This pro-EU propaganda leaflet stinks — stinks like a Belgian wrestler’s jockstrap — and we should demand explanations from those who have authorised it.
It is hard to think of a more blatant stitch-up in public affairs since, well, the last time our country was given a vote on Europe back in 1975, when the Establishment presented the electorate an entirely false prospectus on what was then described as the European Economic Community...
QUENTIN LETTS: Cameron's £9million pro-EU mailshot stinks. So I'm sending mine straight back!
By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail
13 April 2016
Daily Mail
Received your pro-EU propaganda leaflet in the post yet? As you may have heard, the Government is blowing millions of pounds on a public mailshot.
All British households are to receive a copy of this 16-page, glossy leaflet which instructs us — cue a fanfare of trumpets and shouts of acclamation from an obedient populus — in the glories of the European Union.
You lucky, lucky people.
Households across the UK began to receive the Government's pro-Eu 'propaganda' leaflet - but many are being sent straight back to Downing Street as voters protest the taxpayer-funded mailshot
As we speak, valiant employees of Royal Mail are working to bring us this vital document.
It is emblazoned with the crest of Her Majesty’s Government and brims with snapshots, statistics and claims about the positive effect of the EU on Britain.
A message from our rulers, my, my! Across the kingdom, children press their noses to smudged front windows, waiting for sight of their postie to see if this will be their lucky day.
The project is so vast, it almost demands the poetic treatment W. H. Auden gave to the Night Mail in that celebrated 1936 documentary film (‘This is the Night Mail, crossing the border, bringing the cheque and the postal order. . . ’).
Steam trains may no longer be around, but articulated lorries are being loaded with pallets of these Cameroon EU leaflets at remote depots late of night.
Scandal
Sorting office machines chatter and click like crazy as the nation sleeps. Soon after dawn, postmen and women trudge the staircases of residential tower blocks or amble down provincial garden paths — no doubt whistling a cheery air as they step — to bring the uplifting news about Brussels.
‘Economic security, peace and stability,’ it declares. You can almost hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony pumping away in the background.
Such co-ordination of proletarian toil is enough, my dears, to bring tears to your eyes. Or perhaps not. For this £9 million junk mailshot is, to put it mildly, controversial.
There are some of us, and I would happily include myself in their number, who would call it a sorry and scurvy little scandal, one that could ultimately limit David Cameron’s premiership, damage the Conservative Party and dent our already battered trust in Whitehall.
The whole thing stinks — stinks like a Belgian wrestler’s jockstrap — and we should demand explanations from those who have authorised it.
It is hard to think of a more blatant stitch-up in public affairs since, well, the last time our country was given a vote on Europe back in 1975, when the Establishment presented the electorate an entirely false prospectus on what was then described as the European Economic Community.
Images have been posted on Twitter of the leaflet with comments asking the Royal Mail to 'return to sender'
Later, without any public vote on the matter, that segued into the European Community. And then the European Union. And these ruddy Europhiles expect us to trust them again!
The simple fact that such a mailing is happening at all reflects the intense ill-feeling — and, perhaps, of panic in Whitehall — that the public is refusing to be so gullible this time round.
The leaflet certainly appears to break promises made in Parliament by ministers less than a year ago.
The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, and Europe minister, David Lidington, as good as stated in the Commons last June that no such mailshot would be undertaken by the Government.
I say ‘as good as’ because Mr Lidington’s exact words were ‘we have no intention of legislating to allow the Government to do things such as mailshots, paid advertising or leafleting’.
I suppose Mr Lidington could claim that the Government did not, indeed, legislate for this mailshot. It just went ahead with it anyway. But if he did try to argue that, he would be guilty of the most disingenuous shading of the spirit of what he said.
The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, (pictured) and Europe minister, David Lidington, as good as stated in the Commons last June that no such mailshot would be undertaken by the Government
As for that unconvincing figure Hammond (how can such an uninspiring little man have been given one of our great offices of state?), he noted that the Remain and Leave campaigns would do their own mailshots.
He added: ‘The Government has no intention of undermining those campaigns.’
Ladies and gentlemen, it has just done precisely that, undermining the Leave campaign with a nakedly pro-EU leaflet that has been funded by taxpayers.
If the Commons had any self-respect, it would accuse Messrs Hammond and Lidington of misleading the House last summer. Ministers who mislead the House were once obliged to resign. Alas, we now live in a Britain where ministers who lie on behalf of the EU get off scot-free. So much for the principle, or lack of principle, behind this leaflet.
Next is the cost: £9 million, says the Government airily, wafting aside objections as if to say that £9 million is a piffling sum.
Is it? The cost may well be higher when you consider production and distribution costs to 27 million homes from Land’s End to John o’Groats.
Schmaltzy
Since when has George Osborne’s Treasury become so careless of the pounds, shillings and pence? And would the public not prefer £9 million to be spent on, say, healthcare or schools or even on repairs to Buckingham Palace?
Instead, it’s being spent on millions of swanky leaflets telling us how to vote in the referendum.
Eurosceptic Liam Fox has called it ‘Juncker Mail’, punning on the name of the European Commission’s notoriously thirsty president Jean-Claude Juncker. With normal junk mail, of course, you can opt out of unwanted advertising (or try to — not that preferential mail schemes always work).
With Government communications, there is no such opt-out. The beggars send you the stuff even if you do not want it.
Since when has George Osborne’s Treasury become so careless of the pounds, shillings and pence? And would the public not prefer £9 million to be spent on, say, healthcare or schools or even on repairs to Buckingham Palace?
The timing of this public misinformation service has been highly questionable.
Some people believe it was announced last week in an attempt by spin doctors to obscure the row over David Cameron’s tax affairs.
Others claim, I suspect with rather more cause, that it has been issued sneakily just before spending limits are introduced on the two sides in the referendum campaign.
At this point you may ask: ‘Who is the top civil servant who would have authorised this leaflet?’
To which the answer, surprise, surprise, is Cabinet Secretary ‘Sir Cover-Up’ Jeremy Heywood. A sneaky, last-minute ambush of the Brexiters is a classic Sir Cover-Up tactic.
Then there is the content. It is a depressing (yet somehow simultaneously comical) mixture of dumbed-down rot and schmaltzy cynicism.
One photograph, in the manner of the children’s TV show Play School, shows a June calendar with a red circle round the 23rd, referendum day. Don’t forget to vote, children.
Political correctness has been observed, too. For example, there is a photo of someone who looks like a man doing a supermarket shop and carrying a taupe handbag.
A snapshot of a ‘UK Border’ sign, by the way, has the caption: ‘We control our own borders.’ Ha! I like it! If you think we exert any proper control of our borders, you really must be a politician.
So, what can we do with this darn leaflet, this flimsy wad of piffle, this stapled spiel of Cameroonish baloney?
Reading it is a fruitless enterprise, for you will not learn anything reliable and it may simply cause your pulse to race with irritation.
Can we scrunch it up and use it as litter for the hamster cage? But the paper is non-absorbent. How about paper darts? Wrong shape. Use it for wall cavities? As draught excluders? We could burn it, I suppose, but that might contravene EU carbon emissions targets.
Some have suggested sticking these ridiculous propaganda sheets into an envelope saying ‘return to sender’ and addressing them to Mr Cameron at 10 Downing Street, London.
But that will simply mean that we taxpayers pick up the postal bill — and anyway, the Royal Mail would probably cotton on and refuse.
Ingenious
There is, my friends, a better answer, and it comes from my friend Anthony, a vigorous and ingenious Brexiter. He suggests putting your EU leaflets in an envelope and addressing them to a Freepost address used by Conservative Party fundraisers for their fat-cat donors.
This will mean that the Royal Mail is paid by the recipient.
You might say that this is a little hard on the poor old Tory Party. Well, it is their ruddy leader who has sent out this leaflet. Let them have it out with him.
PS: And that address? It is Joanna George, Freepost RSBB-XRZT-ZTXE, The Conservative Party Foundation, 30 Millbank, London SW1P 4DP.
You can even enclose a little message, telling them precisely what you think of Mr Cameron and Sir Cover-Up’s leaflet.
I am sure they will be grateful for the feedback. After all, isn’t this a listening government?
Read more: David Cameron's £9million pro-EU mailshot stinks writes Quentin Letts | Daily Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
It is hard to think of a more blatant stitch-up in public affairs since, well, the last time our country was given a vote on Europe back in 1975, when the Establishment presented the electorate an entirely false prospectus on what was then described as the European Economic Community...
QUENTIN LETTS: Cameron's £9million pro-EU mailshot stinks. So I'm sending mine straight back!
By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail
13 April 2016
Daily Mail
Received your pro-EU propaganda leaflet in the post yet? As you may have heard, the Government is blowing millions of pounds on a public mailshot.
All British households are to receive a copy of this 16-page, glossy leaflet which instructs us — cue a fanfare of trumpets and shouts of acclamation from an obedient populus — in the glories of the European Union.
You lucky, lucky people.
Households across the UK began to receive the Government's pro-Eu 'propaganda' leaflet - but many are being sent straight back to Downing Street as voters protest the taxpayer-funded mailshot
As we speak, valiant employees of Royal Mail are working to bring us this vital document.
It is emblazoned with the crest of Her Majesty’s Government and brims with snapshots, statistics and claims about the positive effect of the EU on Britain.
A message from our rulers, my, my! Across the kingdom, children press their noses to smudged front windows, waiting for sight of their postie to see if this will be their lucky day.
The project is so vast, it almost demands the poetic treatment W. H. Auden gave to the Night Mail in that celebrated 1936 documentary film (‘This is the Night Mail, crossing the border, bringing the cheque and the postal order. . . ’).
Steam trains may no longer be around, but articulated lorries are being loaded with pallets of these Cameroon EU leaflets at remote depots late of night.
Scandal
Sorting office machines chatter and click like crazy as the nation sleeps. Soon after dawn, postmen and women trudge the staircases of residential tower blocks or amble down provincial garden paths — no doubt whistling a cheery air as they step — to bring the uplifting news about Brussels.
‘Economic security, peace and stability,’ it declares. You can almost hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony pumping away in the background.
Such co-ordination of proletarian toil is enough, my dears, to bring tears to your eyes. Or perhaps not. For this £9 million junk mailshot is, to put it mildly, controversial.
There are some of us, and I would happily include myself in their number, who would call it a sorry and scurvy little scandal, one that could ultimately limit David Cameron’s premiership, damage the Conservative Party and dent our already battered trust in Whitehall.
The whole thing stinks — stinks like a Belgian wrestler’s jockstrap — and we should demand explanations from those who have authorised it.
It is hard to think of a more blatant stitch-up in public affairs since, well, the last time our country was given a vote on Europe back in 1975, when the Establishment presented the electorate an entirely false prospectus on what was then described as the European Economic Community.
Images have been posted on Twitter of the leaflet with comments asking the Royal Mail to 'return to sender'
Later, without any public vote on the matter, that segued into the European Community. And then the European Union. And these ruddy Europhiles expect us to trust them again!
The simple fact that such a mailing is happening at all reflects the intense ill-feeling — and, perhaps, of panic in Whitehall — that the public is refusing to be so gullible this time round.
The leaflet certainly appears to break promises made in Parliament by ministers less than a year ago.
The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, and Europe minister, David Lidington, as good as stated in the Commons last June that no such mailshot would be undertaken by the Government.
I say ‘as good as’ because Mr Lidington’s exact words were ‘we have no intention of legislating to allow the Government to do things such as mailshots, paid advertising or leafleting’.
I suppose Mr Lidington could claim that the Government did not, indeed, legislate for this mailshot. It just went ahead with it anyway. But if he did try to argue that, he would be guilty of the most disingenuous shading of the spirit of what he said.
The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, (pictured) and Europe minister, David Lidington, as good as stated in the Commons last June that no such mailshot would be undertaken by the Government
As for that unconvincing figure Hammond (how can such an uninspiring little man have been given one of our great offices of state?), he noted that the Remain and Leave campaigns would do their own mailshots.
He added: ‘The Government has no intention of undermining those campaigns.’
Ladies and gentlemen, it has just done precisely that, undermining the Leave campaign with a nakedly pro-EU leaflet that has been funded by taxpayers.
If the Commons had any self-respect, it would accuse Messrs Hammond and Lidington of misleading the House last summer. Ministers who mislead the House were once obliged to resign. Alas, we now live in a Britain where ministers who lie on behalf of the EU get off scot-free. So much for the principle, or lack of principle, behind this leaflet.
Next is the cost: £9 million, says the Government airily, wafting aside objections as if to say that £9 million is a piffling sum.
Is it? The cost may well be higher when you consider production and distribution costs to 27 million homes from Land’s End to John o’Groats.
Schmaltzy
Since when has George Osborne’s Treasury become so careless of the pounds, shillings and pence? And would the public not prefer £9 million to be spent on, say, healthcare or schools or even on repairs to Buckingham Palace?
Instead, it’s being spent on millions of swanky leaflets telling us how to vote in the referendum.
Eurosceptic Liam Fox has called it ‘Juncker Mail’, punning on the name of the European Commission’s notoriously thirsty president Jean-Claude Juncker. With normal junk mail, of course, you can opt out of unwanted advertising (or try to — not that preferential mail schemes always work).
With Government communications, there is no such opt-out. The beggars send you the stuff even if you do not want it.
Since when has George Osborne’s Treasury become so careless of the pounds, shillings and pence? And would the public not prefer £9 million to be spent on, say, healthcare or schools or even on repairs to Buckingham Palace?
The timing of this public misinformation service has been highly questionable.
Some people believe it was announced last week in an attempt by spin doctors to obscure the row over David Cameron’s tax affairs.
Others claim, I suspect with rather more cause, that it has been issued sneakily just before spending limits are introduced on the two sides in the referendum campaign.
At this point you may ask: ‘Who is the top civil servant who would have authorised this leaflet?’
To which the answer, surprise, surprise, is Cabinet Secretary ‘Sir Cover-Up’ Jeremy Heywood. A sneaky, last-minute ambush of the Brexiters is a classic Sir Cover-Up tactic.
Then there is the content. It is a depressing (yet somehow simultaneously comical) mixture of dumbed-down rot and schmaltzy cynicism.
One photograph, in the manner of the children’s TV show Play School, shows a June calendar with a red circle round the 23rd, referendum day. Don’t forget to vote, children.
Political correctness has been observed, too. For example, there is a photo of someone who looks like a man doing a supermarket shop and carrying a taupe handbag.
A snapshot of a ‘UK Border’ sign, by the way, has the caption: ‘We control our own borders.’ Ha! I like it! If you think we exert any proper control of our borders, you really must be a politician.
So, what can we do with this darn leaflet, this flimsy wad of piffle, this stapled spiel of Cameroonish baloney?
Reading it is a fruitless enterprise, for you will not learn anything reliable and it may simply cause your pulse to race with irritation.
Can we scrunch it up and use it as litter for the hamster cage? But the paper is non-absorbent. How about paper darts? Wrong shape. Use it for wall cavities? As draught excluders? We could burn it, I suppose, but that might contravene EU carbon emissions targets.
Some have suggested sticking these ridiculous propaganda sheets into an envelope saying ‘return to sender’ and addressing them to Mr Cameron at 10 Downing Street, London.
But that will simply mean that we taxpayers pick up the postal bill — and anyway, the Royal Mail would probably cotton on and refuse.
Ingenious
There is, my friends, a better answer, and it comes from my friend Anthony, a vigorous and ingenious Brexiter. He suggests putting your EU leaflets in an envelope and addressing them to a Freepost address used by Conservative Party fundraisers for their fat-cat donors.
This will mean that the Royal Mail is paid by the recipient.
You might say that this is a little hard on the poor old Tory Party. Well, it is their ruddy leader who has sent out this leaflet. Let them have it out with him.
PS: And that address? It is Joanna George, Freepost RSBB-XRZT-ZTXE, The Conservative Party Foundation, 30 Millbank, London SW1P 4DP.
You can even enclose a little message, telling them precisely what you think of Mr Cameron and Sir Cover-Up’s leaflet.
I am sure they will be grateful for the feedback. After all, isn’t this a listening government?
Read more: David Cameron's £9million pro-EU mailshot stinks writes Quentin Letts | Daily Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Last edited: