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| Tuesday February 20 2018 |
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By Matt Chorley
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Good morning,
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So far this week we’ve had Theresa May’s views on tuition fees, Oxfam and boxsets, but when is the prime minister going to address the big issue of the day: the great KFC chicken shortage.
Although it is difficult to get a grip when you’ve just finished a finger lickin' family bucket.
- Red Box is a must-read in No 10, and across Westminster. Know someone who is missing out? Get them signed up today thetimes.co.uk/redbox
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Must reads
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- Students at the country’s leading universities face having their final-year exams cancelled after academics announced plans to escalate their strikes.
- Today’s mission is to discredit the media, accuse the CIA of bringing down a passenger plane and declare war on North Korea in the adopted Twitter persona of President Trump. Apparently the best way to protect people against fake news is to make them write it themselves.
- A great Times obituary of Keith Speed, Margaret Thatcher's first navy minister, who warned of the risks of running down the navy and was told to resign by his boss, John Nott. When he refused he was summoned to No10 to be sacked, only to be clapped out of the MoD and immortalised in the navy joke that the fleet needed “more Speed, fewer Notts”.
- For years Matthew Parris was harassed by a woman, but he never thought of himself as a victim. In Times2 he argues that #MeToo gets it all wrong: defiance, not self-pity, is the route to empowerment.
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Mad Max vs Macron
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"David Davis" wants a Brexit modelled not on the vision of Mad Max (left) but Emmanuel Macon (right)
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The nation's favourite performance art installation continues his sell-out European tour today, giving one of his biggest shows yet in Vienna.
But "David Davis" will shun the avant-garde, resisting the temptation to paint himself silver and stand very still on a box in the Stephansplatz. He will instead give what is known in the arts as a "speech". And it's a significant one, too (though he will hopefully not remark on the fact that today is 207 years since Austria declared itself bankrupt).
He still has an eye for the dramatic though, and will invoke the work of Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy to dismiss fears from some that Britain is about to throw out social and environmental rules to under-cut the rest of Europe.
"They fear that Brexit could lead to an Anglo-Saxon race to the bottom, with Britain plunged into a Mad Max-style world borrowed from dystopian fiction. These fears about a race to the bottom are based on nothing — not history, not intention, nor interest,” he will say, according to excerpts released overnight.
There have been warnings from ministers, including Philip Hammond, the chancellor, that the UK will have to become a low-regulation economy if it fails to secure a decent trade deal with the EU, which could affect consumer, environment and employment rights.
A new Opinium poll for the IPPR think tank bears this out: 73 per cent of the public support retaining or strengthening the Working Time Directive, 84 per cent want to keep or extend consumer cancellation rights, 67 per cent want to keep vehicle emissions rules.
In fact "David Davis" will go further, and suggest Britain will abide by new global standards to ensure free trade — and echo that other raging Brexiteer Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in the process.
I understand he will say that "the future of standards and regulations — the building blocks of free trade — is increasingly global. And the world is waking up to it".
"I was struck by what Emmanuel Macron said earlier this month: ‘If we do not define a standard for international cooperation, we will never manage to convince the middle and working classes that globalisation is good for them’. We have to act on that insight," he will add.
What "David Davis" can't say is that any future government could of course look to cut the laws that he is promising to protect, but his speech should help to blunt one of Labour's attacks on the post-Brexit "low wage offshore tax haven" that they claim the Tories are pursuing.
This is the third episode in the six-part series of Brexit speeches by senior ministers: Boris Johnson gave us his thoughts on carrots last week, Theresa May had her moment in Munich at the weekend, and Liam Fox on trade and David Lidington on devolution are still to come before the PM's dramatic series finale.
But there are already a number of spin-offs. Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, gives a foretaste of his Big Speech when he addresses the EEF conference. Michael Gove, the environment secretary, will seek to bolster the "David Davis" case for improved regulation in a speech to the NFU conference.
He will argue that it is unkind to keep dumb animals couped up indoors and that they should be allowed outside. Before Tory backbenchers get too excited about a day out, he is talking about plans to pay new subsidies to farmers who let their cows out of sheds, pigs out of crates and chickens out of cages.
It's all a long way from traditional Tory talk of a "bonfire of red tape" and removing regulations which hold business back.
"David Davis's" performance in Austria will be welcomed by many Remainers, though some hard Brexiteers might quietly reflect: "This means nothing to me. Oh, Vienna."
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Chart of the day
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The latest poll from Kantar Public also has the Conservatives and Labour on level pegging, with the Tories down three points on 39 per cent with Labour gaining one point to match them.
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Breaking the deadlock
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Theresa May offered to hand all EU powers over devolved areas to Holyrood to break the Brexit deadlock with the Scottish government. Read the full story
Won't pay
Britain could refuse to pay its debts to the European Union after Brexit if Brussels reneges on its commitment to a future free-trade deal, Politico reports.
Pulling an all-nighter
The Cabinet away-day at Chequers on Thursday could go on all night until they agree on a Brexit plan, the Financial Times reports.
Feeling left out
A group of city leaders met Michel Barnier in Brussels yesterday, and then accused the government of not including them in the Brexit process. The Guardian has the story.
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YESTERDAY'S QUESTION: I asked how much tuition fees should cost. You responded by saying either £9,000, nothing, or something in between around the £3,000 mark. See the full results here
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Today's cartoon from The Times by Morten Morland
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Making a meal of it
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(ITV)
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Theresa May appeared on This Morning yesterday to sell her tuition fees policy but came unstuck on an even more opaque subject: herself.
Does she ever get chance to relax in front of the TV? May laughed and said: “I never get to the end of a box set.”
Asked by Schofield, now in full Paxman mode, whether she kicks her shoes off and orders a Chinese takeaway, she just opened her mouth and no noise came out.
Which meant we didn't get a repeat of one of Gordon Brown's finest moments of indecision when some school children asked him what his favourite food was.
“Traditional things, like steak and all that. I love spaghetti bolognese, and carbonara and all these things. I like Chinese food, I like Indian food."
“I like English food," he went on, then realised that sounded a bit pro-English, so added: "British food … and French … I like almost anything.”
Pressed again to answer the question, he just went back to the beginning. “I think it would be steak.”
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| Quote of the day |
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Yes, I’m doing a job, and I’m going to jolly well get on and do it.
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Theresa May on whether she's enjoying being PM
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Agent Cob insists he wasn't paid
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The tale of Jeremy "codename Cob" Corbyn continues, though the details seem to get sketchier as time goes on. It makes the splash in The Daily Telegraph (Corbyn urged to reveal his Stasi file) and Daily Mail (Time to be open, Comrade Corbyn).
Jan Sarkocy, a Czechoslovakian spy, had initially claimed that Corbyn had been paid for his intelligence but in interviews yesterday appeared to suggest that it was other unnamed Labour MPs who were given cash instead.
You know it's serious because even Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, has come out in Corbyn's defence in an article for The Independent. Clive Lewis, the Labour MP, went further suggesting that new press curbs were needed to stop stories about his party being published. The Sun has the story.
The Tories are milking the story for all its worth, but may have overreached themselves. Ben Bradley, the trigger-happy tweeter and Tory vice-chairman, tweeted that Corbyn “sold British secrets to Communist spies”. Corbyn, who vehemently denies taking money or passing information, instructed lawyers threatening to sue and Bradley quickly deleted it.
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Servants not masters
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Trying to focus on the 21st century day job, Jeremy Corbyn will use a speech at an EEF conference today to launch an attack on the City, vowing to make it the "servant of industry", not the "masters of us all".
"There can be no rebalancing of our distorted, sluggish and unequal economy without taking on the power of finance," he is expected to say. The Guardian has more.
Industry experts have warned that Labour’s threat to nationalise private finance initiative contracts without compensating investors may damage the country’s credibility.
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The Sketch
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Takeaway grilling leaves May at wok bottom
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Patrick Kidd
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Winston Churchill liked to stick red labels on memos that required urgent attention. “Action this day,” they said. Theresa May has a similar system. “Abstraction this day,” her labels say. “Distraction tomorrow. Then protraction for as long as possible.” Those who can, do. Those who can’t announce a review.
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Read the full sketch
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Street’s ahead
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Theresa May is being urged to put her money where her mouth is and stop money for new housing being sucked up by London and the South East.
Writing for Red Box, Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, blames Treasury rules which favour developments with the potential for the biggest increase in land values.
Almost three-quarters of £894 million in infrastructure loans committed under the Housing Infrastructure Fund have gone to London and the South East, Construction News reported yesterday.
Street and three other metro mayors – Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, and Steve Rotheram, the Labour mayor of Liverpool – have today written to Theresa May urging her to review the rules.
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Picture of the day
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Boris Johnson posing with a rhino horn during a tour of illegally-poached animals seized by Scotland Yard.
He was also shown a monkey head and asked: "What's this poor chap here? Faint air of a ... Labour backbencher."
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Ones to watch today
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- At 9.30am the Electoral Commission will publish details of a number of concluded investigations, including fines issued for breaches of campaign finance rules.
- Amber Rudd, the home secretary, is in the Middle East. Speaking to journalists she left open the possibility of Britain putting two suspect members of the jihadist Beatles gang on trial: "The important thing is, to us, that they will face trial. I can't be drawn at the moment on where that will be, but I am absolutely convinced, and absolutely committed, to making sure that they will face trial, because the security of the United Kingdom will always come first."
- The supreme court hears an employment case against Pimlico Plumbers that could have far-reaching implications for workers’ rights in the “gig economy”.
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Short-term problem
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Britain’s aid spending is too focused on meeting short-term targets at the expense of helping communities to help themselves in the long term, a watchdog said.
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), which scrutinises how the government spends its development budget, said there was not enough emphasis on enhancing local leadership and skills.
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Merkel's Mini-Me
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Is this the next Angela Merkel? The German chancellor anointed her potential successor when she named Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as general secretary of her party.
AKK, as she is known, is the prime minister of Saarland. Merkel was general secretary of the Christian Democratic Union between 1998 and 2000, giving her a springboard to the party leadership and, in 2005, the chancellery.
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Read the full story
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Around the world
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USA: President Trump responded to outrage over the latest shooting at an American school by tentatively backing reforms to the vetting system that is supposed to prevent the mentally ill and convicted criminals from buying guns. Read the full story
SYRIA: The Assad regime and Turkey were headed for a direct military confrontation in Syria last night after Damascus said that its forces would join the Kurds to defend the Afrin region from the advancing Turkish army. Read the full story
ICELAND: Male circumcision could be outlawed in Europe for the first time under a draft law in Iceland that has pitted children’s rights campaigners against religious leaders. Read the full story
ISRAEL: Israeli police officers arrested two of Binyamin Netanyahu’s closest aides as part of a new corruption investigation, it was disclosed last night. Read the full story
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Also in the news
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- MISSING JABS: More than 20,000 catch measles as parents shun vaccination (The Times)
- POWER SHORTAGE: 24 smart meters needed every minute to hit ministers’ target (The Times)
- NO EXCUSES: Schools told to explain high exclusion rates (The Times)
- PHOTO OFFENCE: Loophole makes it harder to charge ‘upskirt’ voyeurs (The Times)
- BE THE BEST: Army recruits put off by tech glitches and red tape (The Times)
- FREEBIE CULTURE: Westminster councillor received gifts and hospitality 514 times in three years (The Guardian)
- FARAGE TV: BBC defends decision to host former Ukip leader despite party’s decline (the i)
- MISSING MILLIONS: Former ministers warn over £500 million dormant pensions grab (Financial Times)
- BOYS' CLUB: Patronised, talked down to and harassed: Parliament's culture laid bare (HuffPost)
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| TMS |
| From the diary |
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By Patrick Kidd
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No hanging about
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After news reports last week of drunken boorishness at the Oxford University Conservative Association, the Bullingdon wannabes attempted to detoxify their image on Sunday with a couple of debates at their weekly “port and policy” evening on such uncontroversial subjects as reintroducing national service and capital punishment. Topics that would, the adverts assured guests, “cure those fifth-week blues”. Nothing like a bit of hanging and flogging to cheer up a young Tory.
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Read more from the TMS diary
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What the papers say
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The Times
"To a new generation of voters ... proposals by the Labour Party for extending public ownership may have a superficial plausibility. They are in reality a bad idea that would damage the economy, stifle enterprise and deter investment." Read the full article
The Guardian
"The wrong-headed and misguided policy of creating a market in higher education services in England has been a hallmark of modern-day Conservatism." Read the full article
Financial Times
"In the run-up to last year’s election, Labour appeared moderate in its policy proposals. A sense remains, however, that once in power, Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell will revert to more radical prescriptions. How Labour falls on the PFI question will point towards what it intends to do in power." Read the full article
The Daily Telegraph
"Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are well-known, long-standing Left-wingers, but this does not mean they should escape the scrutiny that would attach to anyone else for such behaviour." Read the full article
The Sun
"The university funding system is broken — but it is nowhere near a priority for Britain, Theresa May or the Tories. Mrs May is merely tinkering in the vain hope of competing with Corbyn’s economically insane free-for-all offer. She cannot and must not. It’s a distraction from what really matters to millennials: the dire shortage of affordable homes to buy." Read the full article
Daily Mail
"Just what will it take to shake Labour MPs out of their abject silence over the anti-British extremist who leads them - and make them speak up for patriotic voters who sent them to Westminster? It is common knowledge that Jeremy Corbyn has spent his political life backing terrorist groups and governments hostile to the UK and our allies."
Daily Mirror
"Whether you voted Remain or Leave in the EU referendum in 2016, we are surely entitled to all the facts on the impact of Britain's exit from Europe. We usually disagree far more than agree with senior Conservatives, but Theresa May's former right-hand man, Damian Green, speaks sense when he calls for all Whitehall's evidence to be made publicly available."
Daily Express
"It won't do for our train operators to be so complacent when they embark on these engineering projects. Fares are sky high and trains are often unreliable or packed. Customers might be more forgiving of Easter or Christmas disruption if there was a better service during the rest of the year."
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Agenda
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Today
- Theresa May chairs a meeting of her cabinet.
- UK and EU officials meet for the latest round of Brexit negotiations in Brussels.
- Electoral Commission publishes details of last month’s political donations over £1,500.
- Robin Walker, the Brexit minister, visits Denmark.
- 9:45am: David Davis, Brexit secretary, delivers a speech on Brexit and business policy in Austria.
- 10:45am: Michael Gove, environment secretary, addresses the opening day of the National Farmers’ Union conference. Sue Hayman, shadow environment secretary, and George Eustice, farming minister, also speak.
- 1:30pm: Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader, addresses the EEF National Manufacturing Conference. Liam Fox, international trade secretary, speaks at 11:55am. Greg Clark, business secretary, speaks at the conference dinner at 8pm.
- 2pm: Caroline Lucas, Green Party leader, speaks at the launch of the all-party parliamentary group on climate change’s Policy Connect report on the carbon footprint of the internet.
- 6pm: Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Department for International Development, addresses a Chatham House event on how to event mass atrocities.
House of Commons
- 2:30pm: Foreign office questions
- Karen Bradley, Northern Ireland secretary, on Stormont negotiations.
- Ten Minute Rule Bill on postal voting (Damien Moore)
- Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill (second reading)
- Adjournment debate on funding by Arts Council England for coalfield communities (John Mann)
Westminster Hall
- 9:30am: The future of basketball in the UK (Alex Sobel)
- 11am: PACE trial and its effect on people with ME (Carol Monaghan)
- 11:30am: Recruitment and retention of NHS staff in Oxfordshire (Layla Moran)
- 1pm: Rail services to and from Kettering (Philip Hollobone)
- 1:30pm: Social housing and regeneration in Earls Court and West Kensington (Andy Slaughter)
Select Committees
- 10am: Scottish affairs: Johnnie Hall, director of policy and members services at NFU Scotland, Carroll Buxton, regional development director, Highland and Islands Enterprise and representatives from the Fife migrants forum on immigration and Scotland.
- 10:15am: Environmental audit: Sarah Breeden, executive director of the Bank of England, David Geale, director of Policy at the Financial Conduct Authority and representatives of other financial organisations on green finance.
- 10:30am: International development: Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam, Kevin Watkins, chief executive of Save the Children, Steve Reeves, director of Child Safeguarding at Save the Children UK and Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Department for International Development on sexual exploitation in the aid sector.
- 11am: Digital, culture, media and sport: Baroness Stowell of Beeston attends the pre-appointment hearing as the chair of the charity commission for England and Wales.
- 11:30am: Defence: Tobias Ellwood, defence minister, and Helen Helliwell, head of service personnel support at the ministry of defence, on the Armed Forces Covenant annual report 2017.
- 2:15pm: Treasury: Charles Randell on his appointment as chair of the Financial Conduct Authority.
- 2:30pm: Home affairs: Baroness Warsi, Sir Alan Moses, chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, Jonathan Heawood, chief executive of Impress and Chris Frost, chairman of the ethics council at the National Union of Journalists, on hate crime and its violent consequences.
- 3:15pm: Science and technology: Kate Stanley, director of strategy, policy and evidence at the NSPCC and academics on evidence-based early years intervention.
- 3:35pm: Lords economic affairs committee: Greg Clark, business, energy and industrial strategy secretary, and Claire Perry, energy minister, on the economics of UK energy policy.
- 4:15pm: Welsh affairs: Jill Rutter, programme director at the Institute for Government, and Patrick Minford, professor of applied economics at Cardiff business school, on Brexit: agriculture, trade and repatriation of powers.
- 4:15pm: Foreign affairs: Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Commonwealth minister, and Tim Hitchens, chief executive of the Commonwealth summit, on the forthcoming summit.
- 4:45pm: Transport: Sophie Dekkers, UK director of EasyJet, Craig Kreeger, chief executive of Virgin Atlantic, and Willie Walsh, chief executive of IAG, on airports national policy statement.
House of Lords
- 2:30pm: Oral questions on: regulation of charities and social enterprises; the Commonwealth Summit;social care for disabled people below retirement age.
- Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill - second reading (Baroness Sugg)
- Orders and regulations: Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2018 (Lord Bates)
- Short debate on the United Nations Conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading to their total elimination (Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer)
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@MattChorley
