Richard Rampant

Superb levels of Britishness are on display from Dirty Dick Desmond, the plucky little entrepreneur whose plans for affordable accommodation once gained him the rare distinction of finding a use for Robert Jenrick. Formerly the owner of the Daily Express, which plays Tweedledullard to the Rothermere Daily Stürmer's Tweedledastard, Desmond naturally supported the Farage Falange in the debate over independence from the beastly Euro-wogs; so he must find it terribly traumatic to be forced to rely on a Strasbrussels Diktat for the accommodation of his latest hissy-fit. Not only did the regulator reject Desmond's bid to run the National Lottery: it ventured to call the bid "fanciful" while scoring it substantially below those from rival companies, and awarding the contract to a foreign operator. Desmond is invoking retained EU law to sue the Gambling Commission for a couple of hundred million, and the commission's chief executive disingenuously claims the money might have to come out of lottery funding for good causes, as if any cause in modern Britain could be more worthy than the offended feelings of a Brexiteer.