;  European commissioners and courts that can overrule the British legislature and judiciary;  and a spiralling EU budget, which he recently boosted by handing over another £1.7 billion when Brussels came calling.”   And Nigel, in his witty and perceptive way, has spotted the sheer folly of Sir Stuart Rose’s Britain Stronger in Europe, just as P.G. Wodehouse spotted the sheer folly of his fictional Sir Roderick Spode’s Saviours of Britain.  Nigel I know is another avid reader of P.G. Wodehouse’s comic mastery for the simple reason that they both received their same fine, rigorous education at Dulwich College, albeit at different times!   So there must definitely be something in the water of that part of South London that brings out the insight that humour is among the very best weapons against bullies and tyrants.   And, like Nigel and P. G. Wodehouse, we shall all need to have our wits about us during the coming two years!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby