For once I�m going to go against my own better judgement and make some impetuous observations.
I didn�t stay up all night, but I did peep a couple of times. Or three.
I think the pollsters have a lot to answer for, as well as the media. Will we never learn to ignore them? The certainty that Remain would prevail undoubtedly encouraged some extra Leave votes from the uncertains or the undecideds, whose Leave votes were in fact intended as protest votes.
All the guests in Victoria Derbyshire�s Manchester studio this morning looked crestfallen, even the Leave voters. I think everyone was taken by surprise, and I think the disappointment was pretty predictable - a mixture of anti-climax and apprehension. I didn�t watch it all, but from the parts I did see I thought guests spoke generously and perceptively, although I do think Victoria herself was unable to conceal her disappointment at (and disapproval of) the outcome.
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| Victoria's guests - generous and perceptive |
I wish David Cameron had waited a while before resigning. I really think he should have waited. Some of �the people� who have �spoken� quite rightly feel abandoned.
As soon as I saw Samantha coming along beside him (why the long face?) I knew he was going to do it.
The main thing his resignation says to me at this moment (I may change my mind later) is that MPs are unreliable. I understood the PM had tried to reassure us that he would stay and fight, either way.
All those people (I think) including Michael Fallon and Chris Grayling who are now telling us he could do no other than resign should have spoken up before.
They should have explicitly said "if Remain loses, David Cameron has to resign" rather than writing letters begging him to stay on if we vote for Brexit.
Now he has both resigned and postponed the implementation of negotiations for Brexit in accord with article 50, leaving a vacuum in which various panic measures - such as last-minute surges of would-be immigrants - not to mention unnecessarily prolonging uncertainty, which will probably bring more economic / financial turbulence / volatility and sour things still further.
David Cameron showed us how inflexible the EU is by the paucity of the reforms he was able to obtain for us despite his best efforts. I did notice that the word �reformed� was not included in his resignation speech.
The first half of his speech was generous and reassuring, but I�m sorry to say that his resignation almost seemed like petulance disguised as self-sacrifice.
Ask me tomorrow, and I might have changed my mind.
