“The Government is in favour of staying in the EU.”
Regardless of the leaflet, this is where I part company with Mr Cameron. He made it quite clear that if he did not secure fundamental reform of the EU he would recommend that the UK’s best interests lie outside. Despite his constant references to a “reformed” European Union, by any stretch of the imagination he secured no such reforms. The EU doesn’t do reform and he should have known before he made his pledge that he would fail. But now here he is, publishing his booklet “Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK”. What’s changed?
“By the way - £9million to design, print and distribute leaflets...someone is being shafted here...”
I don’t know whether you think it’s a good or bad deal, sp. Personally I think the cost has been considerably understated – a point which I made over the weekend. Even discounting delivery charges because the government is said to benefit from “free” mail delivery (which I don’t for reasons I made clear) how we can be expected to believe that the booklet could be conceived, designed, drafted, printed and bound on its glossy paper with its HD photographs for 34p a pop befuddles me. I know the design work costs the same whether you produce one or 27m copies, but the costs of the paper, printing and distribution (to Royal Mail centres) alone must exceed £9m.
And on top of that most of the (limited) contents can be filed under “lies”, “half truths”, “optimistic speculation”, or “fiction”.