Brextremist Andrea Leadsom’s bullying of companies would be headline news if a Labour minister was intimidating firms into silence. The Business Secretary darkly hinted that public-sector contracts could be withheld from firms which warn that exiting Europe is national economic self-harm. One steel boss mutters that he was told to “pipe down” or else. Thumbscrews have also been turned on BT, according to a well-placed informant. Boris Johnson’s business adviser, multimillionaire former Sky executive Andrew Griffith, who lent his £10m London flat to the PM during the Tory leadership campaign, is fond of using the Downing Street switchboard to hunt down recalcitrants for an ear-bashing. Taking back control includes muting experts.
Brexit may not be Boris Johnson’s first die-in-a-ditch moment. Word reaches this column from Exmoor of a farmer towing the Prime Minister’s car out of a ditch after the blond bumbler in his salad days swerved off a road near the family’s home. Johnson will need more than a tractor to rescue him if he falls into the 31 October ditch he’s dug and Britain is saved in Europe.
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