Tom Goodenough

Deal or no deal? Whatever type of Brexit Britain ends up with, the government should take the prospect of walking away with nothing seriously, says the Daily Telegraph. Yet the postponement of the EU withdrawal bill, which may not now come before Parliament for several weeks because of a looming Tory rebellion, does not bode well. The Telegraph stops short of echoing the warning of Labour’s Keir Starmer that the delay sums up the “paralysed” state of the current administration. But there remains ‘a palpable sense...of a catastrophe in the making’. With the Brexit stalemate unlikely to be broken this week, a Brexit no deal could end up as the ‘default’ option – making ‘proper preparations’ vital, says the Telegraph.

Monday night’s Brexit dinner was ‘constructive and friendly’, both sides have insisted. Yet it’s hard to tell what purpose the discussions involving the Prime Minister and Jean Claude-Junker actually served, says the Daily Telegraph. The ‘deadlock’ remains firmly in place, and ‘the best Mrs May managed to extract was that negotiations would “accelerate” in the coming months’. So what’s the hold-up? The answer lies with Brussels, says the Telegraph, which argues that ‘citizen’s rights could be sorted out tomorrow’ if the EU wanted to move things on.

Hate crime is up – and Brexit is to blame. It’s a familiar story and one doing the rounds again today following the publication of Home Office statistics on the level of hate crimes last year. The numbers do seem troubling: these offences rose by a third last year, and there was a spike in hate crimes around the time of the EU referendum, as this graph shows: But can this rise really be blamed on Brexit? Did people really turn on each other in the heady days after the referendum? There are a number of reasons to think not. Firstly, a rise in hate crime wasn’t isolated to last year. In 2015/16, hate crime was up by 20 per cent on the previous year. In 2014/15, it rose by 18 per cent; and in 2013/14, it also increased.

No deal is better than a bad deal – and it’s also better than a Corbyn government, says the Daily Telegraph in its editorial this morning, in which the paper says that if Labour oust the Tories, Britain would 'become an inward-looking, statist, high-taxing country that would scare away international investors’. The ‘historic opportunity’ gifted by Britain’s departure from the EU would ‘be rendered nugatory’ under Corbyn, whose plan for government is a 'recipe for impoverishing the nation’. The claims of the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, that PFI contracts can be binned with equanimity are for the birds’, the paper says.

‘It is now blindingly obvious’, says the Sun, ‘that the EU is making impossible demands.’ Just consider how Brussels is pointing the finger at Britain for the lack of progress in Brexit talks. ‘Anyone can see’ that this standstill is more to do with the EU wanting a ‘monstrous’ payment up front without ‘anything firm in return’, argues the paper – and ‘David Davis would be out of his mind to buckle’. It's clear, too, that the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, ‘must regret the untenable position ­Germany and France have put him in’. It's true that the deadlock could break by next week and Barnier and Britain will finally be allowed to talk trade.

Britain will now almost certainly have to wait until Christmas for the start of trade talks with the EU. This wasn’t the original plan, with the initial timetable suggesting these discussions could start in October. So what’s going wrong? Some are blaming the EU - and it’s true that the leaders of France and Germany are ‘behaving mulishly’ and ‘irrationally’, says the Daily Telegraph. But maybe the blame also lies closer to home. Deputy PM Damian Green has said he would still back ‘Remain’ if the referendum took place today, Theresa May ‘refused to say whether she would now vote for Brexit’ and the Chancellor is saying he won't commit funds to prepare for a Brexit ‘no deal’.

Philip Hammond has got himself into something of a bind over planning for a Brexit ‘no deal’. The Chancellor has ruled out - at least for the time being - spending money on contingency plans for a scenario in which Britain walks away from the EU without an agreement. The problem with this strategy is that it undermines Theresa May’s ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ approach. Put simply, how credible is the government’s line on being ready to walk away empty-handed if planning for such an outcome takes a back seat for now? It’s also surprising for the Chancellor to rule out preparing for a scenario seen as being a 50-50 bet by some of his colleagues in the Cabinet.

Grant Shapps’ bid to stir up a rebellion against Theresa May has almost certainly failed. Instead, his decision to publicly call on the PM to go has shown that even after the Tories’ lacklustre conference May still retains a wide degree of support among the party’s MPs.

Theresa May’s Tory party conference speech was a memorable one if only for all the wrong reasons. A prankster, her faltering voice and a broken sign meant the Prime Minister’s reboot did not go to plan. Here is the newspaper verdict on May’s nightmare speech: The luck that all leaders need has ‘deserted Theresa May’, says the Times. The Prime Minister’s speech was undoubtedly a ‘presentational disaster’. Yet while ‘there will be many who see this ill-starred speech as the last straw’, whether the PM survives ‘cannot be decided on the basis of optics’.

All eyes will be on Boris Johnson when he takes to the stage in Manchester this afternoon. The Foreign Secretary isn't the only big fixture at the Conservative party conference though. Here is the pick of the action from the conference and the fringes: Party conference: 10.00 - 12.30: Fighting injustices: Secretary of State for Health; Secretary of State for Justice; Home Secretary 14.00 - 14.50: Securing the best Brexit deal for Britain: Co-Chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists; Secretary of State for International Trade; Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union 14.50 - 16.

The Conservative party conference is underway. In the days after the doomed snap election, Theresa May didn't look as though she would make it this far. But the Prime Minister has clung on. Here are the highlights to look out for on day one: Party conference: 10.30 - 12.30: Meeting of the National Conservative Convention. Alexandra Suite, Midland Hotel  14.00 - 14.50: Welcome to Conference: Conference Chairman; Conservative Party Chairman; First Secretary of State 14.50 - 15.45: Delivering a fairer future for young people: Secretary of State for Education; Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government 15.45 - 16.

Finally, Theresa May has – in her speech marking the Bank of England's independence – offered the defence of capitalism ‘that the country has been waiting to hear’, says the Daily Telegraph. It’s about time, argues the paper, which accuses Jeremy Corbyn of ‘selling a vision of socialism’ to an audience too young to remember the 'grim' seventies. This makes it vital that the Tories fight back. The ‘intellectual case’ for capitalism is an ‘easy’ one for the party to make. But what about the moral argument? Margaret Thatcher spoke with a ‘deep confidence’ in the free market. And while it’s true that May is no Thatcher, our current PM could still learn a thing or two from her predecessor.

Only last month, the Government was still keeping up the pretence of being optimistic that Brexit trade talks with the EU could start by October. Now the hope of doing so is fading fast. The European Council president Donald Tusk used a trip to Downing Street today to deliver a stark message: ‘there is not sufficient progress yet’. "No sufficient progress yet but we'll work on it" - @eucopresident Donald Tusk on #Brexit talks with PM @theresa_may https://t.co/02trD6qbWH pic.twitter.com/M0VzhWyDIp — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) September 26, 2017 This is a blow to the Government, with ministers now resigning themselves for the next phase of trade talks being pushed back, possibly until Christmas or beyond.

Labour’s Brexit row rumbles on. While the issue won’t be the subject of a vote at the party’s annual gathering, that isn’t stopping delegates from tearing scraps out of each other in the conference hall over the issue. This morning’s session was dedicated to giving delegates a chance to talk shop on Brexit. It’s true that much of it was good natured. But some of those who took to the stage were booed for their troubles. One such delegate earned the disapproval of the audience for accusing Labour delegates of doing nothing to stop the Tories pursuing their Brexit agenda. He told those in the hall: 'We will be remembered as the opposition that let the Tories do what they want on Brexit’.