Reorientation

From being in the thick of it, canvassing at the front-line of election politics, borrowing someone else's computer to snatch a quick posting, before dashing out again, to return home to the comfort of the familiar office and computer for a day or two is actually quite hard to take.

Driven by adrenaline all week, the rush has subsided and all that is left is an overwhelming fatigue. The words on the web, crying for conversion into the golden words of another EU Referendum post, seems to merge into a shapeless mass as the eyes glaze over and the brain rebels.

Actually, yesterday was quite fun. I was at the wheel of a Land Rover Discovery and we were hitting the outlying farms and settlements in the deepest, rural parts of the constituency, where I dropped off leafleters and canvassers at farms and little hamlets, bouncing up rough tracks and into farm yards, ending up with a car that looked as if we'd being doing some hard rallying.

In between, I indulged in a spot of flyposting and must congratulate the authorities – whoever they are – for these marvellous new footpath signposts. A deft few strokes of a hammer and a handful of galvanised nails and they are quickly converted into adverts for our candidates.

Back to reality – if you can call it that – still the vital issue of Chines textile imports and the protectionist attitude of the EU looks somewhat remote and I groan inwardly at having to tackle the issue, having cravenly avoided it all week.

Fortunately, Tim Worstall has done a piece on it so if you are throbbing with anticipation for this Blog's "take" on the issue, we can simply refer you to him and say "nous aussi".

Equally, in less pressured days, we would have done a posting about the resolution of the WTO sugar dispute, where the scandal of EU dumping of subsidised sugar has run its course, and the EU has finally been brought to book.

We had a lot to say about this last August, when the interim judgement was published and, since then the EU has been stalling, trying to avoid confronting the urgent need to "reform" the sugar regime. Now, Mandelson and his "colleagues" will have to bite the bullet.

Anyhow, despite the focus on the general election (or not – if you relied on the Sun or the Mirror front pages, you would not even realise there was an election going on), this weary Blogger is undergoing a quick reorientation.

We will resume posting on matters EU shortly, before returning to the fray next week the final push on the campaign trail, and the long, tedious wait at the count to hear the results of all our hard work.