More stories

  • in

    Brexit: Is the deadline for talks really this week?

    Brexit is back on the agenda this coming week, with a major summit coming up in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. There’s talk of time running out. But just how long do negotiators have left?If you’ve been following Britain’s exit from the EU at all, you’ll know that a new agreement has to be in place by 31 December in order to prevent a no deal from happening as the UK leaves the single market. The trade agreement is supposed to replace some of what the EU currently does and hopefully prevent some (though not all) of the chaos that’s expected at ports.But both sides are agreed that things need to be wrapped up long before 31 December. That’s because any agreement needs to go through the motions: ratification by parliaments on both sides, translation into legal text and different languages. More

  • in

    Inside Politics: Rishi Sunak set to reveal local furlough scheme for pub workers

    Have you tried the new government website for career switches? Some furloughed workers have been told to try their luck as stunt doubles. Boris Johnson must wish he could call upon a stand-in right now. The PM faces fury from northern leaders over looming lockdown measures, and pressure to finally decide whether to go for a Brexit trade deal. Fortunately, Johnson has hired a mouthpiece to stand in for him at press conferences, the former TV journo Allegra Stratton. Unfortunately, she doesn’t start for another month – so the PM will have to explain any political stunts all by himself for a little while longer.
    Inside the bubbleOur political editor Andrew Woodock on what to look out for today: More

  • in

    How will leaks to the media about a second lockdown impact public opinion?

    Local politicians in the north of England are furious that details of a second lockdown in the region leaked to the media before they had been consulted.The pattern has repeated itself throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Council leaders and metro mayors complain that they have to pick up the pieces after restrictions such as the closure of pubs and restaurants are announced overnight, sometimes with immediate effect.Mayors in the north offered Matt Hancock, the health secretary, a united front when they spoke earlier this week. They promised to support the next round of restrictions if they were consulted over the detail, and the government provided enough financial support for businesses affected in order to preserve jobs. More

  • in

    Inside Politics: Boris Johnson preparing to close pubs in parts of England

    The more things change, the more they stay the same. Donald Trump’s critics think he is suffering from a bout of “roid rage” – after he fumed incessantly on Twitter about Clinton, Obama and the fake news media. But how is Trump on steroids any different to regular Trump? Our own political meltdowns have a distinct feeling of déjà vu too. Boris Johnson is said to be ready to walk away from Brexit talks unless he gets what he wants. And the PM appears ready to follow rules laid out in Scotland, once again, by closing all pubs in the worst-hit parts of England.
    Inside the bubbleOur policy correspondent Jon Stone on what to look out for today: More

  • in

    Why not having a live audience is a blessing in disguise for our funnyman prime minister

    Like the late Frankie “Titter ye not” Howerd, Al “Pub Landlord” Murray and Roy “Chubby” Brown, Boris “Prime Minister” Johnson is a turn that really only thrives with a live audience. The prime minister of mirth, as he admitted during his virtual speech to the Conservative Party conference, feels at his best when he has an audience to play off. In such a setting, the prime minister can get his timing right, judge his mock fluffs and the length of a pause, and deliver such carefully crafted laugh lines as “Captain Hindsight and his regiment of pot-shot, snipeshot fusiliers”.  It was once remarked that Michael Heseltine, a party favourite of a previous age, was the only man who knew how to find the G-spot of the Conservative Party conference; Johnson is one very few to be able to tickle its funny bone. Yet success in either endeavour requires the recipient of such attentions to be present. Alas, a word the prime minister has turned into a bit of a catchphrase, he must play to an empty house.Watch more More

  • in

    Inside Politics: UK will be ‘world leader’ in wind, claims Boris Johnson

    Boris Johnson wants us to “go to the cinema” and save Britain’s movie theatres. Trouble is, there aren’t any films to see. It looks like James Bond may have mortally wounded the business after No Time To Die was pushed back to the spring. The PM has a licence to thrill today when he makes his big Conservative conference speech. The Tory faithful want to hear the man of action they voted for. But the coronavirus has left Johnson shaken, rather than stirred, and the faithful may have to put up with dark warnings about more things pushed back to the spring.Inside the bubbleChief political commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for today: More

  • in

    What does Trump’s Covid diagnosis mean for his election chances?

    It is possible to imagine a kinder, gentler Donald Trump emerging from the Walter Reed Medical Centre, though it requires some imagination. After all, when Boris Johnson, himself a bit of a political rascal, survived his bout of Covid in the spring, many detected some change in his demeanour. The intimation of his own mortality seemed to move him to tears during a subsequent interview with The Sun. President Trump’s initially much-reduced Twitter output was less aggressive and abusive and even now his renewed sloganising is unobjectionable, if oddly all now in capitals. Trump’s surprise appearance to thank his “patriot” supporters was reckless, but at least he has taken to wearing a mask. He even called the coronavirus by its correct name rather than “the China virus”.  Radical long-term personality change, however, is not a recognised consequence of Covid, and Trump has never suffered from an overabundance of humility. Indeed, it has apparently been something of a Trump family tradition to view physical illness as merely a sign of personal weakness. In that context, Trump would brandish his survival, at his age and weight, as proof of his superhuman constitution. Not even “the China virus” can defeat Donald Trump will be the message.  Read more More

  • in

    The remarkable rise of Priti Patel

    The defining feature of Priti Patel isn’t so much that she is (in her own terms), a “massive Thatcherite”, though she is; nor that she is an exemplar of the benefits of migration, though she is that too; not even that she’s what you might call a “massive bully” stomping around every department she’s occupied yelling things like “why is everyone so f***ing useless?”. No, none of those are the defining thing, though are part of the portrait. Rather the key to understanding our home secretary is that she is just plain wacky. Know that and it all makes a kind of sense.  No doubt she is indeed “furious” about reports in the media that she has been toying with all manner of “mad ideas” to deal with the migrant crisis. The home secretary’s officials have apparently looked at the idea of using wave machines to push refugee dinghies back across the English Channel, which is surely one for the coastguard to offer the benefit of their maritime experience on. There’s even a report that officials might explore building a Trump-style wall across the channel, erm, with holes in it for boats and stuff.  Then there was the claim – not explicitly refuted – that asylum seekers from Syria and Somalia might find themselves transported to some desolate inhospitable outcrop of what remains of the British empire, such as Ascension Island, St Helena, the Shetlands or the Isle Wight – places that time forgot, but at least Shanklin is bit more tranquil than Idlib or downtown Mogadishu. Failing that, these hopeless scraps of humanity could be flown out to Papua New Guinea, Morocco or Moldova. More