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| Tuesday April 11 2017 |
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By Lucy Fisher
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Good morning,
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The prime minister is on a five-day walking trip in Snowdonia this week and faces a second uphill struggle dealing with Russia after the chemical attack in Syria.
Theresa May took a 20-minute call with President Trump yesterday and, in time for newspaper front pages, declared afterwards that the US leader had created a “window of opportunity” for Vladimir Putin to change course in Syria.
All eyes will be on the G7 talks in Italy today to see how the overnight UK-US alignment on Russia affects the group’s response to the Kremlin, after resistance to new sanctions among some of its European members.
Matt Chorley is also on holiday this week. You can get in touch with me instead by emailing lucy.fisher@thetimes.co.uk.
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Purple reign coming to an end?
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Ukip is fielding candidates in fewer than half the English seats up for grabs in the local elections next month, according to data that emerged last night.
The party’s participation in just 48 per cent of council contests on May 4 is in sharp contrast to its 2013 surge when it contested 73 per cent of seats and made record gains, according to Conservative Party analysis. Ukip’s failure to convince people to stand in the majority of council seats suggests the turmoil that has engulfed the party in recent months is finally catching up with it.
That impression is compounded by its falling membership figures, which have dropped from 47,000 people at the last general election to 34,000 members today. Part of this fall is a result of Ukip’s shambolic internal systems; in the past the party did not offer automatic membership renewal or even accept direct debit for payment – oversights that revealed its lack of professionalism and backroom organisation.
The membership drop-off also points to longer-term existential problems since the Tories’ electoral victory in May 2015, the subsequent fulfilment of David Cameron’s pledge to hold an EU referendum and the Leave result.
Conservatives claim to have shot Ukip’s fox, having cannily taken ownership of Brexit and displaying, for the main part, a disciplined and united front in support of the prime minister’s strategy for EU withdrawal. Since Theresa May triggered Article 50 a fortnight ago, Ukip figures can no longer demand that she get on with the departure process, or in any credible sense call into question whether she will go through with Brexit at all.
Ukip must now play a waiting game until it can accuse the government of betraying the Leave vote once the shape of immigration policy and sovereignty post-Brexit emerges. In a signal of its intent, Paul Nuttall’s party has branded itself “the guard dog of Brexit”, but it is difficult to see how it will influence the discourse in any meaningful way. As the technical details of various scenarios are debated in the Commons, the party has been left without representation on the green benches after its sole MP Douglas Carswell quit last month.
The financial state of the party also looks precarious. The key former donor Arron Banks has walked away to build a new movement, which could end up sweeping in other wealthy backers of the party. Furthermore, once Britain secedes from the EU at the end of March 2019, Ukip and its 20 MEPs will lose the millions of pounds they receive from the bloc each year in salaries and allowances. They really are, as Nigel Farage is fond of saying, the turkeys that voted for Christmas.
Mr Farage himself meanwhile presents a conundrum for the party’s evolution. The limelight-magnet’s growing list of new commitments, including roles with LBC Radio and Fox News, could offer Ukip's new leader Mr Nuttall the space and freedom to stamp his authority on the party. Yet without Mr Farage, Ukip could struggle to maintain its media presence or hold the same appeal for voters attracted to the charms of the pint-swilling, chain-smoking ex-metals trader As Mr Bank’s Ukip 2.0 project gets off the ground, it remains to be seen whether Mr Farage can continue to ride two horses, maintaining influence in his old party while participating in its new rival.
In its current form Ukip’s future looks unsustainable. But the highest echelons realise that. Mr Nuttall is planning a major relaunch, which will be unveiled at the party’s annual conference in Torquay in September.
While he has vowed to keep the name, the party’s policies, structure, constitution, and even its garish purple and yellow pound sign logo are under review.
The party faithful may hold on until the autumn, but Ukip faces further losses at the ballot box before then as the effects of a lack of policy, purpose and candidates take hold.
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Red Box Podcast
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The second in Matt’s brilliant podcast series on comedy and politics is out today and explores whether the times we live in are too serious for humour.
Featuring Andy Zaltzman, Tiff Stevenson and Hugo Rifkind, the panel wonders: can satire achieve anything, should comedy have a point of view, and are we a nation divided by Mrs Brown's Boys?
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Today's cartoon from Morten Morland...
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Britain’s split with EU on Russia sanctions
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Theresa May threw her weight behind efforts to impose sanctions on Russia over its backing for President Assad last night in the face of European opposition.
The prime minister said after a 20-minute call with Donald Trump that the US president had created a “window of opportunity” for Vladimir Putin to change course.
She also backed his efforts to apply pressure on China to curb North Korea and supported his toughening position against Iran’s influence in the Middle East.
Her intervention will dismay European allies, including Germany and Italy, who were resisting plans set out by Boris Johnson for sanctions against Russian military officials.
Viktor Ozerov, head of the defence committee in the upper house of Moscow’s parliament, likened the idea of sanctions against Russian military figures to “shooting at sparrows”.
Meanwhile back in London the Russian ambassador and a press attaché with a quotable turn of phrase are the architects of the Kremlin’s extraordinary social media output, run from the unlikely nerve centre of the former kitchens of Kensington Palace.
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Read the full story
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| Quote of the day |
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We cannot miss this moment. It is time for Putin to face the truth about the tyrant he is still propping up.
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Boris Johnson, foreign secretary
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Thousands bid farewell to PC Palmer
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By Patrick Kidd
The thin blue line of police fellowship stretches a long way. It ran for almost a mile along Southwark Street in south London as 5,000 police officers lined the route of their fallen colleague’s final journey and it stretched into every police station as the funeral of PC Keith Palmer was marked with a thousand two-minute silences.
This was a private funeral and a public occasion. The murder of PC Palmer on the cobbles beneath Big Ben on March 22 was a personal tragedy for those who loved him but the display of mourning was about more than one officer.
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Read the full story
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Corbyn woos the entrepreneurs
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Jeremy Corbyn will seek to position himself on the side of small business today as Labour continues its policy blitz.
A culture of late payments that forces 50,000 small companies out of business every year is a “national scandal”, the Labour leader will say in an attempt to counter criticism of his party’s attitude towards entrepreneurs.
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Read the full story
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I’ll be seeing EU
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Nicola Sturgeon and her senior ministers held more than 80 meetings with European leaders and other influential figures in the weeks after the Brexit vote as they tried to win support for Scotland’s future within Europe.
Travel and engagement details obtained from the Scottish government show the extent of the first minister’s charm offensive in Europe, suggesting she favours Brussels over Britain.
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Read the full story
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Brexit back door to EU for skilled Britons
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Thousands of Britons may be allowed to work in the EU after Brexit under a special visa scheme designed to encourage highly skilled migrants from outside the bloc, a report says.
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Read the full story
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PM’s sojourn in Snowdonia
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Theresa May in Switzerland with Philip, her husband, last year.
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Theresa May is on a five-day walking holiday in Snowdonia as she deals with the Syrian conflict and gears up for the Brexit negotiations. Yesterday she was spotted buying a ring and attending a church service.
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Read the full story
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Council chiefs’ ‘fat cat’ salaries despite cuts
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More than 2,300 council workers in Britain are paid more than £100,000, according to a study, which found the number had increased despite cuts to budgets and rising social care costs.
The Mail notes that almost 540 town hall bosses take home a salary higher than £150,000 – which is more than the PM.
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Read the full story
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Nostalgic for New Labour?
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Team Corbyn is studiously ignoring the party anniversary looming on the horizon: 20 years since Tony Blair’s historic, landslide first term victory.
The left-wingers running the show today may be staying home washing their hair on May 1, but Progress isn’t about to let Labour’s biggest parliamentary electoral triumph go unmarked.
The Blairite think tank has a pamphlet out today celebrating the occasion and it strikes a defiant tone. They insist the New Labour years in government were ones “that every social democrat should be proud of”.
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Also in the news
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- DENIED BOARDING: Airline price war means you could be dragged off your next flight. Read the full story.
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| TMS |
| From the diary |
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By Patrick Kidd
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Mandelson's project
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When Peter Mandelson leapt aboard the EU gravy train — jus ferroviaire as they probably call it in Brussels — in 2004, he said he was torn about whether to accept a commissioner’s post out of loyalty to his Hartlepool constituents.
So much for that. “Forget Great Britain: take care of your own interests,” Mandy has told a German paper. He certainly takes care of his interests: EU rules say that his pension is dependent on observing a “duty of loyalty” to the project even after leaving his post.
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Read more from the TMS diary
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What the papers say
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The Times
When Mr Putin took on a direct military role in Syria, smashing much of Aleppo, he effectively recognised that Assad’s army was not capable of winning the war by itself. By becoming Assad’s main protector, Russia also took on the duty of declaring time on a war criminal.
Read the full article
Financial Times
By giving Mr Trump some impressive-sounding victories to tout at home, China may hope to forestall some of the wilder protectionist acts the US president has been threatening.
Read the full article
The Telegraph
The fact that Russia finds itself under such intense pressure to end support for Assad’s regime represents a dramatic turn-around in Moscow’s fortunes. Only a week ago Mr Putin was seen by Washington as a key player in efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict. Now he looks more like an international pariah.
Read the full article
The Guardian
A wider range of runoffs is now possible, including the nightmare scenario for the established parties, a Le Pen-Mélenchon head-to-head. The chances that France may be about to add a new chapter to the disruptions of Brexit and the Trump presidency are very real indeed.
Read the full article
Daily Mail
Indeed, at a time of austerity, how can council leaders – who miss no chance to complain about cuts to their grants – justify ANY pay rises for senior bureaucrats?The reason bills are going up so much is to pay for better social care, so every penny should be bolstering threadbare services for the elderly, not lining officials’ pockets.
Read the full article
The Sun
How do they get away with it? How, for that matter, do all the 539 town hall paper-shufflers nationwide who earn more than Theresa May? Have they no guilt as they bank fortunes raised from soaring council tax bills many struggle to pay?
Read the full article
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Agenda
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Today
- Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, visits India as part of the UK-India defence and security partnership.
- David Jones, Brexit minister, continues a visit to the Hague.
- More than 2,300 council staff earned above £100,000 last year, according to the TaxPayers’ alliance.
- Amnesty International publishes annual report on death penalties and executions around the world last year.
- Migration Watch UK, the campaign group, publishes a paper on arrangements for skilled Britons seeking to work in the EU after Brexit.
- Chris Skidmore, Cabinet Office minister, statement on the final 48 hours before the April 13 deadline to register to vote in next month’s local elections.
- 10am: Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, sets outs his "three pledges to small business" at a seminar hosted by the Federation of Small Businesses.
- 1pm: Douglas Carswell, former Ukip, now independent, MP for Clacton discusses his new book at the Institute for Government.
- 7pm: Paul Nuttall, Ukip leader, launches the party’s local election campaign in Margate.
House of Commons & House of Lords- The House of Commons is in Easter recess and will return on Tuesday, April 18. The House of Lords is in Easter recess and will return on Monday, April 24.
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