Uk politics

Friday

Stephen Daisley

Why is Sturgeon rolling out the red carpet for Catalonia’s president?

Pity the flunky at Bute House, official residence of Nicola Sturgeon, whose job it is to get the red carpet ready for formal visits. The poor lad mustn’t know whether he’s coming or going. Two weeks ago, the First Minister said it wasn’t ‘appropriate at this time for the red carpet to be rolled out’ for Donald Trump. ‘Meetings are one thing, perhaps, but red carpet treatment is another,’ she added. McJeeves shouldn’t store away the crimson runner just yet though. Next Wednesday, Sturgeon will welcome to Bute House, Joaquim ‘Quim’ Torra, the publisher turned politician who was sworn in as Catalan president in May.  The Scottish Nationalists are dabblers

Steerpike

Nigel Farage offers May a Brexit incentive

Theresa May has come under some pressure these last few weeks over her plan for Britain’s post Brexit trade relationship. Both wings of her party have aggressively pitched their preferred version. Today it’s crunch time as the Cabinet head to Chequers to thrash out a position. But has the most convincing argument for the Brexiteer side only just aired? With rumours circling that May is to pitch a soft Brexit, Nigel Farage has threatened a comeback. The former Ukip leader has warned that he will have ‘no choice’ but to return to frontline politics if Brexit is delayed past March 2019. I’ll have no choice but to return to frontline

Thursday

James Forsyth

Number 10: We’ll do a free trade deal with the US

Earlier I wrote about how a paper circulated to ministers before Chequers makes clear that the UK’s plan to follow a ‘common rulebook for all goods including agri-food’ with the EU ‘would not allow the UK to accommodate a likely ask from the US in a future trade deal’ as the UK would be unable to recognise the US’s ‘array of standards’. But Number 10 are absolutely insistent that this doesn’t mean there won’t be a trade deal with the US; they also say that senior figures in government and trade experts are confident that a deal could still be done and that Theresa May wouldn’t be talking to Donald Trump

Steerpike

Naz Shah gets another NHS payday

‘Happy 70th Birthday to our wonderful NHS,’ the Labour MP Naz Shah tweeted earlier today. Shah isn’t the only one marking the anniversary, but it would seem that the Labour MP has more to celebrate about our health service than most. The latest register of MPs’ interests reveals that last month Shah received £1,800 for providing ‘leadership training’ for the NHS. The payment, for twelve hours’ work, means that Shah earned a healthy £150 an hour. This isn’t the first time that Shah has received a payday from the NHS. Last year, the Labour MP took home £1,200 from the NHS for delivering two leadership training sessions at the NHS Leadership

Katy Balls

How many kamikaze Tory MPs even are there?

It’s the night before the Chequers summit and it’s all starting to kick off. After James revealed on Coffee House that the key Brexit customs paper passed by No 10 to Cabinet Ministers ahead of tomorrow’s meeting could be perceived as effectively ruling out a post-Brexit trade deal with the US, Brexiteers have been quick to see red. Right on cue, Jacob Rees-Mogg has said that if May’s proposal is as reported it spells vassal state. The Brexit Secretary has written a letter to the Prime Minister outlining his problems with the government approach. Meanwhile, 46 Tory MPs – including 11 former cabinet ministers – have written to Theresa May, urging her to

James Forsyth

Theresa May’s Brexit paper could mean no US trade deal

Earlier this afternoon, Cabinet Ministers received key papers ahead of the Chequers meeting tomorrow. The paper states that ‘The UK should maintain a common rulebook for all goods including agri-food’. It goes on that the UK will make ‘an upfront choice to commit by treaty to ongoing harmonisation with EU rules on goods’. As I say in the magazine this week, one of the key questions is how this will be done. If, as Downing Street currently wants, parliament is in charge of this process then the Brexiteers might be able to stomach it. But if the EU insist on this process being automatic then I expect that several Cabinet

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Government to hold emergency talks after second Novichok poisoning

After counter-terror police confirmed that two people who had collapsed in Amesbury, Wiltshire over the weekend had been poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has announced that he will chair a meeting of the government’s emergency committee, Cobr. In a statement released a few minutes ago, Javid said: ‘The Amesbury investigation is ongoing and the police must be given the space they need to continue establishing the full facts. ‘My thoughts at this time are with the two individuals affected. The Government’s first priority is for the safety of the residents in the local area but as Public Health England has made clear, the risk to

Douglas Murray

Why I won’t appear on the Guardian’s anti-Trump panel

Should I help the Guardian to make money? The question arises because the paper’s emissaries have been badgering me to agree to appear on their platform later this month. In itself this is a strange thing. I’m all for ecumenicalism, but the Guardian would seem to be the worst possible platform. My own experience of the paper is not only that it has the most flagrant bias of any UK publication, but that when it is caught in an error it is the most reluctant to publish corrections, apologies or retractions. Indeed, experience shows that the paper is more unwilling than President Trump to admit it has ever got anything

Lloyd Evans

Theresa May plays the blame game at PMQs

The Speaker continues to use PMQs as a sort of rolling news platform where his millions of fans can catch up on all his latest activities. As a devoted Berc-oholic, I was delighted to learn this afternoon that my hero has made a new friend. Two friends in fact. He delivered the announcement early in the session when he stood up and addressed the chamber with all the solemnity of an archbishop opening a youth detention centre: ‘May I remind the house that we are today visited by an American state senator whom I had the great privilege of meeting earlier with his wife.’ He urged MPs to entertain these

James Forsyth

Why did Corbyn talk about buses not Brexit at PMQs?

Today’s PMQs could have been very tricky for Theresa May. Jeremy Corbyn had an array of targets to choose from. He could have pressed for Brexit detail ahead of Chequers, mocking the Cabinet divisions on the topic. He could have gone on the National Audit Office excoriating Esther McVey over her claims on Universal Credit. Or he could have asked about the Electoral Commission finding against Vote Leave – a campaign that two of her Cabinet Ministers were at the heart of. If these options weren’t enough, he could have got her to respond to the US letter demanding that the UK spend more on defence if is to maintain

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May’s Brexit gaffe

Theresa May has promised repeatedly that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ but it seems she is still confused about what exactly Britain’s departure from the EU involves. In PMQs today, May said: ‘As we leave the UK…as we leave the EU…’ This mixup is unlikely to inspire confidence ahead of this week’s crunch Chequer’s summit. Perhaps it’s time for the PM to brush up on some Brexit detail…

Ross Clark

The problem with Theresa May’s Brexit compromise

At Chequers over the next couple of days Theresa May, along with her chief Brexit-sceptic ministers Philip Hammond and Greg Clark, will attempt to convince others to agree to a soft Brexit. The latest thinking, according to reports today, is that the UK would more or less remain in the single market for goods but would face greater restrictions on trade in services. There would also be some degree of freedom of movement, though it would be more restricted than at present. A necessary compromise that will stave off the fear of ‘no deal’, or a cave-in which will hugely favour the EU? The problem is that the UK economy

James Kirkup

Labour and Tories finally see the truth about the gender debate

You might not have noticed that yesterday the Government announced possible changes to the Gender Recognition Act. That’s what ministers wanted: the announcement was carefully made late in the day and was partly obscured by an earlier promise to ban “conversion therapy” that tries to stop gay people being gay. Why did the Government bury its transgender announcement? The approach was very different last autumn when the Prime Minister herself fronted a prominent media drive which Tory spinners said showed that the Conservatives were inclining towards a system of “self-identified” gender. Yesterday, by contrast, ministers released a deliberately neutral set of consultation questions and kicked decisions on reform into early 2019

Steerpike

Jared O’Mara, Labour MP

Good news for people who love bad news. Jared O’Mara, a former member of the Labour Women and Equalities select committee, has been reinstated as a Labour MP. He had the whip removed in October over a series of online posts and claims he verbally abused a woman – from his time before becoming an MP. However, an investigation by the Labour Party yesterday ruled the Sheffield MP should have the party whip restored – and a formal warning for good measure. For those who need a refresher, here are a few facts about the newly reinstated Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam: Jared on Angelina He favourably compared a ‘shredtastic’ Sheffield

Tuesday

Robert Peston

Revealed: Theresa May’s soft Brexit plan

This is one of the more important notes I’ve written recently, because it contains what well-placed sources tell me are the main elements of the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan – which will be put to her cabinet for approval on Friday. I would characterise the kernel of what she wants as the softest possible Brexit, subject to driving only the odd coach over her self-imposed red lines, as opposed to the full coach and horses. And I will start with my habitual apology: some of what follows is arcane, technical and – yes – a bit boring. But it matters. Let’s start with the PM’s putative third way on a

Steerpike

The Guardian fails to get into the World Cup spirit

England’s crunch World Cup game against Colombia is only a few hours away now and the whole country is getting excited. Over at the Guardian, however, the big game is a perfect opportunity to take a pop at Brexit voters. According to a piece on the paper’s website, ‘If this England team represents anyone, it’s the 48%: the remainers’. It goes on to say: Of course, what the article doesn’t make clear is what stop and search actually has to do with Brexit. And nor does it have much time apparently for the third of Asian voters, or the 27 per cent of black voters, who voted in favour of

Steerpike

Watch: Siri interrupts Gavin Williamson in the Chamber

It’s safe to say that Gavin Williamson has had a difficult few weeks. After the Mail on Sunday splashed on the Defence Secretary’s supposed threat to bring down Theresa May over a funding row, Williamson has been on the receiving end from his colleagues. So, is Williamson close to handing over the reins to someone else? Mr S only asks after he appeared to leave it to his phone to do the talking today in the Chamber. Williamson’s Siri staged an intervention while he was at the despatch box: When Siri interrupts as you're delivering a statement to Parliament… pic.twitter.com/NDsNUJDPV3 — BBC Parliament (@BBCParliament) July 3, 2018 Siri: I’ve found

Katy Balls

How is Theresa May’s NHS funding boost landing with voters?

How is Theresa May’s big £20bn funding pledge landing with the public? That’s the question Tory MPs are beginning to ask. The Prime Minister’s – currently unfunded – early birthday present for the NHS to celebrate its 70th birthday was announced to much fanfare last month. It was meant as an agenda setting policy that would help to define her premiership, show there was more to Mayism than Brexit and boost the Tories’ standing with voters. As of yet though, signs of an immediate Tory boost are absent. A YouGov poll – taken 25-26 June about a week after it was announced – puts the Tories ahead with a five-point

Steerpike

Tory Brexit wars: Ed Vaizey vs Owen Paterson

The big Brexit crunch meeting at Chequers isn’t until Friday but already Tory civil war is breaking out into the open. The divisions in the Conservative party on Brexit had previously been confined to a couple of spats on Twitter. Not any longer if today’s Daily Politics bust-up between Ed Vaizey and Owen Paterson is anything to go on. While Tory MPs who appear alongside each other on TV can usually be relied on to back each up, it seems that when it comes to Brexit, these rules don’t apply: Paterson: “You cannot dismiss the election and neither can the Labour party. Theresa May, forget the seats, she got the second largest

Steerpike

DexEU chief: staff should try 10 minutes of ‘chairobics’ a day

As the Cabinet’s Brexit crunch meeting draws closer, there’s heightened speculation that it’s Olly Robbins – the Prime Minister’s Europe Adviser and former DexEU Permanent Secretary – who is calling the shots rather than Brexit Secretary David Davis. On Monday, Davis met with Theresa May but it’s not clear he was even updated on the ‘third way’ customs plan in the works. Rumours are circulating that the official Brexit department is being forced to take a back seat in the big Brexit decisions. So, Mr S was curious to note the message sent out by the Permanent Secretary, Philip Rycroft, for the Department for Exiting the European Union to kick off