Uk politics

We've all been there. Having to ask someone to repeat themselves because you couldn't understand them is embarrassing enough. Spare a thought then for Sir Paul Beresford. In the Commons just now, the Tory MP failed to understand the Glaswegian accent of the SNP’s David Linden. Twice. Luckily for Beresford, deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle eventually stepped in to spare his blushes: “I think the answer might be helped if you can reply in writing,” he said. Oh dear...

I am very sorry to do this to you, but it turns out that the incendiary extension to the UK’s period as a non-voting member of the EU – the mooted extra months in “transition” – isn’t really an extension. It is an “option” on an extension, the right to have an extension. Yes you guessed it: what we are talking about is another flipping backstop. And yes I too am losing the will to live as these Brexit talks descend from giant geopolitics to nightmarish logical puzzles. Here is the background. The EU cannot – it insists – agree our preferred version of the Northern Ireland backstop as part of the Article 50 Withdrawal Agreement.

There is no Brexit transition period without a withdrawal agreement. There can be no withdrawal agreement without a deal on the Irish border, the trickiest issue as I say in the magazine this week, so extending the transition cannot solve this problem. Now, some say that extending the transition makes it less likely that the Northern Irish backstop would ever have to be used. But it is worth remembering that the DUP’s objections to the backstop are philosophical as much as practical, they don’t like even acknowledging the idea that Northern Ireland should be treated so differently to the rest of the UK.

In recent months, there has been speculation that John McDonnell has leadership ambitions – and a rift has formed between the shadow chancellor and his one-time comrade Jeremy Corbyn. So, it won't have gone unnoticed by the Leader's Office that McDonnell today embarked on a charm offensive of the MSM – also know as the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Speaking at a Press Gallery lunch, the socialist politician told hacks that he had decided to address lunch after his local priest suggested he needed to 'soften' his image: 'He persuaded me to do this. He said you need to soften your image. So do Mumsnet and do this…. I’m trying to soften my image.' The republican shadow chancellor even joined in on a toast to the Queen at the start of the lunch.

Today's Prime Minister's Questions was a little shorter than usual. This was partly because, as James says, John Bercow spoke rather less. Normally, the Speaker likes to lecture MPs about how their behaviour will appear to the public, even sometimes using the word 'bullying'. Such lectures will have considerably less force now, given Bercow is one of those criticised by the Dame Laura Cox report for failing to tackle the 'toxic culture' of bullying and sexual harassment in the House of Commons. There has, though, been undue focus on Bercow as a result of the way some on both sides have been approaching this matter.

A strange PMQs. Usually the session is dominated by honking throats and empurpled faces. Today there were interesting facts and useful opinions. Amazing! An expertly briefed Jeremy Corbyn put Theresa May on the spot by noting that she’d omitted to say ‘Chequers’ in her conference speech or during recent performances in parliament. So is it dead? No, she said. And the question forced her to mention her orphaned love-child by its baptismal name – ‘the Chequers plan’ – for the first time in weeks. Next, a financial shock. Corbyn asked her to confirm Philip Hammond's warning that quitting without a deal will still land us with a divorce bill of 36 billion smackers. May hedged, but didn’t deny it. Two strikes against her.