Page 16 Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019COMMENT
Tory civil war could
torpedo Brexit deal
Civil disobedience, food and medicine
shortages, and a meltdown at ports. The
picture painted of a No Deal Brexit in a
leaked government dossier makes for
chilling reading. But what to believe?
Michael Gove says this is old news – an
obsolete contingency plan prepared under
Theresa May’s premiership – and that No
Deal planning under Boris Johnson has
mitigated these outcomes.
But the leaker – said by Downing Street to
be a former minister – claims the doomsday
forecast comes from this month.
Whatever the truth, this affair
demonstrates that the Conservative Party
is now engaged in open civil war. With just
ten weeks to go until the UK is due to quit
the EU, the gloves are well and truly off.
The tragedy is that this leak diminishes
the chances of an eleventh-hour deal.
Why would the leaders of France and
Germany extend an olive branch to the
Prime Minister when he meets them this
week, knowing that members of his own
party are working to undermine him?
Mr Johnson’s plan of preparing in detail
for No Deal to focus minds in Brussels as
zero hour approaches depends on his party
holding its nerve. it’s the only game in town
if Parliament is not to renege on its solemn
promise to respect the 2016 referendum.
Anything else would be utter betrayal.
Encouragingly, Angela Merkel promises
to seek a solution until the last minute. We
take her at her word and hope common
sense prevails. in the meantime, the Tories
should cease tearing themselves apart.
A divided party that fails to deliver Brexit
will be severely punished at the ballot box.
Gambling with lives
GAMBliNG addiction is a modern scourge,
as pernicious as alcohol and drug abuse. it
destroys lives – not only those caught within
its vice-like grip but their families, too.
Now Betfair is accused of giving an addict
£20,000 to continue gambling – even though
he himself pleaded for a lifetime ban!
Students, meanwhile, are being paid to
promote betting at universities.
This epidemic – fuelled by online gaming
- cost British punters £14.5billion in 2018.
But the human toll is far greater, with
430,000 addicts and one admitted to
hospital every day. Depression, family
breakdown, even suicide are the products
of this insidious ‘industry’.
Ministers need to get a grip and drastically
curb gambling advertising while stripping
unscrupulous firms of their licences.
GPs can’t have it all
A TENTH of GP practices shut for a half
day each week, resulting in 287,000 fewer
appointments. With ever-growing waiting
times, this is simply unacceptable.
Now, the Government plans to cut the
budgets of offending surgeries – regrettable
but understandable.
Handsomely-paid doctors cannot have it
both ways, leaving weekends to locums
and shutting up shop midweek while
posing as champions of patient care.
A right royal scandal
A MAN furtively scans the street from the
home of a convicted child sex offender after
exchanging words with a young woman. A
sinister image by any standards. But when
that man is the Duke of York, it becomes
positively shocking.
The scandal engulfing Prince Andrew
over his dealings with late paedophile
financier Jeffrey Epstein threatens to drag
the monarchy into a quagmire.
What on earth was he doing consorting
with this reptile and inviting him to royal
residences? Buckingham Palace so far
responds only with denials.
This will not do. The Duke must explain
himself and issue a full apology. if not, he
risks bringing disgrace on the Royal Family.
WHY NORA’S PARENTS MUSTN’T BLAME THEMSELVES
W
Ho knew? in the
British summertime,
rain occurs. This
seems to have come
as an unwelcome
surprise to many, who have tak-
en countermeasures.
last Friday’s Mail reported: ‘The stormy
weather sweeping across the country
has triggered a last-minute rush for
foreign holidays, despite the collapse
in the value of the pound.’
if this is an exodus, it should be welcomed
at least by those of us who take our family
summer holidays at home. it will mean
slightly less traffic on the roads here,
and as one who has just made the
return trip from westernmost Cornwall,
here’s a handy tip: whether departing
or returning, leave not much later than
5am if you want to avoid many miles
of tailbacks.
But if you are flying south for the sun in
the peak holiday month of August, it
doesn’t make any difference however early
you leave: the airports are hell, making
even the visions of Hieronymus Bosch look
tolerable by comparison.Hostile
And that’s without factoring in any
additional chaos from industrial action,
whether by pilots or baggage handlers.
Yes, when you arrive in italy or the South
of France — or in Turkey, to avoid the
currently penal euro/pound exchange rate
— you get many daily hours of sunshine
guaranteed. But what’s also guaranteed is
that in August there’s too much of it. it
can be — and usually is — infernally hot.
on one of the handful of occasions in the
past of quarter a century in which we have
flown away for our summer holidays, we
decided to fly back half-way through,
so unhappy were our children in the
southern European heat. on the other two
occasions they managed — but only
because of air conditioning.
on every other August since our eldest
child was born in 1992, we have holidayedin the far South West of the UK. And in
that period, Cornwall, for the visitor, has
changed for the better. it used to be a
culinary desert for holidaymakers — and, at
times, seemingly indifferent or even hostile
to what they called emmets (the Cornish
word for those from outside the county,
including those who have moved in).
it is very different today. There is now —
at least where we go — a very friendly and
welcoming attitude. There is also a growing
number of restaurants offering a choice of
delicious and imaginative food to match
anything available in more affluent parts
of the country.
Fish freshly landed at Newlyn, just
outside Penzance, is a particular joy, and
can be picked up at a number of farmers’
markets which have sprung up — though
it’s worth going to Newlyn itself if you want
the widest choice.
What also seems to have developed in
recent years is a marked increase in
Europeans who have decided to spend
their summer holiday in Cornwall.
This year i was especially struck by the
number of cars with German number
plates, and also by how often we saw
Germans on the coastal path. in fact the
cottage we rented was on that wonderful
walk, and at one point a German actually
walked in and asked us if we had wi-fi
(there is no mobile phone signal at thatparticular tip of the coastal path). i don’t
think it is just the recent weakness of the
pound which has caused this influx of
holidaymakers from the Continent, so
much as the impact of the Poldark
television series, which has been hugely
popular well outside these shores.
The coves which are the real stars of the
series are now at risk of being inundated
not just by the stormy seas but by waves
of Poldark followers from across the globe.
indeed, the cove on which our rented
cottage sat is one of those featured in the
series. But, being someone who tends to
see the best in circumstances, i was able
to view this as a win-win.
When it was sunny, it was lovely, despite
the influx of day-trippers. And when it was
wet, we had this breathtakingly beautiful
place gloriously to ourselves (or so it felt).Romantic
And while stormy skies and downpours
may have been leading many thousands to
make a last-minute dash for holidays in
Southern Europe, it is a weather which, if
you are perched on the edge of the Atlantic
or the waters known as the Southwest
Approaches, creates a vista which is awe-
inspiring rather than dispiriting.
i realise there is some sadness in the way
that westernmost Cornwall has become
increasingly dependent on ‘emmets’ for its
economic survival.
The tin mines are all closed: the biggest,
Geevor, survives only in the form of a
museum and tourist attraction.
Elsewhere along that coastline, we saw a
for-sale sign on a desolate-looking farm,
and drove in to see an elderly farmer
calling to what seemed a solitary cow.
His land, though, had staggering views of
the Atlantic coast: i could easily imagine it
being sold for a great deal of money to
someone who will turn the farmhouse and
barns into lucrative holiday lets.
like so many parts of the UK, it presents
as a post-industrial landscape. But what a
landscape. No wonder it’s not just Britons
who see it as a more romantic spot than
Paris or Rome. And without all the hassle,
too: who would want for more?THERE’S nothing so heart-
stoppingly terrifying as when
your child disappears. It’s not
just the cause of terror, but
also remorse, because of the
sense of abject failure in
the first duty as a parent, to
keep your offspring safe.
This is all the more piercing
when the child is especially
vulnerable, as in the case of
Nora Quoirin (pictured), a
congenitally disabled 15-year-
old found dead last week by a
waterfall in the Malaysian
jungle one-and-a-half miles
from where she’d been sleep-
ing in a lodge with her family.
It brought back memories of
our experiences with our
younger daughter, Domenica,
who has Down’s syndrome. Assoon as she became able to
walk she rejoiced in her new-
found freedom (which came
later than it would with a
normal child, as she had very
low muscle tone).
If you took your eye off her
for a few seconds, she was off.
I recall it happening once in
that enormous Peter Jones
store in central London. It felt
like an age before she was
found... laying contentedly
on a mattress in the shop’s
bedding department.
Another time she wriggled
free from us in the security
queue at Charles de Gaulle
airport and shot into the
scanning chamber for luggage.
She popped out the other
side, quite unharmed. She wasthe main reason we moved
out of London, because we
were so worried of what
might happen if she rushed
into a road, oblivious to the
risk from traffic.
We bought a house
down a track in bucolic
East Sussex, and fenced
off the little lake that
lay in front of it.
But her habit of
shooting off into the
surrounding forest
was still a worry. So
we trained our dog
— a Leonberger — to
track her. Aslan (the
name we gave this
leonine creature)
would come to us
barking and lead us towherever she had got to. At
all times, Domenica, unlike
her parents, was sublimely
unconcerned. Aslan, alas, is
long dead: but our daughter,
now 24, is no longer prone
to disappearing acts.
Mercifully, she grew to
develop a strong sense
of caution: now, she is
always the one to
remind me to put my
seat-belt on.
How unimaginably
dreadful for her
parents that Nora
never got to that stage.
And whatever the
mystery of her death,
I’m sure of one thing:
they must not blame
themselves.Airport hell and the
sweltering Med?
Give me a holiday in
rainy Britain any day!
DOMINIC
LAWSON
THE
COLUMN