…Is that Labour and the Lib Dems betrayed the trust of the Tories and of the electorate.

Sorry, I’m a bit late to this, really. I wasn’t actually going to write any more about the Tories and Europe because Heresiarch did such a good job encapsulating the whole thing, but has anyone else noticed the glee with which Labour and the Lib Dems are using the Irish Lisbon vote as a stick to beat the Tories? Doesn’t that seem, in light of the fact that the only reason the Tories are in that position is because they reneged on their referendum promises, just a little bit sick?

You remember that scene in Braveheart1? The one at the Battle of Falkirk, where William Wallace heads into battle hoping to secure independence for the Scots, confident in the knowledge that Robert the Bruce will join with him?

And then Robert the Bruce is revealed to have betrayed him, and sold him out to King Edward. And writ large upon the Bruce’s face as William Wallace discovers the truth is the pain and anguish he feels at having betrayed his fellow countryman.

Just imagine for a second what it would have felt like to be William Wallace, if at this point in the movie Robert the Bruce had wondered over and said ‘ha-HA! What are you going to do now, then? A bit stuffed aren’t you! You kept making all those promises about victory and freedom and independence and now you can’t keep them! Sucks to be you, eh?’

I can’t help but imagine that’s probably a bit like what it must feel like to be David Cameron being taunted about the Lisbon Treaty right now2.

Spare a thought.

  1. This is not the place to discuss the relative merits of Mel Gibson’s portrayal of Scottish history, of course, I’m simply using the central betrayal as an analogy. [↩]
  2. Except there’s probably a lot less blue face paint involved. And probably less blood, or fear of execution. [↩]