Anyway, that aside, there is a huge potential as yet untapped by the Tories and the MSM that is only now having its foundations very carefully laid. That is the scenario of the ‘War Hero’. The air around us is only just beginning to crackle and smoulder with stories of an impending and unavoidable conflict. There is, right now, much sabre rattling accompanied by alarm bells currently sounding quite softly in the background. Soon it will get MUCH louder. Indeed it is being lined up to become a cacophony of background noise that will drown out truth and reason to become what is now called an ‘alternative truth’. In too many people it will be willingly accepted, swallowed and oft regurgitated as being the 5th Gospel. For them it will BECOME the ‘new’ truth.

When it does, and as a result of being planted in ground well fertilised with bulls***, that ‘new’ truth will give us but one given option and that is for us do our ‘king and country’ duty and rally behind a shining and courageous leader in the midst of a cruel and unwarranted war being waged against us by that ever present and eternal adversary, ‘Johnny Foreigner’ (whomever that has been in the past – and there have been many) or, if not, to be labelled ‘traitor’ or ‘heretic’ or even ‘saboteur’. (Where have I heard that before I wonder?)

The MSM stories will be all about a terrible and ugly enemy (the evil and rapacious EU this time) trying to wage a bloodthirsty war on this our ‘Great’ Britain. There to put us to the fiscal sword we stand firm upon our ‘Britishness’. Outnumbered and alone maybe but we shall overcome if only we pull together. It is, after all, the good old British way. A small but brave island race standing unaided shoulder to shoulder under one flag and with one single purpose. All alone we will be facing a sea of hatred simply for trying to stand up in defence of good old British values. It will be against all the odds and in circumstances of complete innocence on our part. We either make our stand or give in to the will of a despicable enemy hell bent on the destruction of this green and pleasant land we all love so deeply. For the sake of our children and our children’s children we must ride out and stand fast to defeat the EU enemy at the very gates of hell. Images of the past ‘glories’ of this, the greatest nation on earth, will be conjured up out of altered memory to help puff out the national chest and give us hope of victory against yet another dreadful enemy.

We, as an heroic and ancient race will be left standing alone against an adversary of 27 nations combined. A grasping horde of the rabid and malevolent wandering abroad in their sickness, their growing immorality and their unjustifiable wickedness. Indeed, as in true wartime spirit, pulling together is the one and only way forward. “Come Brothers and Sisters – to glory beneath the flag and a magnificent “strong and stable” leader! In this way, and only this way, we WILL prevail.” This beginning to sound familiar yet? It will actually get that dramatic believe it or not. Remember the Falklands? And as silly as it all sounds to you and I, it certainly won’t sound silly to far too many.

At this point if not before Theresa May will be conveniently slotted in to the picture like a hand in a glove as our saviour and the only one who can see us through the inevitable approaching conflict. She will be offered up as the hero of the day. OUR hero. A Great British hero. The only “strong and stable” leader willing and able to save us from the enemy beating their fist at our national door.

There will be kindly but increasingly firm comparisons with Winston Churchill and Thatcher and especially the Falklands War that saved her political hide. Indeed Michael Howard has already started the ball rolling there some month or so ago when he talked of invading Gibraltar in a war against the Spanish. And anyone who thinks that was a chance remark or one that was not ‘planted’ then please think again.

There will probably be pictures of St. George with Theresa May’s photo-shopped face slaying the EU Dragon. Heart of oak and sword in hand she and she alone will march forward as our very own Joan of Arc (don’t worry the gullible won’t recognise the irony) into battle for us all. She will be our one and only chance to triumph. To triumph against an enemy that in reality exists only in MSM fairy stories and on a TV heavily biased against anything that may undermine the narrative of ‘Cometh the Hour – Cometh the Woman’. People love heroes.

The demonization of the EU began years ago and as soon as it has been whipped into a frenzy Saint Theresa will be presented as a gleaming goddess in shining armour ready to strike the enemy down with a single blow. “Conquer or die!” and “Hard Brexit – who cares?!” What a leader eh?

Me ‘over egging the pudding’? Well maybe – we shall see, but as the furore grows and the shrill voices of the MSM get louder with the language of propaganda amplifying in both print and voice I think you’ll see what I mean appearing before your very eyes very soon playmates.

It will come. It is tried and tested and what propagandists do. The trick is recognising it and countering it BEFORE it arrives. To take a boxing maxim “It’s always harder to punch your opponent when you’re on the back foot”.

Someone in the Labour Party (I hope) is already working on this? Foresight and counter-strategy is an art form and one that is essential in a propaganda war. Remember “A lie is half way around the world before the truth has got it’s trousers on.” (Winston Spencer Churchill.)

I just hope someone in the Labour Party is keeping their trousers on - and at all times.

TC.

According to these accounts, and public remarks by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the British Government is entirely deluded about what to expect from the talks. Ms May is labouring under the illusion that she has bargaining power and that that power will be greatly enhanced if she wins a landslide victory in her unnecessary and premature general election. That is a blunder almost as historic as David Cameron's when he pledged an in/out referendum. It will lead to national disaster.

The Europeans are making it as clear as they can within diplomatic conventions that the British have very few cards to play, and the EU negotiators aren't much interested in the make up of the House of Commons.

So Ms May's bluff is being called, and the realities behind the diplomacy of Brexit are coming into focus. Europe is the world's largest trading and economic bloc. The UK is a great trading nation that earns an uncomfortably high proportion of its living from trade and investment with the continent. We need them more than they need us. That is the fundamental truth about the balance of power.

A rational deal advantageous to both sides, which is to say superior to the status quo, is impossible, because no possible terms can be better than the single market regime. A deal that is better than no deal is possible, and desirable, and mutually beneficial – but not inevitable.

Theresa May accuses remaining 27 EU members of ‘lining up to oppose’ Britain over Brexit
The dream of the hard Brexiteers and the nightmare of the Remainers is identical: the UK crashes out of the EU, has to adjust to whatever Europe decides, and tours the globe looking for deals with nations from the US to South Korea who are prioritising the EU. No amount of fantasy about a second Elizabethan era of buccaneering entrepreneurs winning new export markets will compensate for the migration of the car industry, aerospace, food processing and the City to the rest of the EU or elsewhere in the world. Communities will lose jobs, investment will collapse and Britain will recede into being the sick man of Europe as it was before joining the EU in 1973.

It takes two, in other words, to make a deal and if the EU is as united and clear in its objectives as it seems, and with the economic and political muscle to back that up, then, as has been made clear, the UK will be lucky to get the kind of limited deal Canada obtained after a decade of wrangling. To be fair to the Prime Minister, it seems to be that it is the EU Commission that is making future arrangements for EU citizens in the UK more difficult than needs be, but that merely demonstrates who wields the power in the EU-UK relationship. It also makes the case for an open and unilateral offer of full rights to those people more compelling.

That, as they say, is the big picture. But these developments shed light on other non-trivial matters. It is plain that, whatever Theresa May and David Davis may desire, these talks are not going to be kept secret, and it is shameful that the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung knows more about what is going on than do the British people in the middle of a general election. It is something the new Commons should find intolerable.

Brexit is increasingly meaning hard Brexit. If that is what this election is really about then the Prime Minister should say so. If not then she cannot take what happens on 8 June as any kind of mandate for her position and in any case she must offer the British people a say on the eventual terms of Brexit. If they are going to be as mean as they look now, then few in full possession of the facts would vote to leave, even if they'd grudgingly agree to have her in No 10. She needs to come clean with the people. Now is the time.