Eu

On the morning of the 24th June, Britain woke to find its stock market shattered and its pound pummelled. It appeared – for a brief moment – like all the prophecies of the Brexit doomsayers, not least the Great Seer Osborne, had come true. But then, from the wreckage of that mid-summer morning, green shoots began to appear, and now, more than two months down the line, it seems that Britain has bounced back. In his cover piece this week, Ross Clark argues that the Remain campaign fell victim to the perils of believing their opinion to be ‘objective fact’, and that economic recovery has humiliated the Treasury, Bank of England, and the other grand institutions who swore that Brexit would leave us poorer. So is he right?

Theresa May received the traditional desk banging reception when she addressed the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers. May pleased Tory MPs by emphasising that they  would have more opportunity to feed into policy making process now through George Freeman and the policy board and the green papers that will---once again—precede white papers. But what most excited Tory MPs was what May said about opportunity and grammar schools. May said that she would give a speech on a 21st century education system soon, explaining how selective schools--in other words, grammars--fit into the mix. Strikingly, she defended an ‘element of selection’ arguing that there is selection already in the system, and it is selection by house price.

‘When the world ends, I’ll go to Mecklenburg,’ quipped Bismarck, ‘because there, everything happens a hundred years later.’ Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has always been seen as somewhere behind the times, but has this sleepy backwater now become a portent of momentous things to come? In last weekend’s regional elections, Germany’s fledgling anti-immigration party, Alternative für Deutschland, came second, pushing Angela Merkel’s CDU into third place – in her own constituency. So was AfD’s Leif-Erik Holm right to say that this could be the beginning of the end for Merkel? And does this shock result mark the end of the beginning for AfD?

David Davis has just finished his first statement to the Commons on the process for the UK exiting the European Union. Davis’s initial statement stuck closely to what the government has said already; the coordinated Labour backbench heckle of ‘waffle, waffle’ had some truth to it. But it was striking that Davis said he hoped the UK’s security relationship with the EU would be as close or closer post-Brexit; in Whitehall, Britain’s intelligence and military capabilities are regarded as one of our key assets in the negotiation. But in answer to the questions that followed, Davis--a naturally frank politician—gave a clearer sense of what he means by Brexit.

Theresa May is on her way to her first G20 summit. But she has still sat down for the traditional start of term interview with Andrew Marr. Reading the transcript of it, it looks like a classic Theresa May interview: with very little given away. She avoided answering Marr’s questions on whether she would like to see more grammar schools and refused to say whether she shared her chief of staff Nick Timothy’s view that Chinese involvement in the Hinkley point nuclear project would be security risk. On Brexit, May said little new about the deal she would like to strike--confirming the sense that, as one Minister told me, the government is ‘a way away from forming a definitive position’.

It’s strange that, even now, the Brexit vote is routinely referred to as an expression of anger or frustration — as if the most easily baffled half of the population had voted in response to forces they could not understand. In fact, the result of the 23 June referendum seems to look wiser with every week that has passed. Of course, leaving has its risks. But 52 per cent of voters judged that a greater one lay in staying in a European Union that is changing all the time — and invariably for the worse.

Theresa May welcomed the Cabinet to Chequers with this address, just released by Number 10: 'Thank you very much for coming together today. It’s our first opportunity to meet since the summer recess, but also the first opportunity for us to meet since the fantastic success of the GB Team at the Olympics – absolutely great. And also the Paralympics will be starting very soon, so we wish our Paralympic athletes all the very best and success there as well. But obviously over the summer – over the last few weeks – quite a lot of work has been done. We’re going to be having an opportunity today to discuss this.

So the European Commission has today released its much-delayed iTax. This time, it’s not an Apple innovation but a ruling ordering Ireland to claw back €13bn in back tax from Apple – a record penalty and one that the company and Ireland have both vowed to appeal. The Commission announced its decision in a typically terse ruling, in which they chuck rotten fruit at Ireland’s low corporate-tax environment. But whilst every one is talking about tax, this fracas between the EC and Ireland over Apple’s bill—what we here locally might call a ballyhoo—actually has less to do with one of the two inevitabilities of life, and much to do with the Commission's Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager.