Boris Johnson & Europe

If Boris Johnson continues to sit on the fence over whether Britain should leave or stay in Europe for much longer I very much fear that the fence will break with all that weight on it - and his long term political career will be over.

Boris's strength as a politician  has always been that people's perception of him is radically different from the reality. The perception is of a maverick conviction politician who says what he thinks and doesn't give a damn for the consequences. The reality though is that he is a highly ambitious and calculating politician whose sole agenda is Boris.  His long term future political career though will turn to dust if he spends much more time trying to do the sums to come up with an answer as to whether his political future is better served by backing the Inners or the Outers.

My advice to him is to back whole heartedly the Outers -If he does this he will be in tune with a majority of the membership of the Conservative party and - with a leadership election a near certainty before the next election whatever the referendum result -it is unlikely the membership will mass behind a contender who couldn't make up his mind on the most important issue of the day. So come on Boris - kick Cameron where it hurts (you must have longed to do it for years anyway) and throw your not inconsiderable weight behind the Outers- your undoubted communication skills could just make the difference and cause you to go down in history as a Big Man rather than a damp fart.         

Illegal immigration and Cameron's scaremongering

Well I'm back. David Cameron has finally driven me to take up pen again. His latest scaremongering claim that if we vote to leave Europe we will become inundated with asylum seekers from Calais is just simply a lie. First the French have stated that they have no intention on breaking the treaty which allows UK immigration control to take place at Calais but secondly there would be a very simple solution to the problem if the French did break the treaty -put the responsibility for ensuring that only passengers with valid documentation arrived at Dover firmly on the people who profit from carrying the cross channel traffic - the Ferry Companies.

In short make the Ferry companies check the documents of all passengers just like airlines check your passport etc. and fine them say £25,000 for each illegal immigrant or asylum seeker they let through.  Somehow I think that would solve the problem.