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| Thursday March 16 2017 |
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By Matt Chorley
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Good morning,
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A government in chaos, an opposition in the dark, war and famine in the news.
And just to make you really worried, a pamphlet is being brought back into the public domain advising Britons on how to survive a nuclear attack.
Happy Thursday!
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Tories fined record £70,000
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BREAKING NEWS: The Conservatives have been fined £70,000 by the Electoral Commission following an investigation into campaign spending in three by-elections and the 2015 general election.
More than £250,000 was either missing from spending returns, not properly reported or without invoices or receipts. The party has now been referred to the Met police.
It follows Labour and the Lib Dems being hit with fines of £20,000 each for failing to properly declare election spending, and has triggered an angry response from the elections watchdog.
Sir John Holmes, chairman of the Electoral Commission, said: "There is a risk that some political parties might come to view the payment of these fines as a cost of doing business; the Commission therefore needs to be able to impose sanctions that are proportionate to the levels of spending now routinely handled by parties and campaigners.”
Criminal charges are being considered across 12 police force areas over claims of expenses fraud by the Conservatives in the 2015 election. Up to 20 MPs could be dragged into the cases, with a decision on prosecuting expected within six weeks.
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Read the full story
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Not laughing now
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On his way out: Philip Hammond leaves No 11 (REUTERS/Toby Melville)
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On Tuesday at 11.23am Nicola Sturgeon accuses Theresa May of having no personal mandate. On Wednesday at 11.38am Theresa May suddenly becomes very wedded to the mandate that the Conservative 2015 manifesto gives her. Coincidence I'm sure.
Philip Hammond's U-turn on £2billion of national insurance for the self-employed has two consequences: it emboldens rebels to think that they can easily reroute the government — they have school funding in their sights now — and humiliates the loyalists who defended it for seven days.
Rory Stewart, the international development minister, deserves a promotion for being sent on to BBC Two's Daily Politics with lines to take that did not include "ABORT. ABORT. ABORT". He was midway through defending the policy live on air when told of news of the U-turn.
Sir Desmond Swayne revealed that he had written an article "robustly supporting" the chancellor's tax hike for this week's Forest Journal, which was "already with the printer". Tory MPs will remember this.
Everyone should be embarrassed. Hammond should be embarrassed for thinking that he could get away with breaking a manifesto commitment not to increase national insurance by sending out an aide to claim that the Tory manifesto was "before my time".
No 10 should be embarrassed for either not knowing what was in the manifesto, or believing whatever "actually, in the legislation" nonsense the Treasury told them.
Conservative MPs who went out and defended the national insurance increase have been totally embarrassed.
At a special meeting of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs last Wednesday, hours after the budget, James Cleverly asked the chancellor to be honest: could he go out and defend it or was he planning a u-turn? Hammond's response was sufficiently convincing for some to go into bat for their government. It's notable that Cleverly, and several others, kept quiet. Hammond knew that he was on tricky ground.
By the time the prime minister appeared in front of 1922 Committee executive on Monday night, the U-turn was in motion. "Her slightly strange answers all make sense now," says one person who was there.
Everyone should be embarrassed by the total lack of an opposition. Jeremy Corbyn was not just caught on the hop, he was not just bad by his standards, he was the sort of bad that to describe in detail would sound like bullying.
That Labour MPs were sent their lines to take for PMQs at 12.18pm (that's 18 minutes after it started) left one exasperated aide declaring: "That's it. I give up."
The absence of an opposition to be even remotely feared allowed the government to fall into believing that it could break a flagship, unequivocal manifesto pledge. And it will also let them get away with it.
Hammond joked last week that he was like Norman Lamont, who gave a "last spring budget" that was hailed by the PM of the day as the “right budget, at the right time, from the right chancellor”.
"Ten weeks later, he was sacked, " Hammond said. "So wish me luck." Everyone laughed. They're not laughing now.
No 10 aides were furious at being called "economically illiterate" in weekend briefings from Hammond's allies. “They punished him today,” a government source told The Times.
Downing Street is keen to stress that the decision took "courage" and that both May and Hammond were "dignified" in retreat. Hammond's admission in the Commons yesterday that the first person to raise the manifesto breach was the BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg was either a bad joke or a worrying insight into his political acumen. The chancellor has written a direct appeal to Sun readers today, trying to make amends for the attack on White Van Man.
The times we live in mean that the chancellor of the exchequer can be forced, within a week, to tear up the budget (THE BUDGET!) and suffer no significant, immediate comeback.
If Jeremy Corbyn clings on, and we must assume for now that the impotence of the Labour Party means that he will, then something has to change. Or we can expect more of this from a government that complains about others treating politics as a game, while forgetting how to play to win.
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The Sketch
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Labour’s own goal led to a relieved Tory finish
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Patrick Kidd
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Politics stopped working normally a while ago. The Tories will probably be 23 points ahead in the next poll. This is what happens when the leader of the opposition has the charisma of Albert Steptoe and the intellectual dexterity of a cinnamon whirl. A prime minister’s questions in which the PM admits to a U-turn on a key policy should not end with her own side smiling and laughing. On the Ides of March, with Julius Theresa wearing a target upon her back, the Islington Brutus plunged a dagger into his own left testicle.
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Read the full sketch
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| Quote of the day |
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I think credit where credit is due, it was actually Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC shortly after I said it in the budget speech.
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Philip Hammond questioned on who was the first to realise that the budget was in breach of the 2015 manifesto
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Today's cartoon from The Times by Peter Brookes
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Six years in Syria
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Today the Syrian conflict passes a grim milestone: it will have lasted for as long as the Second World War, six long years, during which time more children have been killed than British people during the Blitz.
War Child, the charity for children affected by conflict, has released a video featuring well-known faces including Nicole Scherzinger, Jude Law, Sam Smith, Marcus Mumford, James Bay and Michael McIntyre. You can watch Enough is Enough here. Carey Mulligan, global ambassador for the charity, writes for Red Box.
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Fox and Werritty
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While Hammond squirmed, Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, was in celebratory mood, heading to the Strangers' bar in parliament with his old friend Adam Werritty. You'll remember that Fox was forced to resign as defence secretary in disgrace in 2011 when it emerged that Werritty had falsely described himself as his aide.
Werritty drank Grolsch while Fox stuck to orange juice. They drained their glasses just after 7pm and left together.
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Queen signs off Brexit
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At 11am today the Queen will open her red box, pick up a pen and sign her name on the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, granting it royal assent.
There are warnings from diplomats today that Brexit negotiations with the European Union will not start until June unless Theresa May triggers Article 50 by next week. Read the story
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Debating indyref2
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This could be a tricky one for the government. MPs are set to hold a debate on a second Scottish independence referendum after more than 140,000 Scots signed a petition calling for a rerun of the 2014 vote to be blocked.
It would force a minister to formally respond to the idea, something the government had been trying to avoid.
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Dutch halt populist tide
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“It is an evening when the Netherlands after Brexit, after the American elections, said ‘Stop’ to the wrong kind of populism,” a jubilant Mark Rutte said the Dutch election results rolled in.
All the talk of Geert Wilders, anti-Muslim leader, securing a breakthrough came to little, as voters turned out in huge numbers to thwart his far-right party.
But if you thought our coalition talks in 2010 were complicated, the projected Dutch result heralds chaos, with only Rutte’s party winning more than 20 seats in the 150-member parliament.
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Welcome back Hezza, you're sacked
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Michael Heseltine was briefly back as a government adviser. Alun Cairns, the Welsh secretary, announced that the former deputy PM was helping with a project in Swansea Bay, before Downing Street made clear it was a "clerical error" and that Hezza was still on the naughty step for rebelling on the Brexit bill. The Sun has the story.
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Boris joins Somalia aid mission
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Boris Johnson flew into Somalia yesterday as the government announced that it would donate millions of pounds to help more than 16 million people facing famine in Africa.
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Read the full story
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Also in the news
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- FAMILY AFFAIR: New MPs will be barred from employing family and partners Read the full story
- WATCHDOG'S WARNING: Terrorism laws that damage communities face axe Read the full story
- ON TRACK: Southern Rail strikes deal with the train union Aslef
- SINKING FEELING: Warship’s launch is delayed amid fears over rising costs Read the full story
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| TMS |
| From the diary |
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By Patrick Kidd
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Blair imitates art
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The Queen is notoriously discreet (she won’t speak to Grant, the TMS hobbit, no matter how many wine gums he offers), which makes it tricky for those who write films and plays about her. Peter Morgan, creator of The Audience, The Queen and now The Crown, told a Royal Television Society event on Tuesday that he generally makes up the dialogue between HM and her prime ministers. “It’s often more accurate than I thought,” he said. “When Tony Blair now talks about his audiences with the Queen after Diana’s death, he uses lines that were in the film The Queen [in which Michael Sheen plays the PM].” How very Blair to regard the silver screen as real life.
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Read more from the TMS diary
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What the papers say
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The Times
"Not having won an election herself, Mrs May feels wedded to a manifesto on which her predecessor won. If she wants more authority in the Commons she again faces two options: find new ways to face down her backbenchers, or get more of them in an early general election." Read the full article
The Daily Telegraph
"Over the next critical two years leading to Brexit, we need a Cabinet playing at the top of its game, not scoring own goals." Read the full article
The Guardian
"If [Hammond's poll lead on economic competence] is not seriously dented next time the pollsters ask the same question, and if even a humbled and damaged Conservative chancellor enjoys more confidence than Labour, then Labour really will need to worry." Read the full article
Daily Mail
"No soft soap or flannel can wipe away the truth that the U-turn over National Insurance has been a humiliating fiasco." Read the full article
The Sun
"This blunder has been mortifying for the PM and borderline ruinous for Philip Hammond’s credibility." Read the full article
Financial Times
"Mrs May should have backed the chancellor and stuck to her guns on the NIC changes. Both have been weakened by an unnecessary U-turn." Read the full article
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Agenda
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Today
- The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh re-open the National Army Museum. Michael Fallon, defence secretary, also attends.
- Greg Clark, business secretary, visits Wales in relation to the UK’s industrial strategy. Margot James, Jo Johnson, Nick Hurd and Lord Prior of Brampton, all ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, also visit Wales.
- A number of strategic risks could have a significant impact on aircraft carrier delivery, according to the NAO.
- It is too easy for the prime minister to disregard cabinet on foreign and military policy, according to a report on lessons from the Chilcot report by the public administration and constitutional affairs committee.
- 9am: Jeremy Hunt, health secretary, speaks at the Mental Health Network annual conference.
- 12pm: Bank of England’s monetary policy committee announces interest rate decision.
- 12.30pm: Pascal Lamy, former director of the World Trade Organisation, speaks on Brexit, trade and the WTO at the Institute for Government think-tank.
- 5.45pm: Philip Dunne, health minister, speaks at the Royal College of Physicians conference.
House of Commons
- 9.30am: Culture, media and sport questions.
- David Lidington, leader of the House, makes a statement on forthcoming Commons business.
- Statement on ‘Lessons still to be learnt from the Chilcot Inquiry’ report by the public administration and constitutional affairs committee (Bernard Jenkin)
- Statement on a report into suicide prevention by the health committee (Sarah Wollaston)
- Backbench business debate on energy prices.
- Adjournment debate on Syria (Bob Stewart)
Westminster Hall
- 1.30pm: Debate on transport committee’s report ‘The future of rail: Improving the rail passenger experience’ and the Government response.
- 3pm: Debate on Jobcentre Plus office closures (Chris Stephens)
Select Committees
- 11.30am: Science and technology: evidence session on closing the STEM skills gap.
House of Lords
- 11am: Royal assent
- Oral questions on: funding of adult social care; ECHR judgments on prisoner voting; sentencing guidelines for young offenders; impact of the Budget on retirement savings.
- Orders and regulations: Motion to approve: Draft Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotheram and Sheffield Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2017; motion to approve Draft Tees Valley Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order
- Debate on Strengthening the UK’s relationship with the Commonwealth
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@MattChorley
