Winners and losers

There is a big rally in Bath today, in favour of Brexit. Someone has just driven past in a massive, double-sided billboard van with a poster on it depicting a cartoon baby having a tantrum, and the words BAD LOSERS written beneath. A man in the van is speaking into a public address microphone, warning the people of Bath that their democratic decision is running the risk of being overturned. He could be right.

The majority of the population of Bath who actually did bother to vote were in favour of leaving the E.U. I am certain that the ballots were ticket one way or the other purely for ideological reasons, because nobody but farmers could have predicted a fraction of the seemingly endless chaos that a decision to leave would inevitably cause.

Never mind 'divisive', the country is in the middle of an intellectual civil war now, if you can call it 'intellectual'. The worst part about it is that the hottest skirmishes are being conducted in the Houses of Parliament, and they are cross party. It has taken us two years to be in a fit state to debate the issue, but thanks to Farage and Cameron, it is too late. Cameron is almost solely responsible for the advancement of Jeremy Corbyn. That is yet another outcome which he failed to predict.

The rally will assemble in Queen Square. In any other town there would probably be violence, but not here I think. People are far more interested in dressing up as Jane Austen and demurely mincing around as if the E.U. never existed.