The EU referendum campaign has so far amounted to bit part players accusing rivals of blurring fact with fiction.
Thankfully a US president can always be relied upon to cut through the spin and tell it to the voters straight.
President Frank Underwood uses this article in The Times to make his views clear. Happily, they coincide with those of Lord Dobbs, the Tory peer who wrote the original House of Cards and is executive producer of the American version, which returnes for a new series starring Kevin Spacey as the president, who is also campaigning for Brexit.
This democracy thing is so overrated. The Greeks invented it but they've been in chaos ever since. Doesn't anyone ever learn? Examinations weed out the useless and those of feeble mind, while elections only seem to encourage them.
Nothing lasts for ever and one day I'll be forced to leave the White House. Then what will I do? Where will I go? Europe, perhaps.
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They have Presidents, too, desperately need a good one. And, hell, I qualify. We Underwoods are American to our boots but somewhere back along the trail a French poodle sneaked into the wagon.
Think of the advantages. Once you become President of Europe, there’s no way they can get rid of you. Not ever. No elections, no experience required.
What an opportunity. It's my kind of world, all those late nights and back-room deals, with a parliament so busy packing as it shuffles between Brussels and Strasbourg that no one ever gets to reading the small print.
Mind you, I can’t remember who the President of Europe is. I guess I’ve met him but — who listens to him? Not me, not Putin, not the Chinese. Only the poor Greeks.
They talk about a United States of Europe but I can’t see it. They tore down the Berlin Wall with their bare hands and threw open the frontiers, yet now they’re throwing up razor wire in its place.
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It took a civil war and endless suffering before we were able to build the United States of America — mind you, looking at the chaos, maybe Europe’s already half-way there.
But it’s not creative chaos. Oh, I know the vision thing is overrated and you can buy a week’s worth of the stuff from any pollster but there has to be some sort of road map. So where will Europe be in ten years’ time? Without borders, without a coherent currency, without leadership? With the driving sense of purpose of a pilchard?
If I were a Brit I wonder if I’d be more afraid to stay in the EU than to leave. It's always easy to whip up a feeling of fear about change, but it infects mostly those who sit in comfort and dine on fois gras. I’ve always been a spare ribs man. I need something to chew on. And spit out.
Brussels is a bit of a used bus ticket. Anyway I don’t ride buses. There was a time when Europeans rode chariots and sailed ships, had ambition, ideas, built great empires. They had two thousand years as the centre of the world but ask yourself, when did Europe last peel any potatoes?
Their leaders have sat so long on their marble thrones that not only have their balls turned to concrete but their minds, too. They live in their history but, dammit, I’m a man who wants to make it.
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So I guess I won’t run for President of Europe after all.
Season 4 of House of Cards is on Netflix from today.
