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Brexit is like trying to get a piano up a flight of stairs and taking all the extra bits off

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Friday 29 March 2019 14:49 GMT
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Minister on May's Brexit strategy: 'F*** knows. I'm past caring. It's like the living dead in here'

The latest Theresa May cunning plan, to get part of her agreement accepted by stripping bits out, reminds me of the Bernard Cribbins’ song “Right Said Fred” about furniture removers trying hopelessly to get a piano up a flight of stairs. They try removing various bits in an effort to succeed but eventually concede that “he thought we ought to take off all the handles. And the things wot held the candles. But it did no good, well I never thought it would.”

Kate Hall
Leeds

A fun little game

As a citizen of the UK I am in total despair at the whole Brexit shambles. We seem to have reached a complete impasse.

However, as both a student and retired teacher of history, I find the situation absolutely compelling.

In years to come at GCSE, A-level and university, there will be myriad studies and modules on the topic and who knows, even a “Rees-Mogg, Professor of Brexit Studies” at Oxford University. And what a delight for all examination question setters in the future! A few possibilities strike me immediately:

“She always put party before country.” Is this a fair assessment of Theresa May’s handling of the Brexit crisis?

“The incompetence of Theresa May’s handling of the Brexit issue was matched only by the ineptitude of Jeremy Corbyn.” Discuss.

For questions spanning a longer historical period, what about: “If the Suez Crisis marked the starter course of the ‘decline of the UK’s status and standing in the world’ banquet, then the Brexit crisis was very much both the cheese and biscuits and brandy and coffee part of the feast.” How far would you agree with this statement?

Every cloud has a silver lining. It is, however, a great shame that an examination question setter’s fantasy has to be the product of a nation’s nightmare.

MT Harris
Address supplied

Searching for clarification is ironic

The stench of rank hypocrisy in the Tory party has become overwhelming. In the debate on the withdrawal agreement Sir Bill Cash, an ardent Brexiteer, said: “MPs should be able to see the bill today, so that they know what they are voting for.”

Sir Bill had no such scruples when the referendum took place and people were asked to vote completely blind as to what they were voting for. Hypocrisy is what we now expect as the norm for the Tory party.

John Harvey
Bristol

With all due respect…

Jeremy Hunt in his leadership bid says the Tories must change their image from “money, money, money”. May I suggest “broke, broke, broke”.

Maurizio Moore
Brentwood, Essex

Something about bathwater

Has the Queen still got the power to dissolve parliament? If so, she must get on and do it. This lot couldn’t run a bath.

Dave Murfitt
Address supplied

Looking to myths

Boris Johnson has urged Theresa May to “channel the spirit of Moses in Exodus and say to Pharaoh in Brussels, ‘Let my people go’.”

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Is this a joke? Johnson is encouraging his fellow Brexiteers to imitate a mythical figure who led his people out of mythical (and totally non-existent) slavery into 40 years of wandering through a desert, fed occasionally by mythical handouts from above and forced to obey commandments, set in stone and delivered also from above. Is this really Brexit policy?

I think I’d rather have unicorns.

Dr John P Wieczorek
Reading

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