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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

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

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

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