Politics

One of the main messages that Theresa May is taking to Brussels today is that significant, legally binding changes to the backstop are needed to get the withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons. Jeremy Corbyn’s letter to her undermines that position. In it, the Labour leader sounds less hostile to the backstop than he did after meeting May last week. Instead, he suggests that the way to deal with the backstop issue is through a political declaration that makes it much less likely that it has to be used. This is the EU’s preferred solution too, and so Corbyn’s offer undercuts the message that May is trying to take

‘What would a Conservative manifesto say on Brexit?’ Many Tories consider this question a slam-dunk argument against an early election. But the party’s predicament is actually much worse. It is easier to work out what their manifesto would say on Brexit than on a whole host of other issues. The Tories are relatively united on Brexit, for the moment. Only eight of the party’s MPs voted against Sir Graham Brady’s amendment last month which authorised Theresa May to seek ‘alternatives’ to the backstop. So this would be the Tory position in a pre-Brexit election. In an immediate post-Brexit contest May would presumably seek a vague mandate to negotiate the best

No one is in any doubt about the problem facing Britain’s railways. Over the past decade, rail fares have risen twice as fast as salaries. Yet across the national network, overcrowding is at record levels, cancellations are spiralling and passenger dissatisfaction is at a ten-year high. Yet ministers are about to start pouring £4.5 billion a year, every year for a decade, into building a single new railway route: HS2. To put this into perspective, the amount annually maintaining and upgrading the rest of the rail network is £6 billion. It’s a trap that we can, even now, avoid. Much has changed since the scheme was launched in 2010. Official

As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss has shown herself unafraid to say what she thinks. Whether it’s the need to defend Conservative values, rallying against Michael Gove’s wood-burning stove ban or poking fun at her current party’s Brexit secretary related woes. On Monday night, Truss gave a speech to female entrepreneurs and founders in 11 Downing Street. In it, Truss spoke in defence of free markets, the need for a party to appeal to Generation Z and pointed out that the majority of venture capital money in the UK was given to all-male teams and compared that to the idea of a Bullingdon Club infused Conservative government –

Westminster is in a flurry this afternoon over Donald Tusk’s comments at a press conference this morning with Leo Varadkar. The European Council president used the platform to declare that he had been pondering of late what that ‘special place in hell’ for ‘those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it safely’ looked like. Tusk even went on to tweet out his comments – just in case anyone had missed the moment in the conference. Adding insult to injury the EU Council president has also been caught on mic laughing about the likely angry response from the British. Tusk is at least

Oh dear. Donald Tusk has been causing trouble this morning with his comments about some Brexiteers deserving a special place in hell. But it seems that the Irish Taoiseach is determined to go one better. At the end of a press conference in Brussels, Leo Varadkar was caught out on microphone making a gag with Tusk about the ‘terrible trouble’ he’ll now get from the British press: It’s safe to say Tusk enjoyed the joke, as the pair were filmed laughing along together. But Mr S isn’t convinced this is the best way of calming Brexit tensions…