Wednesday, June 01, 2016

On not reading the papers

At last an empty day when I am free to lie in bed from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. surfing the net, then while the iPad is recharging, turn to Try Anything Twice - a collection of Jan Struther's pieces reprinted from The New Statesman, The Spectator and Punch. They're the kind of witty, thoughtful and pithy pieces about everyday life that I hope I'd have written if I'd been upper middle class and living in the 1930s. 

One of her pieces is called On Not Reading the Papers, which is what I've been doing when it comes to the EU referendum issue. I've known what I was going to vote from the start and have been ignoring the nasty, dishonest and unedifying debate - from both sides - that's been poisoning the media these last few months. Dave, however, has been keeping track, and has been 'kind' enough to keep me abreast of the latest scurrilous pronouncements. Daily. 

I did catch one headline independently last week, though, which was that if we leave the EU, house prices will come down. In view of all the young people who desperately want to and can't afford to buy their own house, I assumed this argument (whether or not it's true) came from the Brexit campaign, as a means of persuading young people to vote for them. On conferring with Dave I discovered that it was George Osborne of the 'Remain' bunch, architect of austerity, hammerer of the poor and disadvantaged, who came out with it because he thought people would be horrified at the thought. It just goes to show - if nothing else has - how completely out of touch he is with the needs of ordinary people.

For the record - I shall be voting to remain in the EU. This is for many reasons, including one mentioned in Dave's February letter to the Guardian: "The Europeans often seem far more in line with British values than our own government does, for example on human rights."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dave's Guardian outing is the first sensible thing I've read on the topic - thank you for highlighting Sue.

We are passionately IN and hope the bookies are proved right.

Russell T Davies ( in the Guardian recently) said he was quite clearly IN - just look at the people advocating to leave, would you really prefer to be solely governed by them? Good tactical point.

Can't wait for it to be over. We'll then be directing any residual political anxiety on the US outcome.