Portrait of the Week – 9 May 2019

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John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, blamed Theresa May, the Prime Minister, for leaking details of talks between the government and Labour over Brexit. He said she had ‘blown the confidentiality’ of the talks and ‘jeopardised the negotiations’. He was annoyed that the Sunday Times had said she would agree to a customs union, something predicted four days earlier by the Daily Telegraph. Rory Stewart, the new International Development Secretary, said the Conservatives had to accept the ‘short-term pain’ of a Brexit compromise with Labour. David Lidington, May’s right-hand man, admitted that the failure to reach a Brexit agreement meant that the EU elections on 23 May ‘do have to take place’. Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, said: ‘Either the Prime Minister sets the immediate date for departure or, I’m afraid, they [MPs] must do it for her.’ May met Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbenchers’ 1922 Committee, about her future.