From its range of tailor-made trade deals to its habit of allowing Member States to break the rules, Brussels is more flexible than Barnier’s rhetoric might suggest.
That means commissioning physical and digital infrastructure and recruiting necessary personnel. It also means offering tangible reassurance to business.
Plus: Major’s error. The Prime Minister’s jokes. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. And: the angels want to wear my red suit.
Yes, the negotiation may break down. But some of the playing to the gallery has a ritual element about it, not unlike the staged theatrics of all-in wrestling.
Voters habitually opt for parties of the Right when times are tough, only to ditch them for the Left once there’s money to spare. But now populists seek to break the cycle.
Robert Tombs asked at yesterday evening’s meeting if Tony Blair, Ken Clarke and Peter Mandelson really want us to enter a United States of Europe.
Taxpayers’ money has sapped the independence, and the moral responsibility, of our great charities.
Merkel has appalled her own followers by making sweeping concessions to the Social Democrats.
Behind the scenes many of Europe’s nations and regions are weighing the cost of a hard Brexit and pushing for a better deal.
And the Republicans have forgotten how to stop a demagogue from becoming their presidential candidate.
We must turbo-charge the vehicle of British entrepreneurship as we drive across the Brexit bridge which should connect us with the rest of the world.
The EU bureaucracy, with its supranational claims, is a godsend to him. But he is more pragmatic than he looks. He does not want a Hungary without allies.
The brutal reality is that Britain needs the country the President governs – and so by extension needs him too.
If both of the main parties remain locked together in an unpopular pact, it creates more space in which new challengers can grow.
In a whole host of countries – Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland – A&E waiting times are typically under an hour.