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Good morning,
No doubt you are still reeling about a much-loved, if old-fashioned, fixture of national life dramatically quitting one of our great institutions, but I'm sure Great British Bake-Off will be just as good on Channel 4.
Oh, and a backbencher called David Cameron also resigned yesterday. The leader columns of most of the newspapers today are pretty scathing about his decision to abandon his seat.
Other MPs are about to lose theirs, under the dramatic redrawing of constituency boundaries, with high profile figures at risk including the Labour leader.
But no doubt Jeremy Corbyn clings on. Obviously. |
Matt Chorley
Red Box Editor
@MattChorley
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| In today’s briefing |
- Quitter not a fighter
- What will Osborne do?
- David Davis' sexy Brexit
- No more welfare cuts
- Half doubt Clinton illness
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| CAMERON'S LEGACY |
| Quitter not a fighter |
"Brits don’t quit. We get involved, we take a lead, we get things done."
Less than three months after David Cameron stood outside Downing Street and said we were not a nation of quitters, he has quit.
Returning from a string of holidays, looking tanned and in need of a haircut, perhaps Cameron contemplated the prospect of four years on the back benches, looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and said: "For heaven's sake man, go!"
Remember, he told EU leaders he would win the referendum. He told the voters he would stay PM if he lost. Maybe we shouldn't be too surprised that when he said he would stay on as an MP until 2020 and beyond, what he meant was that he would quit when the nights started drawing in.
Unable to be the "captain that steers our country to its next destination", he has thrown himself overboard.
Why resign as an MP now? Having famously made grammar schools a defining battle of his leadership, ditching them to stop the Tory party becoming a debating society, it must have been galling to see Theresa May make their return her totem domestic policy .
Then there is the Hinkley deal, the Northern Powerhouse, his prison reforms, all put on the backburner since he left No 10.
Not to mention the fact that May can't give a speech or interview without taking a swipe at the "priveleged few".
“Obviously I’m going to have my own views about different issues," Cameron said yesterday, claiming it would be an "enormous distraction" if he stayed in the Commons. Only if he disagreed with the new PM though, surely?
Perhaps he has a job offer: as an MP he would have to declare all of his earnings, which can be a bit awkward for an "all in this together" chap who's rolling in the spondoolicks. The same is true of the Lords, of course, so don't expect to see him in ermine any time soon.
And of course it's quite difficult to be an elder statesman if you are younger than the prime minister who replaced you. Since Sir Winston Churchill left Downing Street at 80, the average age of prime ministers when they give up power has been 59. Cameron doesn't turn 50 until next month. How does he fill a career that could easily last another quarter of a century?
Not, it seems, by inquiring after the roadworks and bin collections and missing tax credits and planning quibbles of the people of Witney. It's worth remembering that of the 15 years Cameron spent in the Commons, just two were as a backbencher.
May put out a statement, saying Cameron's "commitment to lead a one-nation government is one that I will continue". The new regime in Downing Street also expects history to be kinder to him than the last few weeks.
“I’m sure I will be remembered for keeping that pledge to hold a referendum," Cameron said. Well, he'll certainly be remembered for the outcome.
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| Today’s cartoon from Morten Morland |
| Osborne stays... for now |
Jeremy Corbyn wished Cameron “all the best for the future”, adding that he got on well with him on a “human level”.
George Osborne tweeted: “We came into parliament together, had a great partnership and I will miss him alongside me on the green benches.”
Notably, he didn't say they would leave parliament together. I understand the former chancellor, still only 45, is not tempted to follow his old mate out of of politics, and will stay on to "see what happens next".
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| Who'll get safe seat? |
| Ian Hudspeth, the council leader once berated by David Cameron for proposing “unwelcome and counterproductive” cuts to local services, may attempt to stand in the Witney seat, which has a 25,000 Tory majority. Read the story |
| School’s out for head boy who failed his final test |
| Patrick Kidd |
Like many rosy-cheeked young fellows in the past week, Davey Cameron was reluctant to return to school after the summer hols. “But Mum, I hate it!” he whined. “No one likes me. They’ve changed the curriculum and they won’t let me sit at the front with George any more. I want to go to big school with Billy Hague, where they have a nice red uniform and can sleep all afternoon if they feel like it.”
Read the full sketch |
| SW1 |
| Take your seats |
There was an irony to David Cameron quitting his seat just as dozens of MPs were finding out that their seat is going to disappear altogether.
In the corridors, lifts and quiet corners of parliament yesterday, MPs clutched printed maps of their redrawn constituencies and compared notes with friends and foes, like teenagers collecting their GCSE results. “How have you done? I’ve done terribly…”
The game of parliamentary musical chairs created by boundary changes cutting the number of MPs from 650 to 600 will see Labour lose 25 seats, boosting the Tory majority from 12 to 40.
Cabinet ministers including Priti Patel and Alun Cairns could see their constituencies broken up, as well as George Osborne and John Whittingdale. Alan Johnson, who led Labour's pro-EU campaign, goes up against the chief Brexiteer, David Davis.
Jeremy Corbyn could also be left without a seat, but at least he has practice at squatting on the floor.
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Labour and Lib Dems suffer most
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| Lewis Baston |
| Labour will bear the brunt of the reduction in the number of constituencies from 650 to 600. The party’s stronger regions lose out, including Wales, the urban north and London, where the use of the register from December 2015 has resulted in the loss of six seats despite the capital’s growing population. There will be many more discordant notes played before this game of musical chairs comes to an end. |
| It's decision time, prime minister |
| Adam Marshall |
| British Chambers of Commerce |
| Now is the moment for action and for decisions. Decision time on a new runway for the southeast of England, Decision time on High Speed 2. Decision time on new nuclear power stations after a high-profile delay. I could add a bold decision to guarantee the residence and work rights of firms' existing EU workers, something the government has been disappointingly loath to progress, citing supposed lack of clarity on the rights of British citizens abroad. Read the full article on the Red Box website |
| Brexit Britain |
| Sexy Brexit |
"This really is the sexiest area of politics at the moment," David Davis told a Lords committee yesterday, as he boasted that all the cool young things are flocking to get a piece of his hot Brexit action.
It's going to get messy. “It may be the most complicated negotiation of all times.”
And everyone's going to be in the dark. "I may not be able to tell you everything, even in private."
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| Fruit picking visas |
Tens of thousands of foreign workers could get temporary visas to pick fruit and vegetables under government plans to prevent production shifting abroad because of Brexit, The Times reports.
Meanwhile, The Sun says that only high skilled EU workers who have well-paid job offers would be allowed into Britain after Brexit under a new plan being studied by Amber Rudd, the home secretary.
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| The trade unions must be included in Brexit talks |
| Jon Ashworth |
| Labour MP for Leicester South and shadow minister without portfolio |
| A cabinet made up of Boris Johnson, David Davis and the disgraced Liam Fox offers no comfort to trade unionists who have fought over many years for basic rights and standards in the workplace. Three months after the EU referendum, Theresa May’s government are still like rabbits in headlights incapable of offering any certainty or reassurance. Read the full article on the Red Box website |
| SW1 |
| Victim of Gove car crash |
Ed Vaizey, the former arts minister, has given an interview to T2 in The Times, in which he urges his own government to give the arts a break and offer it more funding.
He claims to be "thrilled" to be a backbencher after being sacked by Theresa May. He knows why that happened: he backed the wrong guy. "Well, although I love Michael Gove dearly and will love him for ever, his leadership campaign was an incredible car crash and I was one of the leading passengers.
"So the idea that I was going to survive that was remote... Boris was lucky to be thrown from the car before it crashed."
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| Race for the White House |
| It's all a conspiracy |
In the post-truth world in which politics now operates, lies become facts, and facts are dismissed as lies.
Less than half of American voters believe Hillary Clinton’s explanation of the illness that led to her apparently fainting on Sunday, a poll by YouGov for The Times shows — a trust deficit that highlights the vulnerability of her presidential campaign.
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| Ruth Davidson is not the type to leap up on a chair at the site of a mouse, but even she was surprised by the furry friends scurrying around parliament last night. Posting these pictures on Twitter, she said: "Very seldom in the Hoc of an evening. Surprised by how many mice there are (and how bold)." |
| UK economy |
| Osborne-Crabb welfare deal stands |
In the fallout from the March budget, in which Iain Duncan Smith quit as work and pensions secretary over disability benefit cuts, his replacement, Stephen Crabb, did a deal with George Osborne.
“We have no further plans to make welfare savings."
All involved have left the government, but I understand that Damian Green, the new work and pensions secretary, insisted that the deal still stands, because Crabb promised it to the Commons.
Leaving Philip Hammond to balance the books with cuts elsewhere. The Treasury would only confirm the date of the autumn statement: November 23.
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| Education |
| Grammar school rules |
New or expanding grammar schools will have to reserve places for pupils from working-class families to stop them being dominated by children from wealthier homes.
Justine Greening, education secretary, also said that selective schools would have to admit children at different ages, such as at 14 as well as at 11 and 16, to cater for pupils who develop later academically.
Which makes them start to sound a lot less like grammar schools.
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| Corbyn's Labour |
| Shami would do it again |
Shami Chakrabarti admitted that the inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour Party that she chaired did not tackle the misogynistic nature of the abuse.
After landing a peerage just weeks after concluding that the party was not overrun by antisemitism, imagine what she might have been offered if she'd found no evidence of sexism either.
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REFUGEE BILL The government’s promise to resettle 20,000 vulnerable refugees in the UK will cost an estimated £1.7 billion, including health and education costs and welfare benefits, according to a spending watchdog.
Read the story
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LEGALISE CANNABIS Cannabis should be legalised for medical use, according to MPs, peers and experts who have conducted a parliamentary inquiry.
Read the story
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LARIUM HELPLINE A hotline set up by the Ministry of Defence in response to concerns about the effect on soldiers’ mental health of an anti-malaria drug has been described as “utterly useless”.
Read the story
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LAND TAX Wales is to introduce its first new tax for almost 800 years under powers handed down from Westminster that will allow it to replace stamp duty.
Read the story
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| TMS |
| From the diary |
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Curtains for Lady Abbott
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Many great actresses have played Lady Macbeth on screen: Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Diane Abbott . . . Yet the world has been denied sight of the Labour MP’s performance as the power-crazed queen because of Michael Portillo’s inability to sell bric-a-brac. Portillo told Radio Times that when he was at school in Harrow he tried to make a film of Macbeth. Abbott, who was at the girls’ school, was cast as the female lead after a screen-test from Romeo and Juliet in which the maid looks forward to losing her virginity. “Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, towards Phoebus’ lodging.” (My apologies if you are reading this over breakfast.) Alas, it was never made. “We didn’t raise enough money from our jumble sales to complete it,” Portillo says. Hollywood’s loss is Westminster’s, er, loss.
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Read more from the TMS diary
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| Today |
- Boundary Commission for England and Wales - initial proposals published.
- Women and equalities committee publishes report on sexual harassment and sexual violence in school, which finds that 29 per cent of girls aged 16 to 18 say they have experienced unwanted sexual touching at school, while 59 per cent of girls aged 13 to 21 say they have faced some form of sexual harassment at school or college.
- Public Health England annual conference.
- 9.30am: PM chairs cabinet meeting at No 10.
- 9.30am: CPI and RPI inflation statistics released.
- 10.10am: Lords science and technology committee session on relationship between EU membership and UK science.
- 10.30am: Angela Rayner, shadow education secretary, speaks at the TUC Congress.
- 2.15pm: MPs on the home affairs select committee take evidence on asylum accommodation.
- 2.15pm: MPs on the science and technology committee take evidence on science advice for chemical, biological or nuclear emergencies - Ben Wallace, security minister, gives evidence.
- 2.15pm: MPs on the environment committee take evidence in the pre-appointment hearing for the chair of the Environment Agency. Witness is Emma Boyd-Howard, the government's preferred candidate.
- 3.00pm: David Davis, secretary of state for exiting the European Union, gives evidence to the foreign affairs committee.
- 3.00pm: US Senate foreign relations committee hearing - 'US interests in the UK and Europe', in Washington.
- 4.15pm: Science and technology committee takes evidence on graphene. Witnesses are Baroness Neville-Rolfe , intellectual property minister, and Dr Sharon Ellis, director of business innovation at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
- 6.00pm: Nick Clegg, former deputy prime minister, attends Ipsos Mori debate on the EU referendum result and the economy. Tim Montgomerie, Times columnist, Paul Drechsler, CBI president, and Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist, also attend.
- 7.00pm: Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, speaks at private policy dinner hosted by Reform think tank.
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| House of Commons |
- 11.30am: Business, energy and industrial strategy questions
- Ten minute rule motion on unsolicited marketing communications.
- Digital Economy Bill - second reading, ways and means, money.
- Adjournment debate on fire risk from faulty tumble dryers.
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| Westminster Hall |
- 9.30am: Compensation for victims of Libyan-sponsored IRA terrorism.
- 11.00am: Penalties for causing death by dangerous driving.
- 2.30pm: Consumer protection for online gaming.
- 2.00pm: Post offices in Wales
- 4.30pm: Funding for the arts
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| House of Lords |
- 2.30pm: Introduction of Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Chakrabarti.
- Oral questions on; review of the Red Arrows at Farnborough airshows, Pension Protection Fund, repair of naval warships, and the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
- Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill - third reading.
- Finance Bill - second reading, committtee stage, third reading.
- Draft Welfare Reform and Work (Northern Ireland) Order 2016 - motion to approve.
- Short debate on mitigating tax avoidance and eliminating tax evasion in the UK
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