23/04/2017
As usual when another election comes along, Booker tries to point out some of those hugely important issues which won't be getting discussed, because all the parties agree not to notice them.
The irony, in my view, is that although this is supposed to be the "Brexit election", the one thing that won't be discussed in any detail is the way we should be leaving the EU. At best (or worst), I fear that all we're going to get is a half-hearted re-run of the referendum campaign to the counterpoint of ritual cries about the Single Market.
Anyhow, high on Booker's list in
this week's column is the energy future we face under the Climate Change Act, where our politicians have all happily nodded through a "decarbonisation" policy whereby we shall before long be phasing out all those remaining fossil-fuel power stations which still provide more than half our electricity, to rely instead on grotesquely subsidised "renewables" and imaginary nuclear power stations which show little sign of getting built.
Scarcely any MP has yet shown any sign of recognising what a disaster this is heading us for. The only mentions it is likely to get in coming weeks will be virtue-signalling manifesto references to the need for yet more unreliable renewables.
That is fair enough but, because of the EU links, this is probably a downstream issue â for the next election rather than this one â and then only after we have has a serious public debate on energy. For the moment, we have to concentrate on Brexit.
Even less mentioned, says Booker, will be the scandalous state of our "child protection" system and the family courts, as almost every month the number of children being removed from their families continues to break records, far too many of them for wholly inadequate reasons.
The only MP who ever properly recognised the nature of this tragedy was the Lib Dem John Hemming, who lost his seat in 2015, and it is now lost to view in the one place, Parliament, with the power to try to bring this corrupted system back to its original laudable intentions.
This, though, demonstrates the inadequacy of the electoral system. It is never going to be the case that the nation chooses a government on such narrow issues â no matter how worthy they are.
We need separate mechanisms, outside the framework of a general election, to be able to address such failures. Here, there is an excellent opportunity for The Harrogate Agenda, which would permit a referendum on the Childrens' Act, with a view to seeking its abolition.
Next in Booker's line of fire is public spending. This makes for his third unmentionable: our still soaring national debt, due to rise again this year, from a mere £316 billion at the turn of the century, to £1,829 billion â the interest payable on which, £52 billion, is alone way ahead of our spending on national defence.
We may hear much about those damaging "cuts", on everything from the NHS and care of the elderly to our schools and police. But how often are we told that public spending rose last year from £761 billion to £784 billion, and is due this year to hit £797 billion.
These are the figures supplied to Parliament for every MP to study, but since not one of them has any idea what to do about it, it's all best pushed under the carpet. And, if you are standing for Labour or the Lib Dems, you can just stick to complaining about those dreadful "cuts".
Finally, of course, there is Brexit, where all the indications are, from an increasingly stern Brussels and from the implications of Theresa May's decision that we should shut ourselves out of the single market, that we may end up in a situation much worse than most people yet realise or than what we have now.
It is always a danger sign, Booker says, when all our politicians agree on taking some great leap in the dark, without giving any proper thought to where it may lead; as it was when 463 MPs voted in 2008 for the Climate Change Act, without any of them asking how in practice we could cut down our "carbon emissions" by four fifths within 40 years without shutting down virtually our entire economy.
We similarly saw 494 MPs voting to send Mrs May on her way to Brussels, without having any idea what this may lead to. They have no idea that, in just two years, she will be able not only to agree a unique deal which somehow allows us to carry on trading with our largest export market and the source of 30 per cent of our food much as we do now.
Still less do our MPs have any sensible suggestions on how to sort out the thousand and one other issues needing to be resolved, from foreign and security policies to agriculture and fisheries: even how airliners from Britain can continue to enjoy free access to the "single European sky".
But, Booker concludes, at least she will be able to enjoy her huge election victory before some very uncomfortable realities begin to break in, and she will avoid having to face the country again in 2020, when the results of her negotiations are evident for all to see.
And it is then, when she has sorted those details that the truth of Brexit will emerge. Far from being a solution to our problems, it is just an enabler. After Brexit, Mrs May will not be able to hide behind "Brussels".
It is then that she will have to work out what is to be done about our suicidal national energy policy and how to pay the interest on a national debt which by then could have topped £2 trillion.
