Barnier rubble
REMEMBER the EU’s glee as political chaos gripped Britain after Brexit?
Remember how they revelled in the global stature of Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron . . . while here the Tories flapped about and Remainers paralysed Parliament?
Now Merkel’s legacy, including shutting all her nuclear plants and shackling her country to Russian gas, is a smoking ruin and the German economy with it.
And Macron, the sneering Brexit-hating egomaniac, has reduced France to a shambolic and almost ungovernable laughing stock.
Michel Barnier, the former EU Brexit hardman he imposed on the nation as its unelected Prime Minister, looks toast after just three months.
And France’s chaotic finances and mountainous debts are in straits so dire they could endanger the single currency.
We won’t celebrate their woe, as they did ours. Not least because Britain now has plenty of our own.
Our economic indicators are all pointing south — except taxes, soaring to a record high (and Labour’s friends at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development want them higher).
Considering that crushing burden, it’s no wonder the Government ditched its election promise of G7-beating growth.
Still, it could be worse.
Ask the French.
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Call to arms
WARNINGS about the parlous state of our forces become more grave by the day. Downing Street must take them seriously.
Especially when one comes from the Government’s own Veterans Minister.
Alistair Carns says our entire Army would be wiped out in just a year in a full-scale war like that in Ukraine. We need, he says, far more reservists.
A former Nato chief, General Sir James Everard, says our weakness “is like blood in the water to our enemies”.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy urges Nato allies to “get serious” about defence spending. But what about ours?
Where is Keir Starmer’s concrete commitment to spend three per cent of GDP, the minimum we need to properly re-arm? As it stands, he won’t even name a date to hit 2.5 per cent.
Money IS found to gratify the unions. When it comes to securing our defences, nothing can be done until yet another spending review reports next year.
Can the PM blame anyone, from our forces chiefs to voters, for feeling nervous?
Football focus
THE FA must learn that wading into culture war issues is an own-goal.
We have no problem with the aims of its rainbow campaign. But ordering players to carry messages they may disagree with will always risk a damaging row. It’s a minefield best swerved.
Our advice? Forget politics. Focus on footie.
