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| Thursday June 18 2020 |
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By Patrick Maguire
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Good morning,
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You wait all week to announce an iconic Westminster institution's new look and then Boris Johnson steals your thunder with a £900,000 union flag paint job for his prime ministerial jet. My byline picture will ensure that Red Box is just as unsightly three mornings a week at a mere fraction of that cost.
I'll be in your inbox on Thursdays, Fridays and, as of this week, with an all-new Saturday edition of this email. Think of it as the morning briefing equivalent of a Grant Shapps weekend press conference, only less relentlessly absurd.
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The briefing
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- UK confirmed cases: 299,251 – ⬆️ 1,115 | UK deaths: 42,153 – ⬆️ 184
- Boris Johnson is to spend the day putting on the Ritz for President Macron of France, who visits London today for the first face-to-face summit between the prime minister and a foreign leader since the pandemic began.
- No 10 has laid on a Red Arrows flypast, an audience with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall and a ceremonial guard of honour by the Coldstream Guards in a bid to woo Paris as Brexit trade talks enter the home straight.
- Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that the two-metre rule was "just another social distancing rule" that could be relaxed but he admitted that the government did not yet have an alternative solution.
- Tory jitters on the economy have gone into overdrive after Downing Street all but confirmed that Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, would suspend the triple lock on pensions in a bid to save £20 billion a year.
- Today Nicola Sturgeon is likely to loosen lockdown restrictions in Scotland, with both the first minister and her advisers warning that schools are likely to return to normality before shops and pubs.
- In England, meanwhile, ministers are set to extend the school day after more than 1,600 paediatricians called on the prime minister to reopen schools or risk "scarring the life chances" of a generation in an open letter splashed by The Times this morning as criticism of the teaching unions grows.
- President Trump has failed to stop John Bolton, his former national security adviser, from publishing an explosive memoir which reveals that he did not know that the UK was a nuclear power, that he asked President Xi of China to support his re-election bid and that he came far closer than previously thought to withdrawing from Nato.
- Trivia question: Winston Churchill gave his legendary "Finest Hour" speech in the Commons 80 years ago today. But when was the last spoken contribution from Winston Churchill recorded in Hansard? Answer at the bottom of today's email.
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Tim Tam Bam
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Boris Johnson brandishes a packet of Tim Tams as he announces trade talks with Australia and New Zealand
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John Bolton is making all the headlines this morning, and with good reason: leaked extracts from The Room Where It Happened, the former White House security supremo's memoir of his time in the Trump administration, have hit the news cycle with the sort of force the moustachioed hawk usually reserves for foreign interventions.
It's not hard to see why. Bolton did not testify in the impeachment trial but his account more than makes up for the omission. The Trump that he claims to have known is a figure who veers so far into self-parody that it feels like bad satire.
The president is most at home chumming with strongmen — telling China's President Xi to splash the cash on American wheat and soybeans to improve his election prospects; promising President Erdogan that he would intervene to save a Turkish firm from a corruption inquiry; and repeatedly demanding that Mike Pompeo, his secretary of state, hand deliver a signed copy of Elton John's Rocket Man to Kim Jong-un.
For Atlanticists in Westminster, it's more tragedy than farce. Trump came far closer to pulling the United States out of Nato than many had realised. In a 2018 meeting with Theresa May, a British official referred to the UK as a “nuclear power” only for Trump to interject: “Oh, are you a nuclear power?” The question, Bolton drily notes, “was not intended as a joke”. That, as a wise man from the Somerset Levels once said, is very much not normal.
Despite the heat Bolton's kompromat has generated, the real light shed on the future of the special relationship yesterday came from a serving White House official in Robert Lighthizer, the president's chief trade negotiator, who told Congress that the US wanted an all-singing, all-dancing trade deal, replete with chlorinated chicken and without the taxes on Silicon Valley tech giants mooted by ministers in Westminster.
"There are very, very fundamental issues that we have to come to grips with," he warned. "I don't want anyone to think this is going to be a rollover." Most worryingly for No 10, he warned that there was next to no chance of a deal being done before the presidential election in November. Joe Biden, as we know, is no Donald Trump, and congressional Democrats are almost certain to veto any deal too.
That raises a troubling question for the prime minister: what is the point of Brexit anyway? The US trade deal has long been coveted as the jewel in the crown of any post-Brexit trading landscape, but it looks like it will come to nothing. Though that will no doubt delight the backbenchers who kicked up a stink over the threat any deal would pose to UK farming last weekend, it will leave many others disappointed.
Instead, the best Johnson has managed to do is to promise — in a scene more reminiscent of those funeral insurance adverts once fronted by Michael Parkinson — to deliver Australia's answer to the humble Penguin, the Tim Tam, to a supermarket near you. It's only a matter of time before Scott Morrison ceremonially eats a Wagon Wheel in return.
As the reality of international politics and the coronavirus pandemic bites, Downing Street can do little else but disappoint one half of its parliamentary coalition or another, be it on Brexit, as Lighthizer made clear, or the triple lock on pensions, which looks to be the first manifesto commitment to go to the big policy seminar in the sky as a result of the looming recession. That's bad news for No 10's hold on a parliamentary party that's already proving a lot more rebellious than December's landslide might have suggested. But it could be much, much worse for its standing in the country.
Still, we'll always have Tim Tams.
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The Sketch
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Smile from Starmer is quite a collector’s item
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Quentin Letts
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We have now had enough PMQs bouts between Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer for a pattern to have developed. It goes something like this. Opening backbenchers create jovial buzz before Sir Keir begins his six questions. Frivolity dies. Sir Keir approaches the catafalque with sombre mien, as though someone just sat on his Airfix model. Mentions something noble to establish brief consensus. Pauses. Mr Johnson, already looking guilty, shifts on buttocks. Sir Keir quotes from a government report (obscure) and demands action.
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Read the full sketch
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Around the world
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CHINA: Beijing has imposed lockdown rules on its 21 million residents and urged them not to travel outside the capital after 31 new cases of coronavirus were recorded overnight across four other Chinese provinces. Read the story
USA: Florida’s move towards reopening has been thrown into doubt after the state reported a record rise in new infections yesterday. Texas and Arizona also recorded record numbers of new cases. Read the story
RUSSIA: Visitors to Vladimir Putin’s official residence near Moscow must pass through “disinfection tunnels”, sparking allegations of hypocrisy after the Kremlin abruptly lifted coronavirus lockdown restrictions in advance of a referendum that could keep him in power until 2036. Read the story
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Need to know
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END OF THE RHODES: Student campaigners celebrated last night after officials at Oriel College in Oxford announced their support for removing its divisive statue of Cecil Rhodes. (The Times)
DES RES: Downing Street has refused to say whether the prime minister has spoken to Richard Desmond, the developer at the centre of the housing secretary Robert Jenrick's controversial £1 billion planning decision, since entering No 10. (The Times)
MINORITY REPORT: Police have been 54 per cent more likely to fine ethnic minorities than white people for breaching the lockdown, civil liberties campaigners claim. (The Times)
TRAIN IN VAIN: Eurostar passengers will be able to check in and board without showing their passports from next year after the introduction of facial recognition technology. (The Times)
IN PLACE OF BEER: Pub chain Greene King and Lloyd's of London, the insurer, have both apologised for their historic links to slavery and pledged to pay reparations to black and other ethnic minority communities. (Daily Telegraph)
NO SHOW: Britain's performing arts sector faces ruin and 70 per cent of theatres will go bust without a government bailout, a coalition of 100 creatives including Phoebe Waller-Bridge, James McAvoy and Tom Stoppard have told Rishi Sunak and culture secretary Oliver Dowden in an open letter. (Guardian)
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A clear victory for the government in yesterday's poll: 59 per cent of you agreed that the Department for International Development should be merged with the Foreign Office.
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Have your say
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Yesterday Esther asked who you'd like to see as Joe Biden's vice-presidential candidate.
Oliver Sloam: "He has promised that his running-mate will be female, so to cap off 2020 maybe he will appoint Ivanka Trump?"
Richard Ottaway: "Just watch Kamala Harris online for a few minutes and you’ll appreciate she’s got what it takes. As Joe Biden will be 82 in 2025, the vice president will be a front runner to be his successor. The USA could do a lot worse. "
Edna Cullen: "Gosh, I hope you're prophetic and, no matter who Biden chooses, that they become vice president!"
John Andrews: "The Obama family on a job-share basis. They'd be an ideal addition to Biden’s ticket covering experience, intellect and youth. Michelle Obama would bring grace and powerful intellect and communicating skills and no doubt receive many inputs from her daughters."
Kevin Alldred: "Boris Johnson... it would give the rest of us a well-deserved break from his governance."
Antony Rider: "Elizabeth Warren would bring out the rabbits to vote."
TODAY: What obscure foreign confectionery should Boris Johnson import next? Email redbox@thetimes.co.uk and we'll use some of the best tomorrow.
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The cartoon
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Today's cartoon from The Times by Peter Brookes
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Now read this
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The former king of Spain Juan Carlos is facing a storm of allegations over his financial dealings and his private life. Now his son, King Felipe VI, is fighting to preserve the monarchy, writes Isambard Wilkinson.
Breakfast at Zarzuela Palace, the Spanish royal residence on the outskirts of Madrid, must be a tense affair these days. With Juan Carlos facing a storm of allegations over his financial dealings, the ruling Bourbon clan may dread the morning papers.
This year a series of reports have linked Juan Carlos, 82, who abdicated after a series of scandals in 2014, with multimillion-euro payments into offshore accounts. Swiss prosecutors are investigating them and the source of a €65 million payment he made to his former mistress.
In March, King Felipe, 52, disinherited himself and cut his dad's annual stipend in an apparent bid to buffer the crown from the allegations. As more allegations of corruption emerge, the royal household fear that their patriarch may end up in the dock.
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Read the full story
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| TMS |
| From the diary |
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By Jack Blackburn
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Tracey played long game
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Most MPs accept ministerial posts too eagerly, but Tracey Crouch got hers by playing hard to get, albeit mistakenly. The Tory MP tells Iain Dale’s All Talk podcast that she assumed it was a wind-up when her PA said No 10 was calling. A Downing Street friend later texted: “Darling: you’re on the list”, but it was too late to see David Cameron that evening. No 10 suggested the next morning. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m going on holiday.” She then missed the PM’s calls as her phone had no signal. “You’re very difficult to get hold of,” Cameron told her, but he finally had his minister for sport. Then she said: “Can I think about it?” He gave her 30 minutes.
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Read more from the TMS diary
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The agenda
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Today
- Bringing back services from the private sector to government providers can improve quality, increase reliability, and save money, according to a report by the Institute for Government.
- Public Health England publishes its weekly update of demographic and location-based data on the coronavirus pandemic in the UK.
- President Macron visits London to mark the 80th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's broadcast to Occupied France, and will be hosted by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall before talks in Downing Street.
- 9.30am George Eustice, the environment secretary, gives evidence to the environmental audit committee.
- 12.30pm Nicola Sturgeon holds daily media briefing on the Scottish government's response to coronavirus, with further relaxation of lockdown measures expected.
- 12.30pm Vaughan Gething, Welsh health minister, holds daily press conference on coronavirus.
- 12.30pm João Vale de Almeida, EU Ambassador to the UK, addresses a webinar at Chatham House.
- 1.30pm Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, holds the latest of his "Call Keir" sessions with voters in Lancashire.
- 1.50pm Witnesses from Edinburgh and Stirling Universities give evidence to the Scottish affairs committee on coronavirus in Scotland.
- 2pm The Office for National Statistics publishes this week's figures on the number and types of death registrations in England and Wales.
- 2.30pm Michael Gove, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Brandon Lewis, Northern Ireland secretary, give evidence to the Northern Ireland affairs committee on post-Brexit customs arrangements.
- 3pm Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, holds press conference on measures to prevent illegal raves along with Baroness Hughes, deputy mayor for policing, Nick Bailey, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester Police.
- 5pm Ministers and health officials hold daily press briefing to update on the coronavirus situation.
House of Commons
- 9.30am Trade questions
- Urgent question on merger of the Department for International Development with the Foreign Office.
- Business questions to the leader of the Commons.
- Motion to approve draft orders on the African Development Bank and the African Development Fund.
- Backbench committee debate on the effect of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.
- Adjournment debate on education standards in Stoke-on-Trent.
House of Lords
- 11am Questions on implementation of the coronavirus track and trace system, recruitment of nurses on to degree courses beginning in September, online support for school pupils during the pandemic, and establishing an independent inquiry into the Post Office’s Horizon accounting system.
- Motion to approve draft regulations on civil aviation insurance, derivatives, and financial services.
- Urgent question on changes to the furlough scheme.
- Civil Aviation (Insurance) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.
- Over the Counter Derivatives, Central Counterparties and Trade Repositories (Amendment, etc., and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020
- Questions on global Britain.
- Questions on Brexit negotiations.
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Today's trivia answer
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Trivia question: Winston Churchill gave his legendary "Finest Hour" speech in the Commons 80 years ago today. But when was last spoken contribution from Winston Churchill recorded in Hansard?
Answer: March 20, 1997, when the wartime prime minister's grandson, the Manchester Tory MP also called Winston Churchill, rose to praise John Major at PMQs.
Send your trivia to redbox@thetimes.co.uk
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@patrickkmaguire
