Remember the bus

You might recall, or at least the Brits among you will, the Brexit bus, festooned with a slogan saying, we send £350 a week to the EU, why not fund the NHS instead?

Well, today was the budget, and the chancellor stood and told lies for a couple of hours, then May and Corbyn argued like school kids over what was said and not said. One of the things to take away from the budget this year is that Hammond has promised £3 billion extra funding for Brexit preparations, but only £2.8 billion for the NHS. The head of the NHS has already said that is not enough and will lead to longer waiting times and even treatment rationed.

On top of that, it turned out the Office of Budget Responsibility, on whose projections the Treasury uses to plan ahead, revealed that the Government had refused to provide it with any costs estimates relating to Brexit. That is, the entire budget was prepared and delivered without anyone knowing or guessing or revealing how much Brexit was going to cost and whether this would mean more and more borrowing.

This is now beyond madness, of course.

The Government also pledged £3.5 billion to help first time buyers by abolishing stamp duty (tax on buying property), helping 3,500 people, meaning that each first time buyer will have cost the taxpayer £924,285.71 each. Would could have built all of them a luxury home for that!

Last night, the Irish Government stated that the £40 billion that Britain hopes to unblock the Brexit negotiations will not be enough in itself, as there will have to be something concrete on the Irish Border issue. It is telling, that the one land border Britain, or the UK has with the EU is between the Republic and NI, you would have thought the Brexiteers, and the DUP in particular would have given some thought to how this would be dealt with, and getting angry at the Irish Government at protecting their interests helps no one.

I say again, Britain triggered Article 50 before it was ready, and before it had identified risks and how to overcome or minimise them. Official figures show the economy tanking, as Western World recovers from the 2008 recession, and the EU zone growth is increasing month on month. Britain has gone from the fast growing European economy to the slowest. In a year. Now, what could be the reason?

One last thought; is it just possible that May is trying to create a situation, any situation, that gives her reason to walk out of talks, which will result in the economy tanking, the government falling, and Brexit killed? Stanger things have happened, but I fear May is not that clever.