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Pro-Brexit Tories who voted down May’s deal three times did so because it was shit and because they believed (correctly) that replacing May with a PM prepared to threaten no-deal Brexit would lead to a better deal. Boris’s deal isn’t very impressive IMO, but it’s better than May’s, and that...

Err, I think I’m making a subtler argument than that. I’m suggesting a category distinction between (a) arguments people use to justify their position, and (b) explicit promises and commitments made on the campaign trail or in election manifestos. I don’t think that lying is okay for (a) but...

This might be one of the harbingers of the apocalypse, but parliament actually got something right tonight. Lindsay Hoyle is man of integrity, fairness and good humour. Watching him in the chair deputising for that preening, vainglorious midget was always a welcome reminder of how it’s meant to...

Describing it as a “referendum based on lies” is a gross caricature. Use of misleading or false statistics is, regrettably, a common feature of political campaigning. So is making highly-biased predictions that prove to be massively wrong. If making bad arguments is sufficient reason for voiding...

Ditto.

No, of course not. But if MPs are elected on a manifesto promising X and then spend the next 2-3 years brazenly doing everything in their power to prevent X, it's clear they were elected on false pretences. Bear in mind that here X is not some obscure policy commitment on sugar tax or whatever...

The electorate had the chance to express a change of mind in 2017. They voted overwhelmingly (82% of the vote; approx. 90% of the seats) for the parties that stood on a pro-Brexit manifesto. Since that result was implemented (unlike the 2016 result), we have approx. 30 months of experience to...

Fair enough. Appreciate your candour. Up for an election on December 12th?

We all makes mistakes in our salad days. I voted for Tony Blair once.

Yeah, I mostly agree. We’re a people accustomed to voting on a Thursday night and then watching the new Prime Minister move into No.10 the next morning. We're not used to there being a years-spanning process between voting and implementation of the result. For a long time, I thought our...

Well, though I appreciate it, there’s no need to clarify the lack of beef. Yours is a fair question. And even if weren’t, I’m hardly the most delicate flower in the garden. To clarify, I think the mistake was believing that Brexit could be satisfactorily achieved without a pro-Brexit government...

No deal is no one’s ideal outcome, but I’d always take no deal over revocation (which is clearly what the pro-Remain lot in parliament see as their end goal). I considered the possibility of no deal when I voted. I would have voted Remain if I’d considered no deal beyond the pale. Millions of...

Well, I can’t say much about the letter because I’m not sure about the law in that area (her Dad gave it to The Mail on Sunday, no?), and it’s impossible to judge whether there’s a misrepresentation issue without access to the letter in unedited form. Also, I don’t care. Generally, it’s been...

They’ve been the biggest bunch of EU fanatics in Britain for as long as I can remember. And you know what? Fair enough. Plenty of people I like and admire think Britain’s long-term interests are best served by further integration into a United States of Europe. I have no beef with people who...

To co-opt a phrase once used by our friend Mr Tusk, there is surely a special place in hell for remain-supporting MPs who were elected on a pro-Brexit manifesto (i.e. all the Tory and Labour ones), who then spent the next 2-3 years doing everything to thwart it, and who now are clutching their...

It’s equal pay for unequal work, since the men spend more time on court and produce a higher-quality and more commercially valuable product. The argument for equal pay was stronger 25 years ago, when the women had creative rallies and the men did little more thrash unreturnable serves at each...

I suspect she realised early on that she just wasn’t fit enough to compete at that level, at least not against an in-form Halep, and the mental lapses came from that. Bit of a poor spectacle, IMO. A grand slam finalist should not be breathing out of their arse after a set and a third (approx...

Yeah, it's one of those, isn't it? 19 times out of 20 that knee misses (or at least doesn't land flush) and Ben eventually gets hold of him and wrestle fucks his way to victory. Credit where it's due, though. It was planned and executed perfectly.

FFS...

WWE has needed a decent competitor for 20 years. TNA was never that because Dixie Carter knew fuck all about pro-wrestling and put her faith in a bunch of self-interested arseholes (Hogan, Jarrett, Bischoff, et al.). AEW has major financial backing and people who get what the modern wrestling...