Who’s panicking? by Peter Bell

Angus Robertson is starting to irritate me. He really needs to learn that not every response to political development is a sign of panic. In fact, it can be a serious mistake to assume that your opponent is panicking when they may well be doing no more than responding to developments – either in accordance with some form of contingency planning or calmly and methodically guided by knowledge and experience. It is unwise to ever assume that your opponent is less powerful and determined than they might be. And that may be particularly true when that opponent is the British establishment.

This is not to say that Michael Gove, or any of Boris Johnson’s clique, might be particularly politically astute. There is little evidence that the current British political elite is a marvellously efficient machine in which every cog is a political operator of some genius. Rather the contrary…