Brexit buffoon

THE Sun has some advice for Ireland’s naive young prime minister: shut your gob and grow up.

3 Leo Varadkar should be helping make Brexit work for millions of his citizens Credit: AFP or licensors

Leo Varadkar may not like Brexit. So what? He needs to accept it’s happening.

His priority should not be picking holes in our position.

It should be helping make Brexit work for millions of his citizens and ours, including by engaging constructively on a border solution.

He is too busy disrespecting 17.4million voters of a country whose billions stopped Ireland going bust as recently as 2010.

3 David Davis rightly names France and Germany as the roadblocks to progress Credit: PA:Press Association

A country on which so much of his economy depends.

We are Ireland’s biggest trading partner and nearest neighbour.

The effects of a “hard Brexit” could be catastrophic.

Yet Varadkar’s rookie diplomacy, puerile insults and threats to veto trade negotiations are bringing it ever closer.

We can only assume his arrogance stems from a delusion that he can ­single-handedly stop Brexit.

Indeed Ireland’s political establishment clearly believes we can be forced to vote the “right” way at a second referendum, just as they made their citizens do over the EU Lisbon Treaty they initially rejected.

It is not going to happen.

David Davis rightly names France and Germany as the roadblocks to progress, even as other EU nations want a deal.

He should not overlook the showboating obstinacy of Ireland’s Varadkar, a man increasingly out of his depth.

Whitehall farce

WHY are politicians in Whitehall bunkers blind to the obvious?

The Transport Department reckoned it would save £10million a year by scrapping road tax discs and shifting ­payment online. Result: vast losses.

Guess what? Drivers forget to renew without a disc to remind them. Dodgers are more confident they won’t be caught.

Anyone could have predicted it. Just as in 2000 under Labour it was obvious that encouraging diesel sales over CO2 emitting petrol cars would harm air quality.

Result today: a toxic air crisis, a punishment beating for those hapless diesel buyers — and car sales nose-diving.

And who is ever held to account for the huge losses such blunders cause?

That’s right. No one.

A pour idea

3 Boozing Brits must be tackled but price hike is not the answer Credit: Alamy

WE must tackle binge-drinking. But minimum alcohol pricing is a mistake.

Our Government must never follow Scotland’s down this slippery slope.

It only hikes the cheapest alcohol, hammering all low-earners no matter how sensibly they drink.

Richer people quaffing pricier tipples aren’t affected.

The irony being that they are now our biggest binge-drinkers.

And where will the nanny state stop, once it meddles in food and drink prices?

How long before the next health panic — and price controls on burgers and chips?