Unbelievable

A week to go and the frantic screeching of the Remain camp’s Fright Brigade echo around the land and across the Thames as somebody, somewhere, thought that bringing Gob Geldof out from his... his... er, whatever it is he spends his time doing, was a good idea. Instead, even supporters of his cause moved to distance themselves from his means. Meanwhile, belatedly realising that Leave’s immigration ‘take back control’ narrative is cutting through, Theresa May incredibly suggested that a better deal could be negotiated if we remained. Reform from within was possible, nay achievable; the proof of that being... what, exactly? In the end their only recourse is to keep on pushing the potential financial collapse.

Look at the value wiped off the stock market they wept. Think of the children! There is no such thing as betting on a certainty. Plenty of people have found to their cost that the hot tip proves to be anything but and shirts are lost on the roll of a dice and the caprice of investors. The stock market is only nominally based on business confidence; much of the dice rolling in this dirty business is by the hand of market makers. And the job of market makers is to be both seer and service-provider rolled into one. So the reported ‘loss’ of £80billion, or £100 billion (or whatever the numbers say today) does not reflect the state of a post-Brexit FTSE, it reflects the likelihood of people making a killing whatever happens.

The markets work on perception and as the perception here is that the British government itself may sabotage the economy post Brexit it is little wonder that trading has taken a dive. Clever though, when you think of it; threaten disaster, plan for that disaster, then if it comes about claim prescience and then claim the credit when everything bounces back to normal. But Osborne’s ‘revenge budget’ as it is being claimed may yet be his resignation letter; whatever happens, his behaviour during this campaign has been unworthy of a man with Prime Ministerial ambitions.

Meanwhile, some believe that Cameron is a secret Brexiteer who is letting Osborne damage his own reputation for political ends. That’s way too complicated and too long a gamble to make sense. The truth of David Cameron’s position is surely as he has stated; it’s in for him and simple human incompetence lies at the heart of where the leave campaign is right now. All of which leaves us with the central question; who do you believe? Who can you trust?

This is what it comes down to...

For simplicity the only answer to that is nobody. Nobody in this whole debate can be trusted, by which I mean that if you support Remain you think the Leave lot are stirring up division and xenophobia and have no clear plan for the future. While, if you support Leave, every utterance of the Remainers is at the behest of a cabal of self-interested control freaks and big business. So, over to you. Do you honestly believe the EU has been a friendly force for good, or do you look around at the unrest, the changed nature of your neighbourhood, the depressed wages and lack of accountability and conclude otherwise? I know what I believe.