By Alyn Smith MEP

Alyn Smith is one of Scotland’s six Members of the European Parliament. He is a member of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

The biggest mistake of any UK Prime Minister since Suez

The No Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Things this UK Government does not do well: Work to find feasible solutions. Stand up to its own backbenchers. Govern.

Things this UK Government does well: blame, bicker, misdirect attention elsewhere.

Give them their due, they have to be good at something. And – animal lovers beware – it turns out that the Westminster powers are relying ever more on the misdirecting dead cat strategy. It’s a classic politics move. Imagine that you’re being browbeaten by your opponents and losing the argument, the facts raining down upon your weary brow, each new study or piece of expert analysis sending you closer to the ropes. You can throw up your hands and admit you’ve got it wrong and there is no solution… or you can throw a dead cat on the table. Suddenly everyone’s talking about the dead cat – what you want them to talk about, instead of your latest cack-handed attempt at international relations, leaving you free to slink away.