It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
One of the interesting things about Wilders’ triumph is that his party was tootling along at its normal level (about 15% I think) - but then it shot up after October 7
The Dutch did not like the aggressive pro-Palestinian and “anti-Semitic” marching around Europe
October 7 may come to be seen as a pivotal moment in the collapse of the multiculti consensus
I think 745,000 is an extraordinary number. Thank goodness it was all under our control.
When oh when will the public realise that the government does not want to do anything about immigration.
The deceit by both parties is laughable - the Cons: tens of thousands; Lab: the Cons have failed by not controlling immigration.
But what was that definition of insanity again?
The UK does not want to bring down immigration. I think plenty of Brexit voters, as an example, were sold a pup but their relative intelligence was done to death yesterday so I won't bang on about that again today.
The point of Brexit for me was to give those in charge the opportunity to reduce migration, or rather take away from them the excuse that their hands were tied by FOM
The increase in immigration is incredible really. The shame for those who believe it’s too high is that there isn’t a party to vote for that would do anything about it.
Did you expect net migration to come down via Brexit? Do you expect net migration to be higher, similar or lower in the next ten years than the last ten years? How much control do you think the government have over the numbers?
How much control do you think the government have over the numbers?
Lots !
Who is responsible for issuing UK visa? What we do. UK Visas and Immigration is responsible for making millions of decisions every year about who has the right to visit or stay in the country, with a firm emphasis on national security and a culture of customer satisfaction for people who come here legally. UKVI is part of the Home Office.
Indeed. It's why the wailing and gnashing of teeth by Tory politicians about how terrible the figures are is so ridiculous. These migration figures represent UK policy. We could have zero net immigration next year if the Government chose. (I don't think they should, but it's within their power.)
The trouble is it'd collapse growth, spike inflation, and lead to a huge funding crisis for our universities, which the Government might then be obligated to bail out with money they don't have. And then there'd be even more austerity and tax rises.
That's why they don't. They calculate lesser of two evils.
It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
Tell people in Delhi that brown skinned Indians will be a minority in 50 years time and see if they think of that as a profound societal change or not
I don't think it is.
Powell was predicting violence, rivers of blood etc - instead we've had a peaceful transition from one irrelevant characteristic to another irrelevant characteristic.
Someone's skin colour means no more than their hair colour or anything else. Is going from a town of gingers to a town of brunettes a profound societal change?
We’ve had 100,000+ underage white girls raped, trafficked and tortured by “Asian grooming gangs”
Does that count as violence or not?
Don't be a twat.
So we’re not allowed to mention possibly the greatest possible downside to mass immigration - wholesale gang rape on a scarcely credible scale - because it upsets you?
Or do you deny that these rapes happened?
I imagine the point was that plenty of hearty Englishmen were also involved in that exploitation. I'd put it less down to race and more to the seedy wideboys who crawl around the criminal edges of society.
Yes, of course. You blinkered cretin
So the grooming gangs were otherwise perfectly respectable people who just couldn't control their testosterone because they're descended from immigrants? Is that your point?
It’s very hard to argue that Enoch was wrong about the black man wielding the whip when one considers the intimate life of ex prime minister Liz “the necklace” Truss and her short-lived chancellor
It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
Tell people in Delhi that brown skinned Indians will be a minority in 50 years time and see if they think of that as a profound societal change or not
I don't think it is.
Powell was predicting violence, rivers of blood etc - instead we've had a peaceful transition from one irrelevant characteristic to another irrelevant characteristic.
Someone's skin colour means no more than their hair colour or anything else. Is going from a town of gingers to a town of brunettes a profound societal change?
There has been violence. Violence that would have been unthinkable in 1968. The reason it seems a peaceful transition is you’ve been slowly living through it
If only your second paragraph were realistic - in fact what you’ve said, the ‘colourblind’ argument, is considered an entitled, racist view nowadays
Imagine if old Enoch had predicted that 100,000 underage white girls will end up raped, abused, trafficked, tormented and even murdered by large organised gangs of immigrants, and that anyone who tries to warn of it will themselves be silenced or even prosecuted
His already lurid predictions would have been laughed to scorn. And yet, that is exactly what happened
He probably underestimated the effects.
The problem is when things are happening around you, it’s hard to notice them. You don’t notice your hair growing every day, or wrinkles appearing.
The silence around those rapes and the abuse, the ‘too scared to speak for fear of being called racist’ is precisely what Powell meant by ‘the black man will have the whip hand over the white man’, precisely that. The whip was the threat of being called racist.
People who think that he was proven right by Sunak, Khan & Yousuf being leaders of their parties have got it completely wrong
It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
Tell people in Delhi that brown skinned Indians will be a minority in 50 years time and see if they think of that as a profound societal change or not
I don't think it is.
Powell was predicting violence, rivers of blood etc - instead we've had a peaceful transition from one irrelevant characteristic to another irrelevant characteristic.
Someone's skin colour means no more than their hair colour or anything else. Is going from a town of gingers to a town of brunettes a profound societal change?
We’ve had 100,000+ underage white girls raped, trafficked and tortured by “Asian grooming gangs”
Does that count as violence or not?
7/7 Lee Rigby London Bridge
London Bridge? Are you pinning the death of QE2 on people of a funny tinge? I thought we all blamed Truss for that.
ETA: seriously though, do I need to post a list of horrors committed by white people with three or more generations of ancestry in the British Isles?
I think he means the Garden Bridge.
Ah yes. (Lack of) work of immigrant from across the Atlantic
It’s very hard to argue that Enoch was wrong about the black man wielding the whip when one considers the intimate life of ex prime minister Liz “the necklace” Truss and her short-lived chancellor
I think 745,000 is an extraordinary number. Thank goodness it was all under our control.
When oh when will the public realise that the government does not want to do anything about immigration.
The deceit by both parties is laughable - the Cons: tens of thousands; Lab: the Cons have failed by not controlling immigration.
But what was that definition of insanity again?
The UK does not want to bring down immigration. I think plenty of Brexit voters, as an example, were sold a pup but their relative intelligence was done to death yesterday so I won't bang on about that again today.
The point of Brexit for me was to give those in charge the opportunity to reduce migration, or rather take away from them the excuse that their hands were tied by FOM
The increase in immigration is incredible really. The shame for those who believe it’s too high is that there isn’t a party to vote for that would do anything about it.
Did you expect net migration to come down via Brexit? Do you expect net migration to be higher, similar or lower in the next ten years than the last ten years? How much control do you think the government have over the numbers?
How much control do you think the government have over the numbers?
Lots !
Who is responsible for issuing UK visa? What we do. UK Visas and Immigration is responsible for making millions of decisions every year about who has the right to visit or stay in the country, with a firm emphasis on national security and a culture of customer satisfaction for people who come here legally. UKVI is part of the Home Office.
Indeed. It's why the wailing and gnashing of teeth by Tory politicians about how terrible the figures are is so ridiculous. These migration figures represent UK policy. We could have zero net immigration next year if the Government chose. (I don't think they should, but it's within their power.)
The trouble is it'd collapse growth, spike inflation, and lead to a huge funding crisis for our universities, which the Government might then be obligated to bail out with money they don't have. And then there'd be even more austerity and tax rises.
That's why they don't. They calculate lesser of two evils.
Fair point, but if the Government is going to run a large-magnitude legal immigration scheme for the foreseeable, it should say so, advance the reasons for it, and stop pretending that its attempts at curbing illegal immigration will make a significant difference.
I have some sympathy with the view that such numbers are necessary to cure the demographic crisis (although not necessarily to the point of agreeing), but regardless of its merits the Government is simply not advancing this argument. Instead it's looking at squirrels and pretending it's not happening.
The PB ambassador to the House of Commons once asked if the Prime Minister took us for fools. He really needs to ask it again.
It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
Tell people in Delhi that brown skinned Indians will be a minority in 50 years time and see if they think of that as a profound societal change or not
I don't think it is.
Powell was predicting violence, rivers of blood etc - instead we've had a peaceful transition from one irrelevant characteristic to another irrelevant characteristic.
Someone's skin colour means no more than their hair colour or anything else. Is going from a town of gingers to a town of brunettes a profound societal change?
We’ve had 100,000+ underage white girls raped, trafficked and tortured by “Asian grooming gangs”
Does that count as violence or not?
7/7 Lee Rigby London Bridge
The 7/7 bombers were British, weren't they? Same Lee Rigby and probably the same London Bridge. They were in each instance criminals and, I'd say, terrorists, as defined by seeking to effect political change via acts of violence towards the "civilian" population.
I used to go to a boxing gym in SE London which a lot of West Indian Muslim converts went to. Including, for example, Anthony Small - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Small. Anthony was born in Lewisham. He could as easily have perpetrated any of the incidents you described.
It is the criminals that are the issue (same with the "Asian" grooming gangs). People can be criminal whether they come from Lewisham, Lewes, or Lesotho. There are hundreds of thousands of people from Lewisham, as an example, who are not criminals or violent extremists. Should we somehow ban those people from taking the tube to Oxford Circus?
It is the fact that people are criminals that is the issue not where they are from. Being from Lewisham or Lahore doesn't inherently mean you are a criminal. Oh but there is a culture in eg Pakistan wrt girls. No there isn't there is a culture within criminals of such things.
The issue arises if people come from a culture, a violent repressive state, say an Islamic theocracy, who want to continue the behaviours of that state. In that case we have to rely on the rule of law here to prevent them from indulging in those behaviours. I think you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater if you say ok no more immigration from those countries.
They were the descendants of the immigrants whose numbers Powell wanted to be limited. Powell’s argument was almost completely centred on the fact that the dependents of the immigrants would struggle to assimilate
It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
Tell people in Delhi that brown skinned Indians will be a minority in 50 years time and see if they think of that as a profound societal change or not
I don't think it is.
Powell was predicting violence, rivers of blood etc - instead we've had a peaceful transition from one irrelevant characteristic to another irrelevant characteristic.
Someone's skin colour means no more than their hair colour or anything else. Is going from a town of gingers to a town of brunettes a profound societal change?
We’ve had 100,000+ underage white girls raped, trafficked and tortured by “Asian grooming gangs”
Does that count as violence or not?
7/7 Lee Rigby London Bridge
The 7/7 bombers were British, weren't they? Same Lee Rigby and probably the same London Bridge. They were in each instance criminals and, I'd say, terrorists, as defined by seeking to effect political change via acts of violence towards the "civilian" population.
I used to go to a boxing gym in SE London which a lot of West Indian Muslim converts went to. Including, for example, Anthony Small - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Small. Anthony was born in Lewisham. He could as easily have perpetrated any of the incidents you described.
It is the criminals that are the issue (same with the "Asian" grooming gangs). People can be criminal whether they come from Lewisham, Lewes, or Lesotho. There are hundreds of thousands of people from Lewisham, as an example, who are not criminals or violent extremists. Should we somehow ban those people from taking the tube to Oxford Circus?
It is the fact that people are criminals that is the issue not where they are from. Being from Lewisham or Lahore doesn't inherently mean you are a criminal. Oh but there is a culture in eg Pakistan wrt girls. No there isn't there is a culture within criminals of such things.
The issue arises if people come from a culture, a violent repressive state, say an Islamic theocracy, who want to continue the behaviours of that state. In that case we have to rely on the rule of law here to prevent them from indulging in those behaviours. I think you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater if you say ok no more immigration from those countries.
They were the descendants of the immigrants whose numbers Powell wanted to be limited. Powell’s argument was almost completely centred on the fact that the dependents of the immigrants would struggle to assimilate
It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
Tell people in Delhi that brown skinned Indians will be a minority in 50 years time and see if they think of that as a profound societal change or not
I don't think it is.
Powell was predicting violence, rivers of blood etc - instead we've had a peaceful transition from one irrelevant characteristic to another irrelevant characteristic.
Someone's skin colour means no more than their hair colour or anything else. Is going from a town of gingers to a town of brunettes a profound societal change?
We’ve had 100,000+ underage white girls raped, trafficked and tortured by “Asian grooming gangs”
Does that count as violence or not?
7/7 Lee Rigby London Bridge
London Bridge? Are you pinning the death of QE2 on people of a funny tinge? I thought we all blamed Truss for that.
ETA: seriously though, do I need to post a list of horrors committed by white people with three or more generations of ancestry in the British Isles?
No because they were a problem to be dealt with already rather than an additional and predictable new one
One of the interesting things about Wilders’ triumph is that his party was tootling along at its normal level (about 15% I think) - but then it shot up after October 7
The Dutch did not like the aggressive pro-Palestinian and “anti-Semitic” marching around Europe
October 7 may come to be seen as a pivotal moment in the collapse of the multiculti consensus
How many times before has a terrorist attack led to hundreds of thousands of people, coming out onto the streets across the Western world in support of the terrorists?
The lead is convincing, but omits a big consideration, which is that a May election would avoid the dreadful local election results setting the tone for the subsequent GE
Looking at the violence in Dublin last night, and the “election” of Wilders, it’s hard not to think Europe is heading for some major crisis centred on migration and culture wars and terror and all that jazz
It’s very cynical, but the Tories might calculate that the longer they wait the greater the chance some catastrophic black swan will break the arm of history - and give them a fighting chance
Yes, the Tories should run an election on their record on immigration...
@EdConwaySky Hard to put into words just how enormous the recent flows of migration into UK are, so this chart 👇 is prob a better place to start. This country has NEVER seen net migration as high as this. Look at the population-adjusted figures going back to 1850. It’s totally unprecedented.
@PickardJE it is objectively quite funny that the biggest surge in immigration in British history came *after* Brexit
I wonder if the Norman invasion was over 1%?
I've heard 1-5% of the then population, over a period of years - the initial invasion was 10K or so, but then families and retainers were brought over.
I remember doing some research on this. The Huguenots were quite large, as was the Windward generation. Meaningful statistics are not available for the Viking or Angels/Jutes invasions but they were presumably significant. But I don't think we have ever seen anything like this.
The worst was when the bloody Saxons came over. The place has been going to the dogs ever since.
The Angles were different - as my history teacher was fond of saying, the acute Angles turned north and became Scottish, whereas the obtuse Angles...
Looking at the violence in Dublin last night, and the “election” of Wilders, it’s hard not to think Europe is heading for some major crisis centred on migration and culture wars and terror and all that jazz
It’s very cynical, but the Tories might calculate that the longer they wait the greater the chance some catastrophic black swan will break the arm of history - and give them a fighting chance
Yes, the Tories should run an election on their record on immigration...
@EdConwaySky Hard to put into words just how enormous the recent flows of migration into UK are, so this chart 👇 is prob a better place to start. This country has NEVER seen net migration as high as this. Look at the population-adjusted figures going back to 1850. It’s totally unprecedented.
@PickardJE it is objectively quite funny that the biggest surge in immigration in British history came *after* Brexit
I wonder if the Norman invasion was over 1%?
I've heard 1-5% of the then population, over a period of years - the initial invasion was 10K or so, but then families and retainers were brought over.
Sounds realistic. 2% would be around 50K, which would be a fairly conservative estimate for what you suggest.
Might have been more, if the leader of the opposition had been Hereward the Woke rather than Wake.
But that’s an absurd comparison. If it ever reached 50k - which I doubt - but let’s go with it for the sake of debate - then it was spread over decades, as the Normans consolidated power and it became safe for families and wives and children to ship over
Say 30 years from 1066 to 1096
The UK has just imported 1.3 million people - nearly 2% of the population - in 24 MONTHS
it's even worse if you strip out the devolved nations.
It’s not about being “far right”, these latest numbers are an astonishing number for any western democracy outside wartime.
I think the argument is still stuck inside the prison of ten or twenty years ago.
But these figures suggest very profound societal change within only a few years.
While the public has also experienced the biggest drop in living standards.
I believe the projection is that these numbers will fall. But my cursory sweep of Twitter is that both left and right are just rehashing stale arguments pro and anti immigration in the abstract.
Well this is the thing that happened with Enoch Powell; he predicted profound societal change was inevitable due to a large increase in immigration, and that change/those numbers happened. But people who rubbished him at the time over the numbers and their effects changed the argument rather than admit he was correct.
That’s what will happen in the future you envisage; People won’t focus on the numbers, but say that the profound societal change is a benefit.
What profound societal change have we witnessed since Enoch made his dire prophecy? I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this.
White British people being a minority in London seems a good place to start. Unthinkable in the 1960s
Tell people in Delhi that brown skinned Indians will be a minority in 50 years time and see if they think of that as a profound societal change or not
I don't think it is.
Powell was predicting violence, rivers of blood etc - instead we've had a peaceful transition from one irrelevant characteristic to another irrelevant characteristic.
Someone's skin colour means no more than their hair colour or anything else. Is going from a town of gingers to a town of brunettes a profound societal change?
How do you feel about signs like this?
That whoever made that sign was a twat, just like Leon.
Comments
The Dutch did not like the aggressive pro-Palestinian and “anti-Semitic” marching around Europe
October 7 may come to be seen as a pivotal moment in the collapse of the multiculti consensus
The problem is when things are happening around you, it’s hard to notice them. You don’t notice your hair growing every day, or wrinkles appearing.
The silence around those rapes and the abuse, the ‘too scared to speak for fear of being called racist’ is precisely what Powell meant by ‘the black man will have the whip hand over the white man’, precisely that. The whip was the threat of being called racist.
People who think that he was proven right by Sunak, Khan & Yousuf being leaders of their parties have got it completely wrong
NEW THREAD
I have some sympathy with the view that such numbers are necessary to cure the demographic crisis (although not necessarily to the point of agreeing), but regardless of its merits the Government is simply not advancing this argument. Instead it's looking at squirrels and pretending it's not happening.
The PB ambassador to the House of Commons once asked if the Prime Minister took us for fools. He really needs to ask it again.