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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
William Keegan

Brexit’s Falstaff can’t bluff his way through this any longer

Boris Johnson looking down and running his hand through his hair while speaking at a podium
Johnson: reality beginning to dawn. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

Way back in the mid-1960s, during a quiet summer, a former journalist turned public relations man persuaded the chairman of a public company to conduct a search for the Loch Ness monster.

Quiet summers used to be known in Fleet Street as the “silly season”. One day, the PR man responsible for what was essentially a publicity stunt was called into the chairman’s office. The chairman, a retired general, was in a state of panic. “What on earth are we going to do if we find the monster?” he said.

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