Steerpike

The Conservative MP, Scott Mann, was widely mocked this morning, after he suggested that Britain's knife-crime epidemic could be solved by putting a GPS tracker inside every single knife in the UK: https://twitter.com/scottmann4NC/status/1106128906480951296 Quite quickly, it was pointed out that there might be a slight flaw in the MP for North Cornwall's plan: there are a lot of knives in the UK, and a lot of them are used for things other than stabbing people. Happily, his colleague and fellow MP Johnny Mercer was on hand to help today, and headed to Mann's office, newly dubbed the 'Ministry of Good Ideas' to see what the general public thought of his inspired policy idea. Watch here: https://twitter.

Following the government's defeat on a motion ruling out no deal, Brexiteer MPs in the Tory party will be asking themselves one key question this evening: if Brexit might not happen at all, should I support May's deal? The issue already appears to have split some of the Brexiteers in parliament, with MPs such as former Brexit secretary David Davis swinging behind May's agreement, while ERG chairman Steve Baker has said he'll continue to vote it down. One parliamentarian who doesn't like he's going to budge though is Brexiteer and ERG member Mark Francois. Speaking to Sky news presenter Beth Rigby following the vote against no deal, Francois was asked: 'I don't understand: why you don't just take her deal and bank the win?

When seven Labour MPs formally announced that they were leaving the party to form the Independent Group on 18 February, it didn't take long for deputy Labour leader Tom Watson to release a video about their departure. In his statement, Watson lamented that his colleagues had decided to leave and suggested that there should be a reshuffle of Labour's front bench, to accommodate the 'Social democratic and democratic socialist traditions' of the party. Three weeks later, on the 9 March, Watson changed tack and announced that instead he would form a new party for social democrat MPs within Labour, called 'Future Britain Group', which had its first meeting today.

What does the Independent Group actually stand for? We know what they are against: Brexit and anti-Semitism. But so far the fledgling group has been somewhat shy about coming up with policies. With TIG MPs this week reportedly entering talks with the Electoral Commission about become a political party, they had better get a move on. Only Mr S. suspects the task won't be an easy one, given that one of their members – former Tory MP Anna Soubry – seems to take a difference stance to the bulk of their colleagues on most issues. To help out, Steerpike has compiled a list of where Anna Soubry stands compared to her new colleagues: Brexit: It's safe to say that when it comes to Brexit, TIG and Soubry are a match made in Parliamentary heaven.

At her speech in Grimsby this afternoon Theresa May made an attempt to get her colleagues in parliament to coalesce around her Brexit deal, by warning them about the dangers of Brexit being cancelled. It seems though that she may have alienated at least some of the audience today, when she took questions from the press on International Women's Day. As May left the podium after taking all her questions, ITV's Libby Wiener chimed in with another: why had May only taken one question from a female journalist? May appeared not to have heard as she left the stage, but just before she exited the room, turned round and quipped back: 'You've had all your questions answered by a female prime minister.' https://twitter.com/CBrockelbank/status/1104007936928612352 Fair enough.

With Theresa May's departure expected later this year, a host of ambitious males are keen to parade their wares. Frontrunner Boris Johnson has lost weight and is the RSPCA’s new pin-up boy, while Sajid Javid is trying to show his strength through the medium of ostracising Isis brides. On Wednesday night, it was David Davis's turn to make his mark.  The former Brexit secretary appeared in noticeably slender form for an event at the Adam Smith Institute where he began proceedings by introducing himself as a 'romantic radical'. Looking back on his university years at Warwick, Davis appeared to imply that he had an appeal to the Left as well as traditional Tory voters.