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| Tuesday October 10 2017 |
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By Matt Chorley
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Good morning from Glasgow,
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Next month will be 60 years since Harold Wilson was forced to defend devaluing the currency, insisting “it does not mean that the pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued”.
Fast forward six decades and there seem to be real concerns about whether the new pound in your pocket will even work, while the economy enjoys a boost from us rushing to spend 500 million old ones.
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Must reads
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- The label “junior doctor” faces banishment from the NHS after the country’s head medic backed a campaign to change job titles that have been condemned as confusing and demeaning.
- Schools, police forces and councils will have “nowhere to hide” on discrimination, Theresa May pledges today as she publishes research laying bare racial divides across the country.
- The makers of The Crown have revealed how they found forces working on behalf of Winston Churchill, the Duke of Windsor and Westminster Abbey lined up against them — and that was without even involving Buckingham Palace.
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Sturgeon: Ten more years
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There are two ways to react to an electoral setback. Theresa May has spent four months apologising, prevaricating, U-turning and giving the impression of having been defeated despite remaining prime minister.
None of this defeatist nonsense for Nicola Sturgeon. The SNP might have lost a third of their MPs this year, they might have lost their Holyrood majority last year, they might have seen their hopes of Brexit boosting independence evaporate, but today the first minister will vow to go on and on.
Sturgeon will use a speech winding up the party's conference here in Glasgow to suggest she can stay in power for another decade or more. "Over the past ten years, we have led the way," she will tell the faithful at the SEC arena. "Our focus now is on the next ten years and beyond."
This will be cheered to the rafters by the party faithful, who have so far endured a pretty flat few days on the Clyde.
Privately the mood is different. Speaking to some MPs and activists yesterday afternoon I found concern that there had been no proper inquest into what went wrong in June, and no strategy to ensure it doesn't happen again.
The SNP ran a presidential style campaign – there were lots of pictures of Sturgeon in the manifesto, despite her not actually standing for election – which proved a turn-off, as both Labour and the Tories made gains. "The campaign was s***," was how it was described to me.
An alien arriving here might wonder now what the SNP is all about. The motions debated in the main hall cover every conceivable topic including housing, under-18s in the army, cohabiting, "sex for rent" landlords, the internet, nuclear weapons, the Crown estate, sanitary products, mental health and zero-hours contracts. This focus on domestic policy has excited many delegates.
But there is no mention on the agenda of the i-word. It seems that the SNP have finally got the message that voters have had enough of them banging on about independence.
It is why the flagship announcement from the speech is £420 million a year to pay to double free childcare for some young children to 30 hours a week.
In extracts of Sturgeon's speech released overnight, there is still a hint of the dream of breaking up the Union: talk of Scotland doing better when decisions are taken here in Scotland, and choosing "to shape our own future".
“Let’s not wait for others to decide for us," Sturgeon will say. “Let’s put Scotland in the driving seat.”
It is still not a message that resonates. In the latest YouGov survey 50 per cent of people would vote against Scotland becoming an independent country, while just 39 per cent would vote in favour. When don’t knows and non-voters are excluded, "no" has a 14-point lead.
More than half of Scots, 52 per cent, do not think there should be another independence referendum in the next five years, including one in six SNP voters.
Even fewer back the idea of holding a referendum after Brexit talks have concluded (whenever that might be), but before Britain actually leaves the EU. This of course could change if, as many in the SNP believe, the deal fails or is bad for Scotland.
But if the economy tanks on a bad deal, will Scots be more or less likely to take the leap? And why is it good to stay in one union (the EU) but bad to stay in another (the UK)?
The same YouGov poll for The Times suggested the SNP could also lose its pro-independence majority in Holyrood, with both the SNP and the Greens forecast to lose seats in 2021.
Momentum matters in politics, and after reaching such extraordinary highs, it will be incredibly difficult for the SNP to repeat the trick.
A leader on the back foot after a presidential campaign backfired, hoping that something turns up from Brexit to reverse her electoral fortunes ... remind you of anyone?
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Going it alone
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Keep the flag flying
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Catalonia hangs thick in the air. Unusually the EU came under heavy criticism from SNP delegates for its failure to condemn Spanish "brutality" amid calls for Brussels to directly intervene in the dispute.
Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president, will address the parliament today. If he pushes for a quick secession, Sturgeon & co will come under pressure from activists to recognise Europe's newest country.
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Read the full story
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In the genes
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"What I do know is that genetically we are behind," said Gordon Strachan, trying to explain why his Scottish side failed to qualify for the World Cup.
Nicola Sturgeon was not impressed.
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Today's cartoon from The Times by Morten Morland
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Call Theresa
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Cabinet meets today, giving everyone time to update the notes for their memoirs as they record every perceived sleight and stern look around the famous coffin-shaped table.
Then Theresa May is on LBC taking questions from the public from 5pm.
Fingers crossed we have a repeat of when Nick Clegg’s show was hijacked by “Boris from Islington”, who wanted to “get all those government ministers out of their posh limos and on to public transport”.
It might not be long before May tells Johnson to get on his bike.
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Questions of race
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Theresa May publishes her race audit today, which makes for pretty shocking reading.
Dorset police will be challenged to explain why black people were seven times more likely to be arrested in its area than in Essex last year. Stockport’s primary schools will face questions about why less than a quarter of black 11-year-olds reached the required standard in reading and maths for their age while in Sunderland the figure was more than three quarters. More details here
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Court out
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The wobbly Tory consensus on Brexit is getting wobblier. Eurosceptic Conservative MPs turned on Theresa May last night after she admitted for the first time that Britain could remain under the rule of EU judges for up to two years after Brexit.
Bernard Jenkin, the Eurosceptic chairman of the European research Group steering committee, said he was seeking urgent clarification of the prime minister’s comments while Jacob Rees-Mogg described her remarks as “very unfortunate”. Others lined up to accuse the PM of giving too much away to Brussels in her Florence speech.
The Sun reports that pro-Leave cabinet ministers are demanding billions to prepare for no deal. The Daily Mail says May has drawn up plans to waive import taxes and create huge inland lorry parks to keep trade flowing.
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| Quote of the day |
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It is essential that the UK is prepared for all possible outcomes
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Theresa May on a possible 'no deal scenario'
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The Sketch
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Scowling Boris Johnson takes the lion’s share of flak
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Patrick Kidd
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All the cabinet big beasts were there to support the prime minister as she made her first Commons statement since her darkest hour in Manchester last Wednesday. Hammond, the Rudder, DD and Foxy, Fallon and Green . . . a great show of unity. But someone was missing. Where was the lion? “Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, flinging junior ministers over his shoulder as he bowled in past the Speaker’s chair with Mrs May a few paragraphs in.
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Read the full sketch
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Stay another day
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A boost for the PM in the Telegraph, which has a new poll by ORB International showing 57 per cent think Theresa May should stay at least until March 2019. Only one in five think Boris Johnson would make a better prime minister. More here
The Guardian has got hold of an email that Grant Shapps sent to Conservative colleagues in which he complained about the “abuse and bile” he received after being named as the ringleader of an attempted coup against the PM.
David Cameron has got a job: the former PM has joined the electronic payments company First Data Corporation, his first major private sector job since leaving office. The Guardian has more.
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Tweet of the day
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‘Gradually and sensibly’
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David Gauke, the work and pensions secretary, has vowed to press ahead with universal credit, insisting the rollout of the the benefits system was “proceeding to plan, gradually and sensibly”. A policy reversal would mean 250,000 fewer people in work, the government claimed.
Marsha de Cordova, the newly appointed shadow disabilities minister, writes for Red Box today, warning of a "growing body of evidence showing that the system is already creaking and that plans to expand it even faster over the next few years will plunge millions of families into misery".
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Up the workers
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Robert Halfon, the former Tory minister, has dusted off his plea for the Conservatives to become the party of the working class in a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies, again calling for David Cameron's tree logo to be ditched for a “ladder of opportunity” to symbolise their desire to help people to get on in life.
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Read the full story
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Chamber of secrets
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A standby replacement House of Commons chamber, costing £85 million, could be built in case it is destroyed by a terror attack or fire, MailOnline reveals.
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Maggie's mystery
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The latest release of Margaret Thatcher's private papers reveal the level of abuse she faced in the 1987 election, which prompted Charles Powell — her private secretary – not to put herself through it again.
There are also details of her lessons in punk for an interview with Smash Hits and the recipe for Thatcher's “mystery starter”, a mixture of beef consommé, cream cheese and curry powder. Valentine Low writes in The Times that anyone tempted to try it at home may conclude it was a mystery which would have been best left unsolved.
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Russian influence
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Russian agents spent tens of thousands of dollars to flood Google with propaganda and influence last year’s US presidential election. Investigators in Congress are also looking at the impact of similar campaigns on Twitter and Facebook.
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Read the full story
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Going Dutch
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Legal cannabis farms, compulsory singing of the national anthem in schools and cuts to refugee benefits are among the controversial policies of a new Dutch coalition after 208 days without government.
Yesterday’s deal, almost seven months after polling day, narrowly failed to beat the country’s 1977 record for four-way coalition talks
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Read the full story
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Not-so-special
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Jeremy Shapiro, a former presidential adviser to Barack Obama, has claimed the US special relationship with Britain was a joke, and revealed he would insert references to "the Malvinas" – Argentina’s name for the Falklands – into press conferences, the Daily Mail reports.
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Labour of love
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Richard Leonard, an MSP in the running to be the next Scottish Labour leader, has resorted to Tinder in a bid to get pulses racing for his campaign.
Buzzfeed News quotes one user saying she was "tremendously confused" to find the former trade unionist popping up on her roster of suitors. "It was definitely odd," she told the website, but confirmed that despite being a Conservative voter she swiped right and was sufficiently wooed to vote Labour if he became leader. That's pulling power.
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| TMS |
| From the diary |
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By Patrick Kidd
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Don't knock it
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Do you look good in tights, have a firm knocking style and not mind if Dennis Skinner heckles you during a state opening of parliament? If so, today is the last day on which you can apply to be Black Rod. The post has several duties, which include the “commitment of delinquents”, or disciplining naughty peers before they go off to join the Pirates of Penzance. Only one of the 69 Black Rods has been executed but not all have been as upstanding as David Leakey. Fleetwood Sheppard, who did it in the 1690s, was best known as Nell Gwynn’s pimp.
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Read more from the TMS diary
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What the papers say
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The Times
"Racial disparity in Britain has narrowed over time, but only by being forced into the open. Tolerance is a work in progress. Today it takes a step in the right direction." Read the full article
The Daily Telegraph
"Theresa May’s Brexit statement in the Commons had one message – “I’m in charge” – and two audiences. It was aimed, obviously, at Tory MPs who might doubt that she has the desire or ability to continue as prime minister.But it was also directed at Brussels." Read the full article
The Guardian
"The reckless dogma that would drive us to a Brexit without a deal enjoys no majority in parliament or the country. It deserves no more indulgence by the prime minister." Read the full article
Daily Mail
"True, if we leave without a deal, it will pose problems for this country. But for German car makers, French wine producers and Irish farmers, it will be a disaster. For all his swagger, Mr Barnier's hand is a lot weaker than he would have us believe."
The Independent
"A fresh referendum on the terms of Brexit might not resolve these matters, but there are no clearer ways to enable this nation, so divided, to resolve its differences." Read the full article
The Sun
"Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget next month needs to contain dramatic new ideas to fix the country’s problems. But it must also make our Brexit fallback position a reality." Read the full article
Daily Mirror
"What an unhappy 70th birthday the NHS faces next year as savage Tory austerity kills our most precious public service."
Daily Express
"If Theresa May is not in a position to walk out of the Brexit talks then the same thing could happen to her. Only by making a comprehensive plan for leaving without a deal can she show Brussels that it has to offer us reasonable terms."
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Today at SNP conference
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- 11.15am Humza Yousaf, the Scottish transport minister, and Mhairi Black, the SNP MP, speak.
- 2.00pm Results of internal elections announced.
- 3.10pm Angus Robertson, the deputy leader, makes remarks.
- 3.20pm Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, makes her keynote address.
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Agenda
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Today
- The government publishes findings of an audit into racial disparities in public services commissioned by Theresa May.
- The Runnymede Trust and the Women’s Budget Group publish a report on the impact of austerity on black and minority ethnic women to coincide with the release of a government audit of racial inequality in the UK.
- Nicky Morgan, chairwoman of the Treasury select committee and Sir Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader, appear at The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature festival.
- Permanently excluded pupils cost £2.1 billion, according to the IPPR think tank.
- EU finance ministers gather for an Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg.
- 9.30am Theresa May chairs a meeting of her cabinet in Downing Street.
- 9.30am HMRC publishes UK overseas trade statistics
- 10.30am The Henry Jackson Society launches the “Trafficking terror” report on into how modern slavery and sexual violence fund terrorism in a parliamentary reception with speeches from Lord Carlile of Berriew, former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
- 2.30pm Amelia Womack, Green Party deputy leader, delivers speech to the Party’s political conference in Harrogate.
- 3.00pm Karen Bradley, culture secretary, addresses meeting of the APPG on Wales Hospitality and Tourism.
- 5.00pm Theresa May is interviewed on LBC radio.
- 6.30pm Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative MP, speaks at an Adam Smith Institute event for under 30s only.
House of Commons
- 11.30am Health questions
- European Union (Approvals) Bill - committee stage and third reading (Greg Clark)
- Debate on baby loss awareness week
- Adjournment debate on devolution in Yorkshire (John Grogan)
Westminster Hall
- 9.30am Tackling aggressive antisocial behaviour (Steve McCabe)
- 11.00am Effect of the Catalan independence referendum on the EU (Hywel Williams)
- 2.30pm Effect of UK leaving the EU on consumers and consumer protection (Vicky Ford)
- 4.00pm Future funding of supported housing (Peter Aldous)
- 4.30pm Education funding in south Liverpool (Maria Eagle)
House of Lords
- 2.30pm Oral questions on UK disaster relief operations in the Caribbean; international students and migration figures; register of serial stalkers, and the NHS being fit for the 21st century.
- Data Protection Bill - second reading
Select Committees - 10.30am Commons digital, culture, media and sport on the work of Ofcom with Sharon White, the chief executive of Ofcom, and Dame Patricia Hodgson, chairwoman of Ofcom.
- 10.30am Lords EU justice sub-committee: Brexit: consumer rights and protection with Chris Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the Financial Conduct Authority.
- 10.45am Commons business, energy and industrial strategy on the Taylor review of modern working practices with Dan Warne, managing director of Deliveroo and Andrew Byrne, head of public policy at Uber, among other tech firms.
- 2.30pm Commons home affairs on capacity to deliver immigration services with John Vine, the former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, and David Wood, the former director-general of immigration enforcement at the Home Office.
- 3.35pm Lords economic affairs committee: the economics of higher, further and technical education with Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Lord Adonis and Lord Willetts.
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@MattChorley
