Boris is a bit different from most Old Etonians of his cohort. His Dad was an MEP and wrote a book, turned into a film, 'the Commissioner' about corruption and dysfunction at the 'rotten heart of Europe' to quote the title of another book of the period.



Boris was aware that the beds in Brussels are soft and that was always an option if he fizzled out at Westminster. Being Mayor of London gave him a different perspective- that promoted by volatility trading Hedge Fund types. It also showed him that Islington wasn't representative of Labour. Acton was. There was a Rubicon for him to cross, and he could cross it being all things to all men.



No doubt, his private life and journalistic chums let him down a bit. But, nobody really cares and it is foolish for Patten suggest otherwise.



The truth of the matter is that Westminster is a bit shit. Whitehall has bled executive capacity at an alarming rate. The F.O is staffed by outright nitwits. That's why most Old Etonians were Remainers. They knew their chums in the Civil Service were not just incompetent, they were incompetent in a frontal, exhibitionistic, way.



In the old days, if you invited an old chum from the F.O to meet a foreign client, your chum would puff at his pipe and look cagey. He wouldn't start babbling bug-eyed Blairite nonsense. Look at the 'all hands on deck' Brexit botch up. There isn't a single of the lot who has more sense than a stick of asparagus.



Boris is part of the utter mediocrity of Eton's most entitled, most coddled, cohort. What makes him different is that he knows Brussels too is a snake-pit. Left to ourselves, we might hit on less shite officials and politicians. Tethered to Europe, you'll get the shouty type of Right Wing nutjob ruining things in a manner more stupid yet.



You say my comments don't correspond to facts. Do you believe Brussels isn't corrupt and incompetent? What about Whitehall? Do you think it is staffed by smart people or has done anything right in the last twenty years?



Trump, quite rationally, is claiming credit for a boom. If the mid-terms go badly, he may do a U turn on Trade because he'd effectively be a lame duck otherwise without the war-chest to fight off a Republican challenger.



Trump's intellectual mise en scene features "Minsky moments' far more intensively than people like you or me. He knows that there's a workaround for it. I'm not saying the guy is an Econ maven, but I do know the stuff he was taught at Wharton- the big ideas around back then. The fact is 'optimal tariff' type arguments had more currency then, than in the eighties or later. It wouldn't take a great cognitive leap to see that Keynesian 'money illusion' can be used against lower income exporting countries in the way that Keynes wanted it used against the great unwashed.



Patten is certainly old enough to remember the left Keynesians of the late Sixties and Seventies. He is by no means a fool. Still, he has written this silly article. 'Inability of control sexual appetites' for sooth! Does this guy really not know that his generation is the biggest market for Viagra? Lying relentlessly is the thing you have to do after you have swallowed that pill. Civilisation would collapse if these niceties were omitted.