Uk politics

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Brexit Britain is putty in Trump’s hands

From our UK edition

President Donald Trump, famously, has two modes: flattery and hostility. Theresa May had a taste of the latter following Trump's decision to cancel his trip to the UK. But he has changed mode again for Davos – and is now laying it on thick. At their press conference today, he told the PM: ‘There was a little bit of a false rumour out there, I just wanted to correct it. We love your country. We have the same ideals and there’s nothing that would happen to you that we wouldn’t be there to fight for you ...  We’re on the same wavelength in every respect.' Music to Brexiteer ears.

Steerpike

Theresa May’s fondue dilemma

From our UK edition

We've all been there. You go to Davos to hang out with the global elite and drum up business for Brexit Britain in the ritzy resort – but then you decide that actually all you want is a fondue in peace. So, spare a thought for the Prime Minister. In today's Times, Theresa May's former advisor Katie Perrior recalls what went on the last time the Prime Minister went to Davos. Rather than meet with one of China's richest men, May opted to have a fondue: 'For instance, Jack Ma is a business figure of global importance. But when one of China’s richest men sought a meeting with Mrs May in Davos last year, he was told that she was too busy.

Katy Balls

Breaking: UK/US relationship upgraded from ‘special’ to ‘very special’

From our UK edition

Brexit doom-mongers step aside. After weeks of speculation, the relationship that exists between Britain and the US has just been upgraded from 'special' to 'very special'. Speaking at a joint press conference, Theresa May and Donald Trump were at pains to prove they had not fallen out –as recent reports had suggested following Trump's decision to cancel his trip to open the new US embassy in Vauxhall. Heaping the treacle on thick, the US president dismissed such reports as 'false rumours' and praised the British Prime Minister: 'We have great respect for everything you're doing and we love your country, we think it's truly great.

James Forsyth

Tory MPs are worried Theresa May wants to fight the next election

From our UK edition

Theresa May remains in place because there is still no agreed successor, I say in the magazine this week. As one senior Tory backbencher put it to me, ‘We take the view that while things are bloody awful, we don’t want to risk making things worse’. So does this mean that despite all the drama of the last seven days, nothing has changed? Well, no—I think some things have changed. First, nearly all Tories now agree that the May government is listless. Perhaps the more remarkable thing about the reaction to that Nick Boles tweet is how no one is really trying to argue with the substance of it. Even some of May’s most loyal supporters admit that the government doesn’t have much of a domestic agenda; they blame this on how all-consuming Brexit is.

Katy Balls

How the Tories could stumble into a leadership contest

From our UK edition

The weeks before a cabinet reshuffle are when a Prime Minister is at their most powerful. The threat of the backbench or the lure of promotion can be very useful when it comes to getting MPs to play ball. But as Theresa May is fast discovering, the weeks after a reshuffle – particularly an underwhelming one – can be the most dangerous. Today, the Sun reports that the recently knighted chair of the 1922 Committee Graham Brady has received almost enough letters (the required number is 48) from MPs to trigger a vote of confidence in May. The paper reports that Brady was 'ashen-faced' when he was handed one recently. If he gets only a handful more then a vote of confidence is in the offing and May's premiership could come to an abrupt end. So, how real is the threat?

David Butterfield

Are we entering a golden age of backbench politics?

From our UK edition

It’s been a while since the young H.H. Asquith told Spectator readers that ‘no third Party has ever been able to stand its ground in England.’ His leader, ‘The English Extreme Left’, appeared in 1876, when the enervated Liberal Party seemed destined to split. His core contention was that Britain would not, in fact could not, brook multi-party politics: For the last two hundred years there always have been two great Parties, and two only; and though that is in itself no reason why a third should not now be formed, it is a very serious practical obstacle in the way of its success. Parties, like other institutions, at any rate in England, grow, and are not manufactured.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Is time finally up for Theresa May?

From our UK edition

Is time up for Theresa May? A report in today’s Sun indicates that it could well be, with the paper suggesting that the chair of the party’s 1922 committee, Graham Brady, has told Tory MPs not to issue any more demands for a leadership challenge. Why does this matter? Because it suggests the threshold for a no confidence vote – 48 letters, or 15 per cent of the party’s MPs – could be approaching. Tory MPs would be ‘crazy’ to call time on May’s leadership, argues the Sun, which urges them to ‘resist’ making a move against the Prime Minister.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Old habits die hard for George Osborne, Davos Man

From our UK edition

George Osborne has returned to his old ways this week – flying to Davos as part of a contingent of Citizens of Nowhere who have made the luxury Swiss resort their home for the week. Only this year the global elite have been joined by some guests who could not be described as your typical attendee. Happily, Osborne welcomes the newfound interest in the event. the former Writing the diary in the new issue of The Spectator, the Evening Standard editor says 'Davos Man understands that the struggle takes many forms'. 'Shadow chancellor John McDonnell is braving the Glühwein to lecture us on Marxism,' he writes. 'Donald Trump is swapping cheeseburgers for Swiss fondue on his mission to put America first.

Steerpike

Presidents Club chair’s credentials made it into government press release

From our UK edition

The Financial Times investigation into a men-only charity dinner where hostesses were allegedly groped has sent shockwaves through Westminster today. Government minister Nadhim Zahawi has found himself in the hot seat over his attendance (he says he left early), while David Meller, a co-chair of the Presidents Club behind the event, has quit his non-executive role on the Department for Education board. Responding to an Urgent Question on the news, Anne Milton told MPs that she had never heard of the 'President Club' behind that dinner. However, Mr S is unsure that more longstanding members of the government will be able to use this line.

Lloyd Evans

Does Jeremy Corbyn think the Tories are to blame for human mortality?

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson came up early in PMQs. The Cabinet’s new ‘shadow chancellor’ has called for extra money – five billion quid – to be lavished on the NHS. Jeremy Corbyn asked Mrs May if she agreed. She dustily replied that the real chancellor had promised more than five billion last autumn. He’d pledged six! Six billion didn’t satisfy Mr Corbyn. He called the Prime Minister out by cutting her pledge in half and subtracting £200m. This gave £2.8bn which, he, said, had been ‘spread like thin gruel over two years.’ Good word, gruel. Evocative of prison-hulks and Dickensian poor-houses. It adds colour to Labour’s dream-picture of the Tories as a set of stuck-up, over-privileged, fox-hunting tramp-stranglers.

Steerpike

David Cameron: Brexit isn’t as bad as I expected

From our UK edition

Surprise guests at this year's Davos include Donald Trump and John McDonnell. But fear not, there's still the usual citizens of nowhere. David Cameron and George Osborne have upped (ski) sticks and headed to the luxury Swiss resort for the week. Unfortunately for the former Prime Minister, he appears to have been caught out by a roaming microphone. Channel 5 have released footage of Cameron in conversation with Lakshmi Mittal in which he lets his thoughts be known on Brexit. It turns out it's not so bad as he thought – though it's still a 'mistake': 'It’s frustrating. As I keep saying, it’s a mistake, not a disaster. It’s turned out less badly than we first thought. But it’s still going to be difficult.' https://twitter.

Ross Clark

Great Ormond Street is wrong to return the Presidents Club’s cash

From our UK edition

The Presidents Club dinner is not the type of event to which I tend to be invited and neither do I suspect I would go were I to be asked – although in truth that is as much down to my native tightfistedness as to the reports of boorish behaviour from this year’s event. I don’t like the idea of anyone trying to get me drunk in order that I might lose my inhibitions and start writing a very large cheque for charity, however worthy the cause. I would rather make my charitable donations when sober, thank you very much. Were I running a charity, on the other hand, I would be extremely grateful that such events exist.

James Forsyth

Dennis Skinner’s antics put Jeremy Corbyn off at PMQs

From our UK edition

Jeremy Corbyn has learnt from last week’s PMQs where Theresa May simply stood up and said she wasn’t going to answer as he hadn’t asked a question. His first two questions were short, sharp and to the point. He began by asking Theresa May if she agreed with Boris Johnson that the NHS needed an extra £5 billion. He followed that up by asking her who the public should believe about the NHS and the winter crisis, her or A&E doctors? Then, Corbyn slightly lost his thread. But this wasn’t really his fault. The chamber was distracted by a vigorous row between Dennis Skinner and the SNP MP Angus MacNeil; at one-point Skinner rose from his seat to jab his finger at MacNeil.

Melanie McDonagh

Thank goodness Turkey is not in the EU

From our UK edition

What, you might well ask, could possibly make the situation in Syria look much worse, after President Erdogan’s assault on the Kurds in Afrin? The Turks are, obviously, attacking the forces that did most of the heavy lifting when it came to dealing with Isis on the ground. Indeed, If it hadn’t been for the Kurds, it’s at least arguable that Isis would still be sitting tight in Raqqa rather than dispersed elsewhere. They are the only really reliable ally in the area for the US – though I take on board the argument that it was the US’s move in establishing a force of 30,000 border guards, dominated by Kurds, that set off the ever excitable Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest move. What, I repeat, could make this situation even worse? Let me answer myself.

Katy Balls

Forget pink, David Davis just rubbed out the government’s negotiating red lines

From our UK edition

During the government's crunch negotiations with Brussels to get 'sufficient progress' before Christmas, nervous Brexiteers began to worry that Theresa May was about to give too much away. Jacob Rees-Mogg used a question at PMQs to warn the Prime Minister that her Brexit red lines were ‘beginning to look a little bit pink’. He urged her to ‘apply a new coat of paint’ before she next goes to Brussels. So, it will come as some concern to the Conservative Brexiteers – and the members of the European Research Group, that Rees-Mogg now leads, that today Davis said anyone who goes into negotiations with 'red lines' is an 'idiot'.

Steerpike

Watch: David Davis saved by the bell

From our UK edition

David Davis is no stranger to accusations that he has dodged Parliamentary scrutiny over Brexit. This morning though, there was no getting out of an appearance in front of the Brexit select committee. Fortunately for the Brexit secretary however, he was briefly rescued during a tricky exchange about transitional arrangements when his phone went off. Davis scrambled to silence it quickly, before it died in his hands. Mr S. hopes Jean-Claude Juncker doesn't try to get in touch this morning...

Harry Mount

Meghan Markle and the return of American Anglophilia

Prince Harry's imminent wedding to Meghan Markle will reinvigorate the dying special relationship between Britain and America. It is a boost for the fading American regard for the monarchy. In America, the mother country is increasingly the forgotten country – and it has been fading for a century, ever since the First World War. As Sellar and Yeatman put it in 1066 and All That, after the allied victory 'America was thus clearly top nation, and History came to a full stop'. As the increasingly weaker party in the 242-year affair, we cherish the special relationship much more than the dominant partner. That great Anglo-American WH Auden – an exile to New York, born in York – got it right: 'If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me'.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Boris is right about the NHS

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson was reportedly humiliated in yesterday’s cabinet following his demand for more money for the NHS. If it was the Prime Minister’s intention to embarrass Boris Johnson it was a mistake, says the Times. In its editorial, the paper calls the ministerial discussions ‘an exercise in staged humiliation rather than consensus-building’. The PM may well be thinking that her ability to survive a tumultuous few months now means ‘that she is not only safe but steadily confounding her critics’. Such thinking would also be wrong, the paper argues, pointing out that Boris’s ‘return to trouble-making…reflects deepening frustration with Downing Street on both wings of the party’.

Tuesday

Katy Balls

What the government’s fake news unit tell us about the Brexit negotiations

From our UK edition

The UK government has today announced plans to establish a new unit to counter 'fake news'. This will serve as a 'dedicated national security communications unit' which aims to combat 'disinformation by state actors and others'. Announcing the move, the Prime Minister's spokesman said: 'we are living in an era of fake news and competing narratives.' Its creation has led to inevitable jokes, with Tim Farron declaring that the three Brexiteers – Boris, Gove and David Davis – 'should be the first investigations'. Meanwhile, others online have taken the swift government action as an indicator that Russian activity could have played a role during the EU referendum. However, the big Brexit takeaway lies elsewhere.

Isabel Hardman

Can Theresa May really survive all this Cabinet indiscipline?

From our UK edition

Theresa May does seem to lose more authority with each week. A reshuffle in which people refuse to move, followed by Cabinet ministers using the media to ask for more money for the NHS and defence. But does this make her more likely to go soon? That the Prime Minister is weak has been priced in since the general election. It means Cabinet ministers feel so confident that they can turn down job moves, send the head of the army out to complain about defence spending, and brief the newspapers about something they haven’t yet said. But the fact that this is so well-acknowledged, and has been for a long time, makes it less likely that May will have to go because people are settling in to the reality of a weak government.