Once regarded as a safe pair of hands, his commitment to a soft Brexit has unleashed a furious reaction, with opponents calling him a ‘saboteur’Of all the characters at the government’s fissiparous top these days, the chancellor, Philip Hammond, looks the least likely to end up at the heart of temper-fraying spats. Box Office Phil was a nickname that came with a bucketload of irony. Nowadays, Hammond has found himself in the middle of a series of toxic dramas defining the government.Accused of something “close to sabotage” by Nigel Lawson, the pro-Brexit former Tory chancellor, and earning a front page in the Daily Mail and a leader slamming him as a “dismal, defeatist, relentlessly negative” Eeyore, the chancellor inflicted an own goal by calling EU negotiators “the enemy”. (He has since apologised for the “poor choice of words”.) Continue reading…
Via: Philip Hammond: defeatist Eeyore or the measured voice of reason? | Observer profile
Categories: English News