Mr Irresponsible, aka Call me Dave, otherwise known as the Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron Esquire, has a lot of idiocies to his name. But surely the largest of these is his utterly obtuse decision to give in to the bullying of his Conservative cohorts and the threat of UKIP to his voting base by first promising and then granting them a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union.

Instead of lancing the boil (he warned his party not to continue to bang on about Europe) his indulgence of their obsession has now unleashed a tide of xenophobia and intolerance, egged on by those who knowingly encourage a false belief that the troubles experienced by various communities up and down the UK are as a result of external forces (the EU,) so-called lack of control (again the EU) or immigrants (supposedly the EU but there are more migrants into the UK from outwith the EU than from inside it – and many Britons living and working in the countries of the EU) rather than the banking crash and the policies his Government has followed ever since its election in 2010. (I know its first five years were in coalition but really it was a Conservative Government in all but name.)

This tide has been growing for years – stoked up by spurious newspaper stories of EU “impositions” and “red tape” and the simplicities of people who claim that the country’s problems have one solution – and has now taken the form of a vicious and intemperate “Vote Leave” campaign which has peddled all sorts of what may be politely called inaccuracies but are in fact downright lies and often strayed close to, if not over, the border of racism.

I know the “Remain” campaign has also given apocalyptic warnings of the consequences of a leave vote, but it has not been whipping up fear of others, nor blatantly arousing expectations which will not (cannot) be fulfilled. Against whom will the anger the “Leave” campaigners have stoked be directed when things do not get better? (Either “in” or “out”, ditching austerity is not on their or David Cameron’s agenda.)

Had I been in any doubt about which way I would vote in Thursday’s referendum the “Vote Leave” television broadcast claiming that the £350 million pounds a week of the UK’s contribution to the EU budget (a large part of which promptly gets sent back anyway) would – in a leave future – be spent on the NHS instead would have made my mind up. These guys have no intention of spending money on the NHS; they want rid of it. They want to privatise everything that moves (and everything that doesn’t.) The worse thing, though, was the highlighting of five Balkan countries said to be on the point of entry into the EU (none of which actually are any time soon) plus Turkey: Turkey! which has been moving ever further away from meeting accession criteria under its present government) and then a series of arrows, leaping, Dad’s Army style, over to Britain. As if every inhabitant of those countries would immediately up sticks and come to the UK as soon as they were given the opportunity. Some may, most will not.

Then there was “Vote Leave”‘s pamphlet – delivered by post – which handily showed Turkey as having borders with Syria and Iraq. Are Syria and Iraq applying for EU membership? I don’t think so. What possible purpose can their inclusion on this map have? (Except to stoke up fears of people from there coming through Turkey – and riding the arrows to Britain.) Well, they’re doing that anyway, as “Leave” well knows and plays on. Yet in their circumstances so would I – and so would every leave campaigner.

The circumstances under which this vote is taking place, the Eurozone under strain, a refugee crisis, a war on Europe’s margins (two if you include Turkey in Europe which geographically part of it is,) render its timing more than unfortunate. It is potentially disastrous.

I really fear that a leave vote will see other countries (but emphatically not those who border Russia) seek to leave the EU. These may even include France if the Front National wins power.

In that case there will certainly be unresolved tensions between France and Germany – and we know where that has led in the past.

What the leave campaigners don’t seem to have grasped, or have deliberately ignored, is that the EU was set up (as the European Coal and Steel Community, then the Common Market) precisely so that France and Germany would never go to war again. That is emphatically in the UK’s national interest, and may be at risk. The writer of this letter to the Guardian knows what is at stake.

Whatever the result on Thursday the passions this referendum seems to have inflamed, at least in England – there has been almost no sign of it taking place at all in the way of posters and window stickers round where I live – will not be stilled easily.

I’€™m not sure I want to wake up on Friday morning. I have this terrible feeling that Mr Irresponsible will win an outright majority.

It’€™s not that I’€™m in favour of Labour, though. Because of the nature of Labour in Scotland, I couldn’€™t bring myself to vote for them. But for all their drawbacks in the UK sense (Iraq, ID cards, other infringements of personal liberties, failure to bring the bankers to heel, not scrapping public private partnerships, intense relaxation about people being filthy rich) they are still better than the Tories. To take one example of their success, the NHS is immeasurably better than it was 13 years ago.

The reason that I dread a Mr Irresponsible premiership – more accurately I fear a George Osborne chancellorship -€“ is experience. The Tories have a track record. They seem to take a visceral delight in the cutting of public expenditure. But it’€™s all right for Cameron and Osborne; they’€™re well off and won’€™t be affected. (In fact, due to their inheritance tax plans, they’€™ll be even more quids in if their parents snuff it.)

It’€™s other people who will suffer, people who can least afford cuts, either in their benefits, their pensions or their jobs.

I know the other main parties are also saying they would make cuts but they are more likely to make efforts to mitigate the worst effects.

And don’€™t tell me the Tories are the party of low taxation. I well remember them during the 1979 election campaign denying claims that their plans would require the rate of VAT to be doubled. In their first budget after the election they raised VAT from 8 to 15%! (In subsequent Parliaments they raised it further to 17.5%.) VAT is a tax which hits most those who can least afford it.

I also fear for the BBC. It’€™s a great British institution which happens to be tremendously good at what it does. I would go so far as to say at everything it does. We would all miss it when it’€™s gone. I know we all have to pay for it almost willy-nilly but it is amazingly cheap at the price. The Tories are in Rupert Murdoch’€™s back pocket (as well as Lord Ashcroft’€™s) and he would like nothing better than to see the BBC dismantled or at least curtailed. Sky would not be able to give us such sterling service. It never could, because Murdoch is only seeking to turn a profit. I would rather never watch TV again than contribute to his coffers.

I know my vote is not going to make a difference. My sitting MP (Gordon Brown) has a huge majority and I can’€™t see it being overthrown. Besides when was the last time you heard that the incumbent PM actually lost his (or her) seat?

I genuinely don’t know for whom I’€™m going to vote; only that I will. Too many people fought too long and too hard for my right to do so for me not to honour them. But it will not be Tory or Labour.

If Mr Irresponsible should win on Thursday then, in the words of a prominent 1980s politician, I warn you not to be old, I warn you not to be ill, I warn you not to be poor.

The trouble is that, down the line, you (and I) are likely to be at least two of those things, if not all three.

No British voter elects a Prime Minister. Neither do we elect a government.

All we vote for – all we ever vote for – in UK General Elections is a representative, a single member of Parliament.

I have voted in nine General Elections and have yet to find a question on the ballot paper asking me who(m) do I wish to be Prime Minister – or indeed whom I wish to be in government.

The only person who can be said to “vote” for the Prime Minister is the monarch – at present the Queen – who invites an MP to form a government (albeit usually on advice from the outgoing PM.) This is true whether that invited MP can “command” a majority in the House of Commons or not. It is Parliament (a word, by the way, derived from French and meaning, almost literally, talking shop) which decides whether a government exists or not; as only the House of Commons can vote a government down.

In this regard I find the complaints that Gordon Brown was an unelected PM to be strange, even ignorant – if not deliberately mischievous. He was as elected – or unelected – as Tony Blair, John Major, Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Alec Douglas Home, Harold MacMillan etc. etc. before him.

Every Member of Parliament has been elected, except, in days past, for the Speaker, whom convention required to be unopposed – and he or she could not become PM. UKIP and others are, I believe standing against John Bercow on May 6^th. Michael Martin had some opposition too last time as I recall.

In the 2005 General Election Gordon Brown’s name certainly appeared on my ballot paper. To call him unelected was a distortion of the truth, at best. It subsumes into the term only those closed electorates which may choose a political party’s leader. Not being a member of any of them I was not consulted when those parties made their respective choices so in that respect, but in that respect alone, they were/are all unelected. As has been every Prime Minister in my – and anybody else’s – lifetime.

Still, if Mr Irresponsible or even that inoffensive Mr Clegg become PM after next Thursday I may take some delight in dubbing them unelected.

I noted it mentally at the time but let it pass. However, Call me Dave’€™s remarks last night brought it to mind again.

His posturing over Georgia would have gone beyond recklessness if it were to be repeated in office. [I have to say here that David Milliband was as bad back then. Don’€™t they have advisers who know about this stuff?]

But not only did Call me Dave get it wrong over Georgia and thereby possibly antagonise Russia, he now wants to target nuclear weapons on Iran and China. Note Nick Clegg’€™s startled reaction in the clip.

Iran!

Iran which does not have nuclear weapons (any more than Iraq had: anyone with knowledge of the Middle Eastern psyche knows what I’€™m talking about here) and which therefore our threatening them with amounts to bullying. And nobody likes a bully.

And China!

China: with whom we have no quarrel and which has more than enough capacity to make ours seem piddling and which, therefore, it makes no sense to threaten.

Quite apart from the fact that the UK most likely can not or will not use its nuclear weapons without prior US approval and we probably only have them because the French do too (as Yes, Minister put it once) what on Earth was he thinking? Or did he just let his mouth run away with him?

Either way such talk is dangerous and does not bode well for the country’€™s international relations under a Call me Dave premiership. For you can be sure the relevant authorities in Moscow, Tehran and Beijing (not to mention elsewhere) will have taken due note. Mehdi Hassan in the New Statesman makes much the same point.

So, Dave, I’€™m not going to call you Dave.

I’€™m going to call you irresponsible.

I caught the preamble to Call Me Dave’s launch of the Conservatives’ manifesto today. Over the PA they were playing all sorts of songs with “change,” “changes” or “better” in their lyrics – except of course D:Ream.

Did the Tories have permission to do this?

One of the songs was Bowie’s Changes, which contains the line “Don’t want to be a richer man.”

I don’t suppose Dave does: he comes from money and took good care to marry even more.

The song also has, “You’ve left us up to our necks in it.” Was this a prediction, Dave?

Look out you rock ‘n’ rollers.