Guido Fawked - Gove Fish Fail

Another day, another day of routine idiocy for the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble of borderline Fake News merchants at the Guido Fawkes blog, as they try to get a handle on that elusive thing called The Real World. The Great Guido has latched on to comments made by Michael “Oiky” Gove on a visit to Denmark, and believes he has discovered a Tory U-Turn, which, sadly, he has not.

Under the heading “Gove’s U-Turn Smells Fishy”, the Fawkes folks tell “Michael Gove’s comment that EU boats will be able fish in UK waters after Brexit has gone down badly with leavers. Reports quoted Gove saying during a visit to Denmark ‘Danish fishermen will still be able to catch large amounts of fish in British waters, even if the British leave the EU’”. Their Brexit hero had abandoned them!

After quoting UKIP spokesman Mike Hookem, the thug involved in that most unfortunate altercation with now former Kipper Steven Wolfe outside the European Parliament recently, the Fawkes rabble continue “Gove’s u-turn is particularly galling since he was suggesting the opposite as recently as two weeks ago”. And what had he said?

“When we leave the EU we’ll become an independent coastal state and that means we can then extend control over our waters to 200 miles”. That, as is being pointed out this morning, does not mean excluding other nations’ fleets from those waters. After all, we’re going to let EU nationals in to work and visit, aren’t we? We want EU businesses to remain located in the EU, right? So what’s the problem?

Sure, there have been the usual suspects lining up to shoot their mouths off, not least Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, who ranted “These comments by Michael Gove are appalling. [Two] weeks ago he was strong on fishing”. And no doubt strong on the causes of fishing, too. But, given “the UK does not have enough capacity to catch and process all its fish alone”, Gove does not have a great deal of wriggle room.

None of this detains The Great Guido for long, as he has a cunning plan, one that he believes was cunningly dreamed up by an Emeritus Professor of Cunning at the Cunning faculty of the University of Cunning in down-town Cunning City. So what is the Fawkes solution to the quandary in which Gove now finds himself? “Guido is no fishing expert, why can’t we just leave the uncaught fish in the sea?” Ri-i-i-i-ight.

How can I put this, without pointing it out with the proverbial dirty great club? How do the Fawkes rabble imagine all those fish restaurants, fish and chip shops, supermarket fish counters, freezers full of white fish, packs of breaded and battered fish pieces, shapes, fingers and the rest get supplied with, er, fish? Did The Great Guido not notice the bit about us not having sufficient fish processing capacity?

I’m no Fawkes expert, why can’t we just leave their rubbish unread? Actually, that makes a lot more sense than the Fawkes mob. Another fine mess, once again.