Theresa may

We’re off! The two year countdown until Brexit has begun. Theresa May’s triggering of Article 50 has been met with unanimous praise in the press, with the newspaper editorials saying the PM hit all the right notes in her letter. But there was controversy too. Some are saying the inclusion of a message suggesting Britain’s co-operation on security matters is at stake is an unhelpful threat to Brussels. Here's what the papers are saying about a historic day for Britain: Theresa May’s Article 50 letter was ‘pitch-perfect’, says the Sun, which argues that the Prime Minister succeeded in balancing generosity with a ‘flash of steel’. The onus now, the paper says, is for the EU to follow in May’s footsteps.

Tactics! At long last. Jeremy Corbyn actually used tactics at today’s PMQs. For the first time ever he divided his six questions into two three-ball overs. He spent the initial trio on last week’s terror attacks. Then, after an unsettling delay, he used three more on Mrs May’s fibs about school budgets. She says they’ve been ‘protected’. He says they’ve been ‘cut’. Protected. Cut. Cut. Protected. On it went. Mr Corbyn had a superb ally in the Public Accounts Committee which seems to support his view. The exchange might have been tricky for Mrs May but Mr Corbyn still can’t ram home a simple advantage. Rather than forcing her to repudiate the committee and its grandees he brought in a new, and far weaker, witness.

It is very good to be with you here with you today, and particularly to be able to thank you all for the work you do on behalf of the Government and on behalf of the British people. Vital work that helps millions around the world and speaks strongly to the values that we share as a country. And it is vital work. Not just because the things you do here have a material impact on the lives of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people around the world. But also because the work you do here – in conjunction with your colleagues at the Department for International Development in London – says something important about Britain. It says that we are a kind and generous country.

When a humanitarian tragedy disappears from our newspapers, there are two possibilities: that the crisis is over and life for survivors is gradually returning to normal — or that the human toll has become so routine as to no longer be considered newsworthy. Sadly, the deaths of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean to seek a new life in Europe fall into the latter category. Eighteen months after the photographs of little Alan Kurdi’s body on a Turkish beach generated a huge swell of public emotion, entire families are still dying on a regular basis. In the first ten weeks of this year, some 525 people were lost crossing the Mediterranean. Europe is still no closer to ending this outrage.

Speaking in Downing Street this evening, Theresa May has urged people to go about their business normally tomorrow. In a statement that struck an appropriately defiant tone, May said that the targeting of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament ‘was no accident’. But that that any attempt to defeat the values of ‘democracy, freedom, human rights, the rule of law’ through ‘violence and terror is doomed to fail’. Talking of the police officer who died in the attack, and the others who have been injured, she praised the ‘exceptional bravery of our police and security services who risk their lives to keep us safe’. This is the first terrorist attack that Theresa May has had to deal with as Prime Minister.