Monday
The EU referendum hasn’t been short of its absurdities, but Vote Leave’s event at the DCS distribution centre in Stratford-on-Avon must be a strong contender for the most surreal. Boris, Michael Gove and Gisela Stuart were all guests of warehouse owner Denys C Shortt, who has declared himself a strong supporter of Vote Leave. Shortt introduced the event by telling his 150 or so employees that he was concerned about high levels of immigration and appeared surprised to be greeted with only lukewarm applause. He shouldn’t have been. Stratford has extremely low levels of unemployment and he struggles to get any Brits to work for him at the wages he is prepared to offer. So many of his staff are Polish immigrants that signs throughout the warehouse are written in both Polish and English. The only sign that wasn’t written in Polish was the one saying “Smile Please”.
Tuesday
Finally Abba have cracked. Sort of. At an event in Stockholm to mark the 50th anniversary of Bjorn and Benny’s song-writing career, the pair were joined on stage by Agnetha and Anni-Frid for an impromptu rendition of their 1980 hit Me and I. While it must have been great for the audience, I rather wish Abba had not even momentarily performed in public as a group for the first time in 30 years. One of the things I had always rather admired about Abba was their bloody-mindedness; they were quite happy enough – and rich enough – as they were and saw no need to give in to the public’s thirst for nostalgia. Hopefully, though, like Pink Floyd at Hyde Park in 2005 and Led Zeppelin at the O2 in 2007 – Abba reforming will be just a one-off. Far better to go out in a blaze of glory, leaving people wanting more, than risk fading away gracelessly.
Wednesday
What’s going on with the new so-bad-it’s-good BBC2 show Versailles? It came hyped as the series to rival Game of Thrones for scenes of gratuitous sex and violence – and the first episode more than delivered with at least six shags inside the first half hour, along with a couple of tortures and some of the worst dialogue ever written for television. I particularly enjoyed the scene where Louis was surrounded by wolves and his brother said: “There are more wolves at court.” But this week’s episode tried to pass itself off as serious costume drama with no nudity and precious little violence and was just a wee bit dull as a result. It was more like the 1980s soap Howards’ Way in fancy dress than Salle de Loup. Hopefully things will pick up again next week. And if anyone can help me make out the lyrics to the 1970s Genesis song being used as the theme tune, then I’d be grateful. So far all I’ve got is: “I am the king of my own name / The faeces tending to doubt / Tears the end something something / Fleeces of matches / Now is forever and forever.”
Thursday
For every referendum debate, the broadcaster kindly lays on a spin room away from the TV studios, where the press and other broadcasters can watch the action on a live screen in the company of politicians from both camps. For the Nicola Sturgeon, Angela Eagle and Amber Rudd versus Boris Johnson, Gisela Stuart and Andrea Leadsom debate the media was joined in the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster by Chuka Umunna, Liz Truss, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, Kate Hoey, Priti Patel and Iain Duncan Smith, who all went round saying how wonderful and honest their own side had been and what a useless bunch of lying toerags the oppo were. Everyone knows it’s a meaningless exercise but no one dares not take part. In politics, the futile is often deemed to be essential.
Friday
Sometimes it feels as if the remain campaign has a secret agenda to lose the referendum. If it’s not Jeremy Corbyn sounding half-hearted about the EU in the rare moments he hasn’t gone awol, it’s sending John Major and Tony Blair out on a public meet-and-greet. It’s hard to think of two former prime ministers more likely to send any undecided voters into the arms of Vote Leave. It was Major who cost the UK £3.7bn in a single day while crashing the pound out of the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992, and Blair’s tarnished legacy is about to be further trashed by the publication of the Chilcot report next month. Remain would have done far better sending out Gullfrazie the seagull that went for a dip in a tub of curry to campaign for it. Now there’s a bird that wants to integrate. By contrast, Vote Leave have been quite canny about sidelining some of their flakier advocates whom no one much likes, such as IDS, Nigel Lawson and Kate Hoey. It will be interesting to see what they do with Labour’s John Mann, who has just switched sides. Mann is a member of the Treasury select committee that heard evidence from both sides and concluded that though the remainers were exaggerating the economic impact, the leavers were telling outright porkies. Go figure.
Digested week, digested: Get that lie off the bus
