rule by distraction

I've got to hand it to the Conservative Central Party. They know a few dodges to distract people. This leadership election to take people's minds off Brexit. I know it is still there, but with myriad versions of what could happen it has become very dilutive.

Rule by distraction is a go-to move for non-democratic regimes when faced with a challenge. Create enough chaos and distraction such that all eyes remain on that. Change what it means to be normal on a regular basis to allow drastic steps to take place behind the smoke screen.

Both surviving candidates are on a spend ticket, with more obvious cynical bribery being played by the yellow clown, but more dosh promised by the other chap. Cleverly, the clown has also used the power of search engines to remove memory of his courtroom-worthy red bus lie, replacing it instead with the model bus lie.

James Wharton's campaign must be pleased with Lee Cain, the Bojo Press Agent with the wine box bus idea although Boris did use rather a lot of extended hand waving whilst delivering the lines. Wharton's steering of Bojo is pre-eminent throughout the non-campaign, keeping Boris away from Portcullis House and other sources of contamination with people who could ask real questions.

But we can still observe the freestyling Boris rolling around like a loose cannonball in the press corridor, even if he is spilling much of the wine on his own time of late.

There's the genius of the other players. Rees-Mogg, quietly sits in the background, wringing hands and spouting Latin incantare, whilst ensuring that the ERG get their way. Then coin-operated Lynton Crosby, who has (let's face it) of late only had patchy success as a campaign-runner yet whose use of dead cats seems inexhaustible. Carrie Symonds seemed to get caught up in that last tactic, being brought to the headlines when Boris needed another distraction.

Framing it nicely we get Gavin (Vito) Williamson, the bully boy unofficial whip practising assumptive closes on many of the Tory MPs.

There's more, of course, just look at any ERG or Economists for Free Trade meeting to see who washes up.

And so it continues. A parallel universe of fiction. The Economists for Free Trade have found a tame professor to write all of their reports. It is remarkable to read the latest "No Deal is the best deal for the UK" and to see how self-referential it is. Instead of research based upon external factors, we have a paper that cites its own author six times in its opening summarisation. Hired gun springs to mind.

I'll look instead to HM Government's own paper "EU Exit Long-term economic analysis". I know this is more boring than looking at Boris's latest bust-up or who snorts the most cocaine, but it if those things are ill-considered, then this is well-considered.

They start with the Withdrawal Agreement and the un-agreed Political Declaration. Then a hypothetical FTA - Free Trade Agreement - with zero tariffs. Then move to one with a European Economic Area (EEA), outside of the customs union. And then to a modelling of No Deal.

At each stage, it is fair to say, the situation worsens. HM Government didn't directly include 'As-Is' Modelling- it is implicit as the baseline. I recollect that when I did a simplified form of this modelling back in 2016, the ballpark figure came at around 9% worse off if we left the EU.

This model is far more comprehensive and includes both goods and services.

Here's the grand summary of effects. All Brexits are worse than staying. Keeping migration arrangements is slightly better than removing them. The Withdrawal Agreement, with its suppositional Political Declaration, give a range of -0.6% to -2.5% worsening of GDP. The EEA and FTA models give -1.4% to -6.7% worsening. And the Boris option of No Deal gives -7.7% to -9.3% worsening. In my simplified chart it looks like this:

Now for a bit of blind sheep theory. Instead of following pompous advice from Gove about not believing experts, I decided to take a look at a few other reports to check the landing zone.

Unlike Boris's tame professor, the analysis compares the HM Government report to 25 other external reports. I've shaded the landing zone of the reports, which illustrate that 5%-10% worse off seems to be the consensus from the 2018+ reports. There's one exception. You guessed it, it's the Boris report, which somehow goes against the grain, indicating a 5% to 7% improved position. I've highlighted this position with a small icon on the table above. It's here:

I decided to caption it as an outlier, although "Out, Liar" might be more appropriate.