The worst men always find themselves in others. If they are instinctive liars, they accuse their opponents of lying. If they mistreat women, they assume all other men do the same. If they are sleazy, over-promoted know-nothings, they see their angry faces in every stranger they meet.
On this reading, Liam Fox’s barroom tirades are just the voice of his own subconscious speaking truth to a man who should be a thousand miles from power. When Fox said the British were ‘too lazy and fat’ to be a free-trading people, he did not realise he was describing himself. When he said British managers were not up to the task of exporting because they preferred to spend Friday afternoons on the golf course, he was confessing in his inchoate way that the 19th hole was his natural home.
Beyond wondering why the supposedly sensible Theresa May made Fox her International Trade Secretary, there did not seem much else to say.
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