Bbc

Oh dear. As No 10 attempt to stop more Commons rebellions today on the customs bill, relations between Tory Remain rebels and Tory Brexiteers have hit an all-time low – and that's saying something. Appearing on the Daily Politics, Nadine Dorries launched a broadside against Anna Soubry over her comments in the Chamber on Monday – when the Tory MP accused her Brexiteer colleagues with a 'gold-plated pension and inherited wealth' of backing Brexit to the detriment of people's jobs. One such Brexiteer colleague's response? Dorries just described it as 'one of the worst moments that we have ever seen or witnessed in the chamber'. https://twitter.

The news that Eddie Mair is departing the BBC for LBC has been met with disappointment by his former comrades. However, Mr S suspects that there is one man who will today be breathing a sigh of relief. Step forward Boris Johnson. It’s no secret that the foreign secretary has a frosty relationship with the broadcaster - in fact, the majority of Boris’s broadcast gaffes have been when Mair was the one asking the questions: Mair to Boris – 'you're a nasty piece of work' In the first interview in 2013, Mair branded Boris a 'nasty piece of work'. He was referring to Mr. Johnson’s integrity, which came under scrutiny in Michael Cockerell’s contemporary documentary. The allegations had been made before, and indeed partially faced by Boris in a memorable HIGNFY.

The departure of David Dimbleby from Question Time is certainly sad from the point of view of the panellist. He was, in recent years, one’s sole protector. Calm, humorous, very slightly bored (but too polite to show it), David reminded one by his mere presence that there is a world of sane and civilised people outside the studio. He cheered me in adversity, rather as I once felt when I discovered Château Latour for £12 in an otherwise unremarkable hotel in Blackpool during a party conference. I also got no sense of his politics. Because he is rich, successful and on the BBC, I assume he must be mildly left-wing; but he has never given me any evidence to confirm or refute this theory.

Starbucks will close all its outlets for four working hours to train its staff out of ‘unconscious bias’, a decision which surely shows unconscious bias against all customers who might want a cup of coffee that day. The training was ordered after a member of staff called the police when two black customers came in and one asked to use the lavatory without buying anything. I wonder if the BBC might try such a shutdown on a grander scale. It would take at least four weeks — possibly four years — to train its staff out of unconscious bias on Brexit, Christianity, the sex war, paedophile accusations, immigration, Israel, Trump, abortion, global warming and so on.

To understand how the European Union works, and how it doesn’t, it helps to think of it as an empire. Empires are not fashionable just now, but they have their uses. At their best — Rome, Britain — they are capable of upholding common standards, preserving peace and prosperity, and helping civilisation flourish. The EU has often achieved some of these things. But when empires are challenged by significant numbers of their inhabitants, their fundamental lack of legitimacy is exposed. The EU has now reached this stage because of imperial overstretch and imperialist doctrines — the euro and mass immigration being the most important. Anti-imperial independence movements take many forms. Brexit is one.

These days Mr S rarely – if ever – finds himself agreeing with Anna Soubry on politics. The arch-Remainer has made it her mission to keep Britain in the customs union, the single market and ideally – Steerpike suspects – the EU. Yet, on Question Time this week, the Conservative MP managed to briefly strike a chord with many Brexiteers and Remainers alike: 'Good Lord, no.' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V13jKs2tL6w That said, if Soubry does go ahead with her customs union rebellion on the EU withdrawal bill, things may get very fraught indeed...

If the BBC really is, as Steve Bannon says, a communications department of the global elite, they messed up badly last night. Emily Maitlis’s 20-minute long interview with Bannon on Newsnight was mesmerising television — even, or especially, if you can’t bear the subject. It was also the longest advertisement for economic nationalism yet delivered to British viewers. No doubt Raheem Kassam, the close Bannon associate who’s just left Breitbart and has been on Newsnight a few times himself, had something to do with it.By airing the discussion, the Beeb disproves the Bannonite idea that it is part of an elite conspiracy to silence populist points of view on immigration.