Obviously the 198 business leaders who signed a letter to the Times yesterday explaining why Britain should remain in the EU are too busy and important to read what appears under their names, but surely someone in their enormous ‘comms’ teams should have pointed out to them that they were directly repeating David Cameron’s current slogan ‘Britain will be stronger, safer and better off remaining a member of the EU’. Might it not compromise their independence as top executives if they let words be put into their mouths by a politician? Irritated, I tried to order my stockbroker to divest my portfolio of all shares in all the companies concerned, but unfortunately found that I had not got any.
By the way, Mr Cameron’s slogan has already changed. Until Sunday, it was ‘Britain will be stronger, safer and better off remaining in a reformed Europe’ but, as it has become clear that Europe will not be reformed at all, the last bit of the slogan has been quietly dropped. Keep a watch on it, in case ‘stronger’, ‘safer’ or ‘better off’ have also to be jettisoned in the coming weeks.
This is an excerpt from Charles Moore’s Notes, out in tomorrow’s issue of The Spectator.
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