Steerpike

What says ‘Theresa May’ more than a comic speech at a boozy dinner for a room full of journalists? That was the question the Prime Minister found herself asking a room of well hydrated hacks at last night's Westminster Correspondents Dinner. May took a break from the Irish border to regale journalists with a speech poking fun at her former colleagues, current colleagues, the lobby and ... Theresa May. To some surprise, May cracked several – successful jokes. She even found time to praise the Spectator's James Forsyth. Alas, not everyone was in such a jolly mood – Labour's Barry Gardiner was overhead muttering warnings to the press about what will happen to them (spoiler: not good) come PM Corbyn.

With the Irish border problem rearing its head once again this week, Sir John Major has popped up with an intervention Theresa May could probably have done without. In a speech today, the former prime minister urged May to keep Britain in 'a' customs union for the sake of the peace process. He went on to say MPs should be given a free vote on whether to accept or reject the final Brexit deal and that this should include the option to decide on a second referendum. However, Mr S can't help but sense a whiff of major hypocrisy in the air. Firstly, Major did not practise what he is preaching when he was Prime Minister. During his premiership, MPs were not given a free vote on the Maastricht treaty – it was whipped.

Oh dear. This week the Daily Mail published the findings of an investigation into the 'racist and thuggish' past of ex-Formula One boss Max Mosley. The paper asked whether Mosley – who donated more than £500,000 to Tom Watson, lied at his orgy privacy trial. Under oath at the High Court, Mosley denied a leaflet allegedly published by him on 'coloured immigrants' existed. However, the Mail claims to have tracked it down in a historical archive. The pamphlet says 'coloured immigrants' spread 'tuberculosis, VD and other terrible diseases like leprosy'. It says they should be sent 'home' because 'coloured immigration threatens your children's health'. Mosley denies the claims and appeared on Channel 4 news to try and defend himself.

Here we go again. Within Parliament it's no secret that there is little love lost between Conservative colleagues Boris Johnson and Tom Tugendhat. When Tugendhat suggested that it was 'really, really hard to do cross-cultural humour', the Foreign Secretary responded that jokes can be an ‘effective way of getting your diplomatic message across’. Now Tugendhat has gone in for the attack a second time. In an interview with Buzzfeed, the chair of the Foreign Affairs select committee says that the Foreign office has lost its way...

Oh dear. When the Sun reported this month that Jeremy Corbyn met with a Czech spy – posing as a diplomat – during the cold war, the story appeared to raise serious questions over the Labour leader's judgment. A spokesman for the Labour leader admitted he had met a diplomat, but said Corbyn had never knowingly talked to a spy. However, things took a turn for the obscure when former Czech intelligence officer Jan Sarkocy claimed that he met Corbyn and recruited him as an intelligence asset – a claim Labour dismissed as a 'ridiculous smear'. This denial wasn't enough to stop some Tories going on the offensive. Tory vice-chair Ben Bradley tweeted that Corbyn had 'sold British secrets to communist spies'.

Here we go. Ahead of today's crunch Cabinet away day at Chequers, Theresa May held a meeting with Dame Tessa Jowell. The Labour stalwart is suffering from a brain tumour – and the pair met to discuss what can be done to improve the 'woefully low' survival rates going forward. https://twitter.com/theresa_may/status/966667665552171010 Only such cross-party co-operation appears to be too much for some – even in circumstances of ill-health. The official UK Socialist Party Twitter account was quick to use the occasion to take a swipe at the Tories - they replied with what is surely a contender for 'worst tweet of 2018': Does that mean the £45m boost to brain tumour research will only affect Tessa Jowell? Stay classy...

Oh dear. It's safe to say that the Conservative party's foray into WhatsApp hasn't always been plain sailing. After MPs formed an official Tory MPs' group on the encrypted messaging app to communicate with one another, many presumed their conversations would be secure. Alas this hasn't proved to be the case – with the papers frequently filled with details of embarrassing exchanges on the group from bust-ups over Brexit to MPs outing each other for failing to understand what the customs union is. Happily, a solution is on the horizon. In today's i paper, Katy Balls reports that a number of Tory MPs are defecting to Confide – a “military-grade encryption” app with a self-destructing messaging system that deletes messages immediately after reading.