Sunday and other Media Stupid Statements

Helen Thomas, Tory advisor, in the IT, during the week, argues in a piece lauding Johnson’s tactical and strategic skills that:

If the UK will not impose a border, then it will be up to Ireland to decide how to maintain the integrity of the single market. Rather than the Border being a weapon that forces the UK to choose between the union and the EU, it will instead force Ireland to choose between the UK and the EU.

At this late stage, does she really believe that?

Speaking of belief, does the author of the following genuinely believe that comments on television and radio reports carry the almost inexorable weight he seems to assign to them?

Last Tuesday, Bertie Ahern was equally emphatic – there could be no unilateral solution to the backstop that did not involve the majority of unionists.

Proof of the power of pluralist words came swiftly from Jeffrey Donaldson on RTE News that night.

“I welcome very much the comments today by the leader of Fianna Fail, Micheal Martin, and by the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. I think they were very significant comments, recognising that unionists have valid concerns that need to be addressed… and I think these comments were very helpful.”

Though there’s this that the same correspondent seems to think is gold, despite the words of numerous PSNI and NI civil servants about the dangers of a resumption of violence:

Henry McDonald, correspondent with The Guardian, author of Two Souls, a dark but hilarious novel about Belfast in the 1970s, spoke to Hot Press.

He was caustic about how media opponents of Brexit were bigging up the dissident threat.

“People are dishonestly ramping up the Brexit effect, saying, ‘We’re going back to war’. No, we’re f**king not. It’s insulting. I find some journalists the worst offenders.”

And then on to a degraded public discourse on both this island and the one to the east… for example a sitting TD said the following this week:

But if you watch the news and you listen, and even our Taoiseach three weeks ago said he’d take in an extra 200, eh what do you call, migrants from Africa – these are economic migrants.

“These are people that are coming over here from Africa to… to sponge off the system here in Ireland.

And there’s this contribution from the UK:

On Boris Johnson’s comments that Britain will break out of EU like The Incredible Hulk, Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said: “The Hulk was a winner and was extremely popular and I’d rather be backing a character and a leader who is The Hulk rather than one who is on the chicken run as Jeremy Corbyn is.”