Yahoo News Jo Swinson wants the nation to go to rehab, but it's saying no, no, no
In Camden Market, fifty feet from a giant bronze of Amy Winehouse, could hardly have been a more appropriate place for Jo Swinson to launch the Liberal Democrat election manifesto.
She is trying to make the nation go to rehab but, if the polls are to be believed, it is saying no, no, no.
That the event took place on the dancefloor of a trendy nightclub just set in sharper relief exactly what the Lib Dems have become.
Which is, specifically, the baffled, exasperated and slightly square one in a group of late-teen friends, still trying to talk her mates into a normal night at the pub when they’ve all suddenly got massively into drugs.
On a small stage in a dark room, what she had to offer was an increasingly impassioned plea for a return to normality.
Stay in the European Union. Spend the £50bn or so you’re not going to spaff up the wall for nothing on things like the social care and housing crises.
Revoke. Remain. A cab home. If we go now we might even make the last Tube. Oh for God’s sake. It’s a MONDAY NIGHT. What has happened to you?
But they don’t care Jo. Can’t you see? They’re all absolutely off their tits. They’ve just rubbed two whole days worth of temp money into their gums and they’re not leaving now. Not on your life.
Not very long ago at all, anyone offering anything *not* in the Liberal Democrat manifesto would have been thought to have gone mad.
But we can’t have nice things now. No way. Instead, as Jo Swinson made clear, the public must make a completely false choice between lies and fantasy.
“If Boris Johnson thinks he can negotiate a free trade deal by the end of next year he is deluded,” she said. Of course he is. We know that.
And Jeremy Corbyn is offering a second referendum, one in which he, the actual prime minister, won’t offer an opinion on the deal he himself has negotiated, and will scarcely take part. That’s properly mad.
“Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t get better than Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn,” she said, building towards her faintly rousing conclusion. “That we are destined to stand alone.
“The future of our country is in our hands, and we can make a better choice.”
Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t go back to the future.
That tomorrow can’t be more like yesterday.
That everything will be fine if we could just get an early night.
Read more
Liberal Democrats say they will tax frequent fliers more to fly
