Tom Goodenough

Sir Philip Green has dug deep into his bulging pockets to plug the gap in BHS’s pension scheme. But the newspapers are in agreement: the tycoon’s £363m gesture counts for precious little. Even this huge payout won’t save Green’s reputation, says the Sun, which argues that while the former BHS boss has done the ‘right thing’, he should have done it eight months ago. Instead, the Sun says, Green had to be ‘strong-armed by politicians and an avalanche of bad publicity’ to make the right move. So while his decision to cough up will ease the worries of ex-BHS employees, it’s clear that Green has ‘become the poster boy for corporate greed’ - and there’s no changing that, the Sun concludes.

The Government is getting worried. So far, the passage of the Article 50 bill through Parliament has been relatively smooth. Tomorrow, there’s a chance that could change: peers will debate the issue of what happens to EU citizens in the UK after Brexit. This topic has been something of a political hot potato for the Government ever since Theresa May made it clear she wouldn’t guarantee the rights of the 3.3m EU citizens living in Britain to stay put. The PM’s position is that she doesn’t want to give away a useful bargaining chip, fearing that by doing so, Brits living on the continent will remain in limbo. In the face of heavy fire, this has been a position that the Government has stuck to.

‘Take back control’ was the mantra of the Brexit bunch during the referendum - but eight months on, Britain is still waiting to be handed the keys. Next month, says the Daily Telegraph, part of the wait could be over. The paper reports that Theresa May is planning to announce an end to free movement for EU migrants when she triggers Article 50 in March. If this is true, we should celebrate the Prime Minister’s decisiveness, the paper says, hailing the plan as both legal - given that it ‘will only take effect after Brexit’ - and ‘sensible’ - to avoid a rush of migrants coming to Britain before the door slams shut.

Labour’s defeat in Copeland is nothing short of a disaster - but you won’t hear that from the shadow chancellor. Instead, John McDonnell said the fact that the Tories snatched away the seat - becoming the first Government to win a by-election since the 1980s - was a ‘disappointment’. His biggest concession to those who say this result shows it’s time for Corbyn to go was to admit there are ‘mixed views’ on the Labour leader. So if it isn’t Corbyn’s fault, who is to blame? McDonnell offered several answers to that question. He said that the ‘macho leaders we’ve had in the past’ were responsible for some of the ‘disasters’ we’ve had.

If Britain really is still a nation of shopkeepers, the Government seems to be picking its enemies rather unwisely with its plans to ramp up business rates - in some cases by as much as 400 per cent over the next five years. The policy - and the somewhat bungled attempt by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid to defend the plans - has already sparked a big row, which shows no signs of calming down. The Daily Mail is clear who we should point the finger at: Sajid Javid. The paper says the Communities Secretary made a ’magnificent’ arrival on the frontline of British politics with his speech in 2015 in which he promised that the Government would be a ‘true friend’ to business owners. He seems to have forgotten those warm words, the Mail says.

Peers can continue their Brexit debate in relative peace today without the watchful glare of the Prime Minister gazing over them. Theresa May’s brief appearance at the start of the Lords’ Article 50 debate yesterday was unprecedented but given how long she stayed you’d be forgiven for thinking it was little more than a publicity stunt. For the Sun, however, the PM’s decision to swap chambers in Parliament did send out an important message. Those ‘unelected members still struggling with the concept of a democratic mandate’ should remember that the PM had ‘most of the public and a vast Commons majority behind her’ as she sat on the steps of the throne.

After Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell returned to urge a revolt against Brexit, only one thing was missing: Peter Mandelson, who turned up on Andrew Marr's sofa yesterday. Ever on-message, he repeated Blair's line that the 52 per cent of the country who backed Brexit 'had no idea of the terms on which the government would decide to leave the EU’. So is the ‘prince of darkness’ simply up to his old tricks? Mandelson's intervention certainly hasn't earned him a warm reception in the newspaper editorials this morning. The Sun describes Mandelson as ‘disgraced’ and says the peer’s ‘contempt for democracy’ was the exact reason that ‘led to the demand for Brexit’ in the first place.

A key part of Theresa May’s strategy for wooing Donald Trump was making it clear that Britain was pulling its weight with funding Nato, with the PM calling on other countries to match the two per cent of GDP that Britain spent on defence so 'that the burden is more fairly shared’. The report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies that the UK had, in fact, missed this target was potentially explosive then - and it’s no surprise the MoD stepped in quickly to bat away the claims. But whether too much or too little, the amount of money spent on military matters is the talking point in many of the newspapers this morning.

We’ve heard that Brexit could cost Britain billions in the form of a divorce bill from Brussels. But what is the price of staying in? That question is answered by the Daily Mail this morning which reveals Treasury estimates slipped out last week that the UK’s contribution to the EU will jump to £10.2bn in 2019 - up from £7.9bn this year. The numbers also show that if Britain is still in the EU by 2021-22, taxpayers will have to pay out £10.9bn to Brussels. For the Daily Mail this is proof that Brexit is the best course of action. ‘Doesn't this revelation, slipped out by the Treasury, show precisely why we're leaving in the nick of time?,’ the paper asks.

John Bercow has insisted that admitting he backed ‘Remain’ in the EU referendum doesn’t compromise his politically neutrality. Some MPs, like Tom Watson - who hailed Bercow as one of the ‘great Speakers’ - have stepped in to defend him. But after his intervention on Trump and his willingness to air his thoughts on Brexit, the Speaker is under mounting pressure. He faces a vote of no confidence tabled by Conservative MP James Duddridge. And the newspapers continue to voice their anger at Bercow in today’s editorials. ‘What an embarrassment’ Bercow has become, says the Daily Mail. The paper suggests the boast he made to students about backing 'Remain' is the final straw.

Jeremy Corbyn has called reports of his departure ‘fake news’. This despite the Labour leader having a net approval rating of minus 40 per cent and polling suggesting that only 15 per cent of voters think Corbyn stands any chance at all of triumphing in 2020. It seems that, at any cost, the Labour leader is determined to stumble on. Yesterday, he announced a reshuffle - shaking up the cast of nobodies in his shadow cabinet. Whatever Corbyn does, though, if he stays put it's clear that these next few years are going to be a ‘miserable experience’ for him, says the Daily Telegraph. It’s inevitable that whether the Labour leader has a date in mind for when he would go, the question about his future is going to continually pop up.

Theresa May’s Brexit timetable is on track after MPs overwhelming backed the Government’s Article 50 bill in the Commons last night. Not everyone is happy with the role that Parliament has played so far in holding ministers’ feet to the fire over Brexit though. In its editorial this morning, the Guardian says MPs failed their first test: ‘Too many MPs genuflected’ to the referendum outcome - a result which the paper describes as one of the worst political decisions in the UK since the second world war. It seems as though the referendum took away Parliament’s power - and not even the ‘heroic efforts’ of Gina Miller in winning her case in the Supreme Court have helped get it back - the paper says. So what next?

After two days of testing Commons debates, Theresa May’s Brexit timetable remains on track. Yesterday’s ‘concession’ - or non-concession, depending on how you look at it - by ministers did enough to limit the extent of the Tory rebellion (only seven Conservative MPs went against the Government, despite earlier reports that as many as 20 backbenchers were considering doing so). This meant the Government's Article 50 bill emerged unscathed. Of course all that could change this afternoon. Today’s debate will be the last opportunity for MPs hoping to tinker with the bill which will kick start Brexit. In the spirit of this week’s mammoth sessions, it’ll be another long debate, starting at 1.30pm, with a final vote expected at around 8.30pm.

Given Theresa May’s largely meaningless ‘Brexit means Brexit’ refrain, any new pronouncement on Britain’s departure from the EU is treated like gold dust. But Keir Starmer fell into the trap of thinking Brexit minister David Jones' opening remarks today had offered up a bigger morsel than they actually had. Jones confirmed, as Theresa May has already made clear, that Parliament will vote on the Brexit deal. He said, too, that the vote would cover the future trading relationship between Britain and the EU, which had not previously been known. And the Commons was also told some more details on the timing of the vote, which will come, Jones confirmed, before the European Parliament gets its say on the final Brexit plan.