DOMINIC LAWSON: How anti-Brexit bigwigs have turned themselves into a laughing stock
This is a tale of two Dominics. Take it from another. The two this one has in mind are Messrs Grieve and Cummings.
Dominic Grieve is the former Conservative MP now standing against his old party in Beaconsfield. More significantly, this erstwhile attorney general masterminded, with the assistance of the then Commons Speaker John Bercow, the unprecedented parliamentary manoeuvres that continually blocked the Government from ‘getting Brexit done’.
Dominic Cummings is the creator of the Vote Leave campaign which won the 2016 referendum and whom Boris Johnson brought into the heart of Downing Street as soon as he took over from Mrs May.
Dominic Cummings Cummings is the architect of the brutally direct approach that ensued: the prorogation of Parliament and the sacking of 21 Tory MPs who voted for the ‘surrender Bill’
Meanwhile Dominic Grieve is being assisted by the then Commons Speaker John Bercow (pictured) as he stands against his old party in Beaconsfield
Cummings is also the architect of the brutally direct approach that ensued: the prorogation of Parliament, the sacking of 21 Tory MPs who voted for the ‘surrender Bill’ which forced the PM to ask Brussels for a further Brexit delay — and, above all, the push for a General Election on the slogan he devised (‘Get Brexit Done’).
I wrote in the Mail at the outset of this campaign that this slogan would be immensely successful. And so it is proving. As numerous Tories on the electoral trail have told me, it is hitting the jackpot even with Remain voters, who are fed up with the uncertainty (and who also believe, as democrats, that the 2016 referendum result must be honoured).
Pledged
At the outset of the last election, in 2017, Grieve had pledged to his constituents ‘that the decision of the electorate in the referendum must be respected’. So no wonder his local party, after his subsequent actions, passed a vote of no confidence in him even before Johnson removed the whip.
Now he is one of a number of former Tory bigwigs — most notably John Major and Michael Heseltine — telling people to vote ‘tactically’ to stop Mr Johnson taking us out of the EU on January 31.
Dominic Grieve (pictured in the constituency of Marlow, west of London, for support to become an Independent MP, on November 26) is urging voters against Boris Johnson but does not realise doing so leads the country to a Communist ‘friend’ of Islamist terror organisations
They are not actually saying ‘vote Labour’. But if you go to the several websites set up by anti-Brexit campaign groups to guide their followers how to vote, their recommendations for each constituency add up to over 500 ‘Labour’ ticks, and not much more than 100 ticks for the Liberal Democrats or other parties. This is because Labour is in the vast majority of seats the closest challenger to the Conservatives.
So let’s be clear: the strategy advocated by the former Tory Prime Minister Major and his deputy, Heseltine, would — if everyone did as they urge us to do — lead to a Communist self-confessed ‘friend’ of Islamist anti-Semitic terror organisations becoming Prime Minister with the biggest parliamentary majority in history.
Dominic Grieves has joined Lord Michael Heseltine (pictured during the Final Say rally at the Mermaid Theatre, London, on December 6) in telling people to vote ‘tactically’ to stop Mr Johnson taking the country out of the EU in January
That won’t happen, of course: not least because men such as Major and Heseltine, while of great fascination to broadcasters who treat their every utterance with unusual deference, have almost zero influence on voters. There is nothing quite so ex as an ex-politician, or, indeed, an ex-prime minister.
Moreover, anyone who knows Major also knows he is driven by resentment at the way the Tory Eurosceptics — Boris Johnson among them — made his life miserable when he was in office. His attempt at retribution (even urging Parliament to revoke Brexit without another referendum) is pettiness posturing as principle.
Grieve is a brighter man than Major; I have respected his intelligence ever since we were contemporaries at the same public school. So when I saw his broadcast to voters yesterday, I was amazed by its confusedness. He began by saying that, if re-elected, and if there were a hung Parliament: ‘I will not under any circumstances allow Jeremy Corbyn to become Prime Minister … I am clearly absolutely satisfied he would be a disaster in Downing Street.’
As if, after the defeat he wills for Johnson, Grieve would be so important he could, on his own, block the triumphant Labour leader from entering No 10!
Sir John Major (pictured during a video message on December 6) is telling people to vote ‘tactically’ to stop Mr Johnson taking us out of the EU on January 31. He is part of a group of Tory big-wigs upporting offering recommendations for each constituency adding up to over 500 ‘Labour’ ticks, and not much more than 100 ticks for the Liberal Democrats or other parties
Grieve went on: ‘We could set up a government of national unity. It wouldn’t be able to agree on very much, so you may well have another election before long, but at least it could provide for another referendum to try to resolve Brexit in some way.’ Had my old schoolmate been scripted by Dominic Cummings, he could not have done a better job of persuading voters to vote Conservative.
Strategy
If you admit that you are advocating an impotent government, to be followed by yet another election or a referendum without the faintest suggestion as to what would be on such a ballot paper, then you don’t need opponents to make you a laughing stock: you’ve done it for them.
This could not be in starker contrast to the clarity of the Cummings approach. In fact, I know this other Dominic quite well: we are both chess obsessives and have played a few games together. Like all chess players, Cummings understands that a clear strategy is essential: clever tactics are all well and good, but if they are not part of a logical plan, then they will rarely achieve the desired result (victory).
Cummings (pictured leaving Number 10 with Mr Johnson on October 28) understands that a clear strategy is essential and gave the push for a General Election on the slogan he devised (‘Get Brexit Done’)
‘Take Back Control’ was the strategic slogan Cummings devised for the 2016 referendum. ‘Get Brexit Done’ is the equally down-to-earth 2019 version. I should add that Cummings, the Durham-born son of an oil-rig manager, has none of Grieve’s grand manner.
So when Grieve, of all people, described him as ‘arrogant’, Cummings told journalists: ‘I don’t think I am arrogant. I don’t know very much about very much. Mr Grieve … we’ll see what he’s right about.’
We soon will. And I know which Dominic I’m putting my money on.
Cummings created the ‘Take Back Control’ slogan for the 2016 referendum. Here he is photographed outside the venue for the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester on September 30
Activists from the People’s Vote organisation calling for a second referendum on Brexit unveil an effigy depicting Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a puppet operated by his advisor Dominic Cummings on October 19
Only fear of the press makes banks behave
To lose one’s inheritance by making a single numerical error in a banking transaction would seem incredible. But that — almost — is what happened to Peter Teich, 74, a disabled Cambridge resident set to receive £193,000 from his father, who had died at the age of 100.
Teich gave the solicitors handling the estate his correct name, address and account number but made a single-digit error in the sort code. That sent the funds to another Barclays customer in Cambridge who, bizarrely, had the same account number, though a marginally different sort code.
When Teich realised what had happened, he contacted Barclays — who first said that it would get the money back into his account but then later wrote that it had ‘regrettably not been able to gain the permission of the recipient of these funds for them to be returned to you’.
To add insult to injustice, Barclays said that it would credit Teich’s account ‘with a small token gesture of £25’.
It was not until after much litigation, costing him £46,000, that Teich was able to force the other Barclays customer in Cambridge to return his inheritance. But when he asked the bank to reimburse these costs, it refused.
At this point Teich contacted the Guardian newspaper, which approached Barclays on his behalf. The bank immediately U-turned, saying it would return Mr Teich’s legal costs ‘with interest, together with a payment for the distress and inconvenience this matter has caused’.
It always amazes me — no, actually, it doesn’t — how big firms that have appallingly mistreated customers change their tune as soon as a newspaper has taken up their case.
There are further questions to be addressed in this one. Will Barclays cancel the account of someone who was — with the bank’s knowledge and acquiescence — attempting to hold on to £193,000 belonging to another of its customers?
And when will it have the sense not to give different customers the same account number? How about now?
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