. . . is everything! And, yes, I do know that I have a habit of repeating certain of my more favorite sayings but that is a habit commensurate with old age - and. boy, do I feel old these days! Timing is also critical in general elections and I do hope our somewhat less than able prime minister, to say nothing of the Old Etonian goofballs with whom he surrounds himself, are considering how he must play the next few months leading up to the election next May. At the top of his agenda there should be one word - Europe! Apart from dropping a few goodies to sundry refugees he should forget about the Middle East. We have neither the money, the military muscle or, frankly, the interest in getting involved. Yes, we the electorate might cheer our gallant lads (and lasses!) on their way to fight the good fight, assuming anyone can differentiate between the good, the bad and the downright ugly in the Middle East, but on the return of so much as a single body bag we will take our vengeance on a prime minister who committed them to such a folly.
All of Dave's main policy lines, for good, or often bad, have been established over the past four years so there's not much to be done about them except to start - now! -blaming the Lib-Dems for such faults as are apparent. Of course, in reality we know that Dave, at heart, is as much of a Lib-Dem as Clegg and he will hate doing it but he really must in order to try and win back the disaffected Tory vote that UKIP and their ever more popular leader, Nigel Farage, are just waiting to cream off him.
It is an irony of epic deliciousness for UKIP that their hated euro bloc of nations could be the cause of disaster for Dave and the Tories and result in a big win for them. As I pointed out in my previous post, Italy really is on the euro rack and their relatively new and young prime minister must know that their only escape is to ditch the euro and return to the lira. Even a hint of that will send shudders round Brussels and Berlin. That, however, is their problem; ours, or to be precise, Dave's, is that Europe languishes in a morass of failing economies which quarter by quarter sucks them further down the path of deflation and stagnation. Our economy is strongly tied to Europe, we sell somewhere around 35% of our exports to them. When they cough, we catch a cold; when they get a temperature, we get ebola disease!
So, apart from the very many other reasons to distance ourselves from Europe, commerce ranks high. I know it has been predicted 'many a time and oft' but sooner or later the euro bloc really is going to disintegrate and then the 'boom' created by Dave 'n' George will evaporate almost overnight. If that happens before the next election, guess who will be blamed! Thus, Dave would be well advised to take a strong, if you like 'firm and friendly', line against the current situation in Europe and make it crystal clear that if our demands for a very much looser connection are not met - then we walk! It is essential that two very distinct groups of people are in absolutely no doubt that he means what he says about walking away, they are, the Eurocrats and the British electorate. If the former believe it then they will cut a deal but if they don't then they will haggle it out for ever. If the latter believe it, they will eschew UKIP, who they know are incapable of forming a government, and return to the Tory fold. If he fails to convince us then UKIP will suck the the froth off the Tory vote and that will leave the door open for a Labour or Lib-Lab government.
If that happens the only good news for Dave is that he will suddenly look quite good as a prime minister when compare to Ed Miliband - but that will be of scant comfort to us as we follow the French down the socialist toilet!
