Red Box - Wednesday September 18 2019

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Wednesday September 18 2019

By Esther Webber

Good morning,

There's a report in The Times today on public health experts' finding that motorists drive faster and more erratically when listening to higher tempo tunes. Songs with more than 120 beats per minute are particularly risky.

We can only assume that Boris Johnson has been getting really into electronic dance music since he took the wheel at No 10.

Esther Webber

Red Box reporter

@estwebber

20 September, Bath SOLD OUT
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The briefing

The Supreme Court will hear from Sir John Major today as the legal challenge to the prorogation of parliament continues.

Binyamin Netanyahu’s political fate is hanging by a thread after exit polls showed that Israeli voters had failed to back the prime minister’s coalition of right-wing and religious parties in the second election this year.

Britain’s most senior police officer has been accused of lying to cover up failures in a £2.5 million investigation into a fantasist’s allegations that he had been the victim of an establishment paedophile ring.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, will address the European parliament this morning for the first time since talks with Boris Johnson.

Esther Webber's trivia question: Lord Keen of Elie, who has been representing the government in the Supreme Court hearing on prorogation, was fined £1,000 in 2017 when police investigating a break-in at his home discovered what? Answer at the bottom of today's email.

See you in court

Visualisation courtesy of Emily Ashton

Whenever the Olympic Games are on I find myself inexplicably drawn to watch hours and hours of some sport such as dressage or curling that I previously had no awareness of or interest in, and it's a similar thing with the Supreme Court.

The Netflix era of on-demand viewing has truly come good when there's something available to stream which is even more nerdy and incomprehensible than a Lib Dem conference.

I first became alive to the delights of watching the proceedings of the Supreme Court when Gina Miller originally took the government to court in December 2016, successfully arguing that ministers could not trigger Article 50 without consulting parliament.

For a start, there were some amazing characters among the judges: Lord Sumption, who has since retired, and his Olympics-themed tie, and Lord Hughes and his incredibly sonorous voice. And there were some fascinating digressions on the pronunciation of De Keyser, and lobster-fishing.

Now they're in action again - this time hearing a legal challenge to prorogation, which has already been dismissed by one English court and upheld by one Scottish court. Spare a thought here for Jeremy Wright, who was the attorney-general representing the government in 2016, and has not been invited back. He went on to become culture secretary and then lost his job under Boris Johnson, so is definitely available.

But two of the key players are the same: Lord Keen, the advocate general for Scotland, and Lord Pannick, representing Gina Miller. Between these two it is very much a grudge match.

I don't know if you happen to have a nemesis but the most I ever do to mine is hate-scroll through their Instagram feed and make up vaguely insulting nicknames. This being lawyer-land, the pair have been playing out their rivalry in the 800-capacity stadium which is the House of Lords ever since the Article 50 case.

On one occasion in 2017, Lord Keen was telling the House that "a good argument is never improved by being overstated" when Lord Pannick rose to intervene. Lord Keen refused to let him - and you get the sense Lord Pannick is not used to being refused. When Lord Pannick did eventually get to speak he began by remarking, archly: "I do not want to overstate my case." In the urbane environs of the upper chamber, this was the equivalent of a two-footed tackle.

This is the background against which they faced each other yesterday, and it appeared at several points as though Lord Keen was off his game. He couldn't answer when a judge asked what the government would do if the court found their actions unlawful, or when he was interrogated about provisions of a certain act intended to curtail prorogation.

I was following the action very much as an amateur enthusiast but all I have learnt from observing these things so far is that it's more or less impossible to second-guess a judge, even if one side appears to have a weaker case than the other.

For the record, Lord Keen's argument seemed to be that MPs had the chance to outlaw prorogation and they didn't, and it was not for the courts to clear up their mess. If - and at this stage it's a massive if - the court agreed with him, it would make the MPs who say they've been doing their darndest to avoid no-deal look pretty terrible. They had one job and they fudged it.

Other highlights - apologies to those of you intending to watch the game later - included extended confusion over which bundles of paper the court was meant to be looking at, which sent all serving and former clerks into a cold sweat.

Baroness Hale of Richmond, president of the Supreme Court, is already a cult figure among law students and practitioners (she has been compared to Beyoncé and featured in Vogue) but yesterday she broke into the mainstream as she calmly oversaw proceedings, dissected the theses before her and thanked the young woman who sorted out Bundlegate. By the end of the day, Lady Hale was duly trending on Twitter.

Today promises to be just as much of a spectacle, with Sir John Major speaking before the court and a written submission from Boris Johnson effectively asking the judges to butt out. To recap, that's a former prime minister alleging that our sitting prime minister has broken the law. Righto.

The judgment is not due until later this week, which is just as well, with parliament suspended. These days we're not really happy unless the constitution is televised.

In yesterday's poll asking whether the Lib Dems should go for a second referendum or revoking Article 50, each option received exactly 50 per cent each! Who says we are a nation divided?

Have your say

Yesterday I asked which song best expresses your feelings about the Lib Dems.

Mark Sanderson said In the Middle of Nowhere (sung by Dusty Springfield).

Michelle Roff said: "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you..."

Chris Ridgers suggested Dreamer by Supertramp, and Pete Hiam offered Betrayed by Kiss.

TODAY: Who would you like to have representing you in court? Email redbox@thetimes.co.uk and we'll use some of the best tomorrow.

The best comment

The role of judges in politics is on trial at the Supreme Court

Daniel Finkelstein – The Times

Gender stereotypes are becoming a drag

Alice Thomson – The Times

Trump needs Putin to help him win abroad

Roger Boyes – The Times

Have the Liberal Democrats made a grave miscalculation?

Stephen Fisher - Prospect

Britons in Europe are being hung out to dry. In Luxembourg they found their voice

Gaby Hinsliff - The Guardian

The cartoon

Today's cartoon from The Times is by Peter Brookes

Poll of the day: How popular are the party leaders?

Taking a quick look at three of the main party leaders' favourability ratings could be discouraging for Jo Swinson, who's currently even less popular than Jeremy Corbyn. But the Don't Knows here are interesting: as you might expect, the vast majority of people know what they think about Corbyn and Johnson.

In contrast, 48 per cent are unsure about Swinson. It could provide fertile territory if she's hoping for some kind of "I agree with Nick" moment as she gets more exposure. YouGov has also found Swinson is now about as well-known as Sir Vince Cable was at the end of his time as leader, so... the only way is up?

RED BOX: COMMENT

Lib Dems' clarity is good news for the Tories

James Johnson – Former No10 pollster

Need to know

CONTRACT KILLING: Dominic Cummings has sent new contracts of employment to special advisers this week which make it easier for them to be sacked by No 10. (The Times)

SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT? Jo Swinson set out her pitch for the top job, attacking her rivals Boris Johnson as entitled and Jeremy Corbyn as stuck in the 1970s. (The Times)

BETTEL UNSETTLED: A European diplomatic backlash is growing today over the “discourteous” treatment of Boris Johnson by Luxembourg’s prime minister. (The Times)

LABOURING A POINT: Jeremy Corbyn has set out the four pillars of a “sensible” Brexit deal he would negotiate with the EU, as he pledged to carry out whatever the people decide in a second EU referendum as Labour prime minister. (The Guardian)

TOP SECRET: The government is deliberately holding back papers on the proposed solution to the backstop amid fears they could be leaked by EU officials. (Daily Mirror)

TOTALLY TARIFFIC: Ministers are poised to overhaul the planned tariff schedule for a no-deal Brexit with deep cuts to proposed duties on heavy trucks after opposition from the haulage industry. (FT)

RED BOX: COMMENT

I am a young woman from an ethnic minority - and a Tory

Shabnam Nasimi – Conservative Friends of Afghanistan

Young British Jews show hope amid the hate

Neil Martin – JLGB

Tweet of the day

Now read this

Joanna Cannon is a bestselling novelist, writes Damian Whitworth. Her new memoir about her previous career as a doctor explains how she was broken by the NHS, and eventually healed by it.

Cannon’s late father was a plumber and her mother, who today is at home looking after her daughter’s German shepherd dog, Seth, worked in Woolworths. Cannon, now 51, left school at 15 with one O level and did a huge range of jobs, from typing to pulling pints, waiting on tables and working at a department store perfume counter.

She told the paramedic running a first-aid course she went on that she was interested in medicine. He told her that she wasn’t too old and she enrolled to take A levels at Derby College, delivering pizzas at night. She applied to the University of Leicester Medical School when she was 35. The professor who gave her a place said she was his “wild card”.

Read the full story

RED BOX: COMMENT

Scrapping universal credit will alienate working-class Labour voters

Gabriel Milland – Ex-head of comms, Department for Education

TMS

From the diary

By Jack Blackburn

A journalist's homework

Many journalists take deadlines to the wire (the one in No 10 has made it government policy), but few did so with as much brio as the late Hugh McIlvanney. The new collection of Miles Kington’s letters records that he once commissioned the Scottish sports writer to file a piece on his countrymen’s drinking habits, but heard little until the day it was due. He went to McIlvanney’s office, and was told that the Scot was doing “the grand tour” (ie drinking his way up Fleet Street). When he found him in the City Golf Club, McIlvanney raised his glass of whisky and said “Miles! Just doing some research for the article!”