A Minister for Brexit Opportunities and other impossible ambitions…

Lies were told to bamboozle the country over Brexit. Many such glutenous whoppers were served up by the liar of the land, the man who pretends to be called Boris. He even had one slapped on the side of a bus.

All this truth-twisting has turned out marvellously, so long as the outcome you were hoping for was the biggest peacetime annual fall in British exports – down £20 billion to the EU.

There is more, a list longer than that line of lorries trying to leave the country in the Brexit bureaucracy queue. Or longer than the queue of farmers despairing at the duplicity of those promises.

In case you have forgotten, the advantages of Brexit were first touted by Ukip, as in this leaflet shared on Twitter the other day by Dave Lee of Hull.

Ah, yes, lower food prices, lower energy prices, more money for the NHS, better support for our farmers, revival of our fishing industry. It’s uncanny how accurate those predications have turned out to be.

The man who ate all the lies has just appointed Jacob Rees-Mogg as the Minister for Brexit Opportunities.

Boris Johnson likes to give ministers these titles. Michael Gove is the Minister for Levelling Up and Other Impossible Things. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is the Minister for Doing Unfortunate Interviews.

Oliver Dowden, who was elbowed out of culture to make way for Dorries, was made chairman of the Conservative Party instead. In that capacity, he has just given a speech of dull ludicrousness to an American right-wing think tank, blaming woke lefties for encouraging the enemies of the west. There is more but the urge to sleep while reading was just too strong.

Oh, and not forgetting Liz Truss, the Minister for Selfies. Dear me, that woman seems to travel the world just so that she can be photographed everywhere she goes. Do you think we should tell her she has a stalker?

Truss also does a shameless side-line in Thatcher montages, adopting poses once struck by the original. Now I hated that first edition with a bottomless passion, but she was a class act compared to this dopey doppelganger.

Anyway, back to the liar of the land’s new job for Rees-Mogg. According to the front page of the Sunday Express, we should be excited by this – “Coming soon! Brexit’s ‘Big Wins’ For Britain.”

Doesn’t that sound like a supermarket offer – “Coming soon! Two bags of lies for the price of one!”

Rees-Mogg is keen on touting the benefits of something that has so far proved to have none. He is even happy to turn potty-philosopher with remarks such as this: “The wisdom of crowds will ensure the benefits of Brexit.”

Heavens, what does that even mean, matey? Ah, hang on I’ve just been told there’s a mistake there. What Jacob meant to say was the “wisdom of clowns”. Now it makes sense.

As it happens, the same shameless right-wingers who sold us Brexit are now, having achieved one shabby ambition, insisting that we should abandon the green agenda, abolish net zero, frack the hell out of the countryside, and drain every drop of North Sea oil.

Chief among the never satisfied right-wingers who want to trample the environment is Steve Baker MP, a keen campaigner against Britain’s plans to reduce annual emissions of greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050.

How great this all is. The same people who landed us with a no-benefit Brexit are now stirring up divisions over the environment. As we know from Brexit, they won’t stop until they’ve got what they want, and lumbered the rest of us while they are about it.

Let’s hope they don’t bend the all-too-pliable ear of the liar of the land. Johnson does like to spout green messages, possibly composed while taking one of those private flights up and down the country he so enjoys.

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