Not so happy returns
There are 49 days to go, which also happens to be David Cameron’s age. The outcome on June 23 will decide whether he celebrates the big 5-0 in Downing Street. While all eyes have been on the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove as Eurosceptic successors, a new name enters the frame. Ladbrokes, the bookmaker, reveals that an unnamed “Westminster insider” has put £100 on Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, to be the next Tory leader at 66-1.
Alone on the front bench
Is poor Chris Grayling turning into Nick Clegg? The pro-Brexit Leader of the Commons was yesterday forced to sit through PMQs surrounded by Remainers. Each time David Cameron got up to have a dig at Vote Leave’s arguments, a stoney-faced Grayling barely flinched. Clegg got so fed up with being surrounded by the enemy that he eventually skipped PMQs to feed seals in Cornwall. Someone get Grayling a bucket of fish.
The tiger that came for tea — and stayed for taxes
Mixed metaphor of the day goes to Tory John Redwood, who claimed that trying to bring openness and transparency to the EU was “simply putting a colourful and pretty ribbon on the tail of a very hungry tiger that will go on eating up our powers, taking our taxes and forcing up taxes on green products”. A tiger that increases environmental levies.
Beeb burns its fingers on big issue
The poor old BBC can’t win. First accused of being too pro-EU, now of being too impartial. Jim Murphy, a former Labour cabinet minister, has attacked its “absolute neutrality”, which “declares every event a draw”. Writing in New Statesman, he added: “At its purest, impartiality witnesses a house fire and declares it a shame for the property owner but a joy for the fire.”
Silence of the lambs
Vote leave or the baby lambs get it. A press release from the Brexiteers arrives, warns that under Brussels rules we are powerless to stop live animals being exported abroad. Gisela Stuart, the Labour MP, says that outside the EU, lambs could “avoid the stress of a long journey on a ferry across the Channel”. Instead British lambs could be, er . . . slaughtered in British abattoirs.
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Lost cause in translation?
Eddie Izzard is backing Remain after previous lost causes including Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and the Alternative Vote. He is touring his Force Majeure 333 show, urging the UK to “stand and fight for Europe — do not run and hide from it”. Tickets for shows in English and French are selling fast. There are still plenty of seats for the German version . . .