“Britain and the EU are on the brink of sealing a Brexit divorce deal on Monday, as Theresa May travels to Brussels with potential solutions in sight for the two biggest political obstacles to opening trade talks. Northern Ireland and the future role of European courts in Britain are the most sensitive issues still to be endorsed in a draft joint text that the UK prime minister aims to sign-off over Monday’s lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president. Last-minute objections from Northern Irish unionist politicians in Belfast or London are now the main potential deal-breaker, according to diplomats involved in the talks.” – FT
Editorial:
Comment:
>Yesterday: Videos: WATCH: Rees-Mogg – “Don’t hand over a great deal of money unless we have an agreement”
More Brexit
Comment:
>Today: Nicky Morgan’s column: Why this social mobility setback? Because the best brains in the Government are fixated on Brexit.
“…The email, sent to Mr Green, offers to set out in detail to Ms Gray what happened, in a bid to show that “material found in the parliamentary computer system can be proved to have been put there by some other means than by the deliberate actions of the person operating the computer. A member of staff is reported to have found porn on her computer each morning when she turned it on. She deleted it and tried to ignore the images, but it kept happening.” – Daily Telegraph
Comment:
>Yesterday: Videos: WATCH: Howard – Retired officers leaking against Green are “damaging…trust” on which British policing is based
“Theresa May’s hardline stance on immigration has been blamed for Tory support among ethnic minority voters falling to its lowest level since 2001. Downing Street has used secret briefings to tell MPs that the party is now toxic to many non-white voters. Private polling shows that while black and minority ethnic (BME) people have the same values as the rest of the country they are far less likely to vote Conservative. Concern about the BME vote has been raised by Gavin Barwell, the prime minister’s chief of staff, during presentations to MPs in the past two weeks.” – The Times
Comment:
>Today: ToryDiary: Next Tory leader. Our survey. Rees-Mogg leads, Gove is second – and none of the above still beats the lot
“A government commitment to spend an extra £300m over the next three years on improving mental health support for school pupils has been dismissed as inadequate by Labour. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said the Conservatives were “failing to deliver parity of esteem” between mental and physical health, as promised, and that their proposals did not amount to “meaningful action”. Labour is committed to ringfencing funding for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and ensuring there is a counselling service in every secondary school.” – Guardian
More Labour
“UK ministers will this week renew their support for nuclear power with measures to strengthen the industry’s supply chain and develop a new generation of small-scale reactors… It will signal its continued support with a package of measures to bolster nuclear research and engineering, according to people briefed on the plans. These will include long-awaited details of how the government plans to promote development of “mini nuclear plants” known as small modular reactors.” – FT
“The price of a Bitcoin has risen tenfold in ten months. Yet whether and when the bubble will burst is beside the point, which is that Bitcoin works. What I mean by this is that Bitcoin has proved that the blockchains technology behind cryptocurrencies is capable of doing what it was claimed it could: create an asset of limited supply and high security, like digital gold.” – The Times
>Today: Matt Hancock in comment: This tech revolution is a Tory revolution
“President Trump has a penchant for junk food and Elton John songs played at deafening volumes all while having his trousers steam pressed when he is still wearing them, claims a colourful new inside account of his 2016 election campaign. According to the book co-written by two former senior aides, the US president’s temper is so brutal that a verbal assault by the leader of the free world is described as having your “face ripped off.”” – Daily Telegraph