State of Chaos: BBC2

There's an interesting web site called 'The Brexit Witness Archive', a series of interviews with leading figures of the time. Phil Hammond's is very interesting.

Here he is on May's first conference speech where she ruled out everything except a very hard break from the EU

Look, what happened, I was completely stunned by the speech that she made at the Conservative Party Conference in October 2016. I hadn’t seen the relevant part of it in advance. I’d had no input to the speech. Nick Timothy kept me completely away from it. I did see some text on the economy the day before, but I had no idea that she was going to describe Brexit in the hardest possible terms.

I was absolutely horrified by what I was hearing. All I remember thinking was, ‘There will be a television camera that will be on your face. If you move a muscle, it will be the story on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow.’ I remember I wasn’t even really listening to her. I was just sitting there. I remember exactly where I was sitting: on the end of a row, to the side of the stage, looking up diagonally at the stage, looking up at her. I just remember focusing my entire energy on maintaining a rictus half-smile, and trying not to show any reaction at all, and then get out of the room without speaking to any journalists. I was completely and utterly horrified by what I felt was almost a coup: a definition of Brexit without any proper Cabinet consultation at all.

ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-witness-archive/philip-hammond/

The courts agreed with him. Checks and balances - absolutely vital which the government would weaken if they could.

One of the most interesting sections was when Philip Hammond was talking about the prorogue of parliament in 2019 I thought. His horror (still) at the way it happened, and how wrong he thought it was was very compelling.

I watched this too and was impressed with it. It was obvious on Brexit night that neither Boris nor Gove expected or wanted that result. A case of 'be careful what you wish for'.

I blame Cameron’s government for a huge amount.

Austerity which led to Brexit.

His cowardice in the face of Farage which led to the referendum.

And his walking away which led to the chaos we saw in last nights programme.

‘to think we lived through all this’ is exactly what we both thought.
It was staggering to realise so starkly that BJ didn’t care one way or the other about Brexit but just wanted to Win.

But we didn’t get an answer to the question of How did what was intended as an ‘advisory’ straw-poll type referendum become the inviolable will of the people. That was the huge mistake of the summer of 2016. Did no one say Hang on a minute. I blame David Cameron for that

And self righteous Steve Baker!!

Whitewavemark2

I can’t believe that so much of our constitution was trashed, country run by a wing and a prayer and the lies!!

I hate to say 'I told you so' but I did frequently mention it at the time.

I haven't seen it yet. But, Ms Kuenssberg has previously not been noted for her impartiality when it came to reporting the ongoing political news. Maybee's question about why didn't journalists ask about 'the plan' straight away is very valid. Why did they keep quiet about the utter fiasco that was the 2016 referendum? And why nothing of a searching journalistic approach over the past 7 years?

She now seems to be deserting the sinking tory ship pretty sharpish though...

There seems to be a recent rush of quite high profile publications making plain the utter shambles that are our governing institutions; Ian Dunt's analysis of 'Westminster', Chris Bryant on 'standards' and now Rory Stewart saying that you wouldn't run a fish and chip shop in such an inefficient way.

I can’t believe that so much of our constitution was trashed, country run by a wing and a prayer and the lies!!

MayBe Yes, you were right about May and the two SPADs.
Interesting how Gove and Johnson looked worried when they learned the result.

I've just finished watching this MayBe, I had forgotten so much about the details, I think because so much has happened and keeps on happening, it's been quite difficult to keep up to speed.
Looking forward to forthcoming episodes, the sheer power of these people and how it affects the rest of us is a cautionary tail indeed.