UK Politics

[Dong Zhou]

-Sturgeon seeks a Scottish referendum with Hollyrood to vote on it next week and date to be between autumn 2018 and spring 2019, warns Tories could be in Westminster power till beyond 2030, accuses May of no Brexit compromise and centralizing, feels that with Brexit already coming, "no change" is no longer an option

-Boris says no deal with EU would be ok and no evidence yet that Russia is attempting anything against UK democratic system, backs a Royal Yacht Britannia

-Mirror claiming a briefing note with May's schedule for visit to Cheshire was left on train including where she would be staying

-Expected government would be breeze through the two amendments and they duly did so with Baroness Smith saying Labour peers will accept will of Commons

-Rennie wants Scottish independence referendum blocked and accuses Corbyn of casual indifference about the union

-Foster says she has not considered resigning, sees Brexit as an opportunity for N.Ireland

-Scottish Labour says they will seek to block a second referendum. They are still not pleased with Corbyn

-Corbyn blames mischievous reporting and says he only argued it would be bad idea for Westminster to block a referendum, says independence would lead to turbo charged austerity, openly disagrees with Long-Bailey on econimic policy and his shadow treasury team, blames media's failure to focus on policy for his poor ratings

-Sturgeon has joked it a great pleasure for her to see Corbyn campaign in Scotland. The SNP are the only pro Corbyn party in Scotland right now with every other main party furious with him

- BMG survey for The Heraldsays unionists winning by 52-48% but most (49%) are opposed to second referendum

-FSTE 250 hits record high

-EU commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas warns Scotland have to repply to join EU if they go independent

-Baroness D'Souza dropped unofficial investigation into peers "clocking on" for fear of press coverage

-Rumours May will not invoke article 50 this week, some disagreement on if May never planned it but let rumours ran too far or got spooked by Sturgeon but majority of lobby seem to think the latter

-Wall Street Journal alleges that some people in the markets are trading on official reports from the Office for National Statistics before they’re published.

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-Farage says he would probably stand again in South Thanet have law forces byelection

-Clegg warns it will be difficult for Westminster to block Scottish referendum

-IFS warns independent Scotland would have to raise taxes or cut spending, would be pressured to join Euro and that would hamper trade with rest of UK

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-Rampen on state of unionists

-d'Ancona on why the Tory split on Hammond's plans matters

-Bush on the budget row shows how difficult May will find Brexit

-Gary Gibbon on referendum

-David Torrance worried about state of unionists

[Dong Zhou]

-Labour peers accusing Lib Dems of using EU to pile up core vote

-Boris says trade deal with USA could see haggis sold there and deal with India could see whiskey thrive in India

-Lords vote for students to not be classed as economic migrants

-Scottish Greens will prove SNP with the majority they need for independence referendum to pass through Hollyrood

-Public Accounts Committee warns costs need to brought down for National Citizen's Service and questions the quality of management+data+transparency

-Mundell says Scotland, in or out of union, will be out of EU in 2019

-Office of Budget Responsibility believe government will miss it's 2025 target to get books balanced

-Sterling dips but FT250 hits record high

-Downing Street briefing that aren't happy with Sturgeon's proposed dates

-ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats) calls for UK nationals in EU rights to be protected

-Charlotte Hogg resigns from Bank of England (Bank had rejected her attempt to go last week and has probably damaged her career by doing so) after Treasury Committee slams her conduct and says she is not up to the job of being deputy governor

-Spanish foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis says Scotland goes to back of the line when trying to join EU

-May says staying in single market wouldn't be a real Brexit

-Blunt again warns no deal is a real possibility

-Hollyrood to vote for referendum next Wednesday

-May to tour the devolved nations before she triggers article 50

-Ruth Davidson rules out leading the unionists and journalists really worried about lack of a clear leader

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-Clegg uses his family to make a good speech arguing for EU nationals uncertainty

-If no vote after end of negotiations, Gina Miller will take government to court

-former European commission vice president Viviane Reding doubts we can get trade deal done within 2 years

-Moon says a rearmed Germany would scare neighbours (really?) and make tensions with Russia worse, Commons in disbelief at that

-Farage says May is already making concessions to EU and article 50 is taking too long to be enacted

-Bone says some countries take UK and US doing their Nato duty for granted

-Arron Banks leaves UKIP after membership is suspended, Carswell containing his tears...

-Sadiq Khan fears no deal would be a catastrophe for London's service sector

-Winnick says he hasn't seen UK so divided since Suez

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- Kuessneberg on May's options to deal with Sturgeon

-Goodman says unionists should call for Cummings

-Kevin Schofield says Sturgeon has won first battle against leaderless unionists

-David Torrance independence campaign in better shape then unionists

-Rentoul fears Brexit can not be stopped

-Anoosh Chakelian on Bank's new movement

[Dong Zhou]

PMQ's: Corbyn goes on U-turn but government in chaos line doesn't work, partly lack of skill and punch, partly... well it is Corbyn. It also felt like he had prepared questions and was struggling somewhat to adjust to it having been dropped and finishing his opening questions by something different to what he has just been talking about. May kept her answers short but punchy, Corbyn going on his business having "self employed" workers played into May's hands as something government is looking at, fails to ask a question at one point as he moved onto education funding. May gave good defence of education record and attack on Labour's attitude towards education but was amazed she never pushed at Labour's weekend econimic chaos, overused lines on Labour borrowing. Corbyn had nothing to say about the union. Corbyn never recovered from the U-turn, was clumsy and poor, was outshone by likes of Robinson and Cooper.

Robinson neatly mocks May being for turning before asking May when the UK wide plan will be published for Brexit and of breaking a promise, May gives passionate defence of union of historic ties being dangered by constitutional gameplaying. Callum McCaig did a good mockery of the idea Scotland can't afford independence by twisting it on whether England could be independence

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-Craig Mackinlay has been interviewed under caution over his election expenses according to BBC. Same for Will Quince but police have dropped the latter case but CPS is now looking at 11 cases

-Karl McCartney accuses Tory HQ of holding back Electoral Commission draft report on MP expenses and says MP's like him are being left to be trashed for Tory HQ's mistakes

-Home Office staff told not to post negative stuff about controversial issues like Trump on social media

-Scottish Social Attitudes survey has support for independence at highest ever (46%) thanks to the young but EU support is falling

-Article 50 goes into law tomorrow

-Hammond reverses on NEC and promises no rises for rest of parliament but clearly feels there is a major issue on self-employed taxes he wants to address, says Kuessenberg was first one to highlight the problem after he made his budget statement. A sense that the government looks very weak to have caved on this and Hammond is badly damaged

-Home Affairs Select Committee wants social media giants to do more to stop hate speech (note to companies, when the head of the select committee reports a post, deal with it before your up before the committee)

-David Davis says no impact assessment of no deal, says we would probably face tarrifs, would be out of US/EU open skies agreement but get into some successor deal, suspects we would be out of passporting and medical card. Wants to extend electronic, light-touch customs checks after Brexit, hits he is unhappy with Boris and Dr Fox throwaway interview lines, EU not agreed to doing Brexit and trade deal at same time, believes EU wants a positive outcome, UK will meet it's finical obligations to EU, rejects Scotland's single market plan and accuses SNP of refusing to cooperate, will publish repeal bill white paper soon

-Sir Stramer says government should rule out Brexit with no deal

-Jobless rate in UK lowest since 1975 with 4.7% but pay growth of 2.3% lower then expected

-Government stake in Llyods falls below 3%

-Dr Fox hints he wants student taken out of migration figures

-Youguv for Times has 57% for union in Scotland but polls like Survation for the Daily Mail suggests 47% mark is more likely

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-Baroness Smith and Lord Newby interesting on Lords reform

-UKIP deny they have suspends Banks and his membership simply lapsed on New Year's

- Nusrat Ghani urges serving UK wine at diplomatic functions

-Ed Vaziey annoyed that he been defending the NIC rise and Hammond has U-turned while Sir Swayne sarcastically raises point of order asking if he can get his article about to be printed defending NIC rise stopped

-Lord Wood predicts early election due to NIC U-turn

-Alistair Campbell on PMQ's "Unless the Corbyn team actually planned for that to be a car crash the inquest should be long, hard and honest. He just can't do it."

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-BBC Scotland economics's editor Douglas Fraser on the economic side of referendum while Professor Curtice looks at the polling numbers

-Nicloas Watt profiles David Davis

-Kamal Ahmed says Carney has been damaged by Hogg resignation

-Stephen Bush sees NIC U-turn as a bad sign for May's Brexit plans

-Behr argues May is a poor diplomat hooked on her own spin

-Larry Elliot on Hammond caving

-Robert Colville sees the U turn as a very bad sign

-Spectator questions Hammond's competence and not pleased with May either

[Sun Fin]

-Sir Stramer says government should rule out Brexit with no deal

Really? Can no-one else see the issue with this? It gives the EU all the cards in the negotiations. They then know that all they have to do is refuse to deal and the UK will cave and withdraw their withdrawal meekly. I do worry about some of our politicians some times.

[Dong Zhou]

-Sir Stramer says government should rule out Brexit with no deal

Really? Can no-one else see the issue with this? It gives the EU all the cards in the negotiations. They then know that all they have to do is refuse to deal and the UK will cave and withdraw their withdrawal meekly. I do worry about some of our politicians some times.

I think "and we have made no calculations on what would happen to our economy if we did that" was a mistake and government is somewhat overegging the pudding but yes "we would accept any deal you give us if push comes to shove" does not strike me as a great negotiating strategy. Labour and Remainers like to use this to paint May is a hard Brexit obsessive

[Dong Zhou]

-Electoral Commission gives Tory a record 70k (but says they wanted to fine more for one of the errors) for misreporting election spending including over the battlebus and says it may have given them an advantage in key seats, while the spending were amin errors rather then bad intent they did point out Tories withheld data from investigation till they got court order. Tories have (sort of, very sort of) accepted the idea of admin errors, says Electoral Commission needs reform, and say other parties also failed (both were fined 20k and both parties are keeping very quiet) but police investigations remain ongoing

-Hammond's letter to MP's

-Public Administration Committee wants parliament to be able to prove Iraq again if new facts emerge that might suggest parliament was mislead and wants MP's to be able to vote on inquiry timetables, civil servants to get more power to raise concerns if procedures are bypassed.

-IPSA rules no new MP's will be allowed to employ spouses and other relatives using taxpayers' money

-President Tusk says EU won't be intimidated by threats of no deal, wants a smooth divorce

-Article 50 gets Royal Assent

-David Davis urges people to give a hurting EU slack over their anger with us leaving

-As expected, FTSE100 hits record high

-Sinn Feinn demand a referendum on Ireland though polling suggests few want one and most would back unionist

-Fox bid referred to Ofcom

-Health Committee concerned at TV programs showing the act of suicide and how detailed news coverage can get

-Interest Rates held at 0.25% though BoE expects CPI to breach it's 2% target soon

-Scottish Tories will oppose second referendum

-May says now not the time for independence referendum when Brexit work is about to happen and before Scots know the UK deal with EU while Mundell says they won't discuss with SNP. SNP says blocking (which seems unlikely, more like not a date SNP want) would be arrogant, undemocratic and a major blunder

-Labour say Tories have broken nine manifesto pledges already

-Sterling rises

-Steve Hilton joins Fox News

-Sir Swayne's complaint was funny

-Lord Heseltine accuses May of abandoning her pro-EU beliefs

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-Forysth on May's Scottish Strategy

-Kuessenberg on the Hammond U-turn but Labour unhappy and the poltical pain for Tories will be worse then Electoral Commission fine

-Kamal Ahmed on the wage growth problem

-Andrew Grice on Scottish referendum

-Anushka Asthana on Lib Dems new strategy

-Joe Ray argues SNP could pay for ignoring Scottish Brexiteers

-Bush believes May has taken a huge gamble

[Dong Zhou]

-Treasury Committee says options for Westminster rebuilding need to be fully explored before a decision is taken

-Committee on Climate Change says low carbon measures save households more money then it adds to their bills

-GCHQ denies wiretapping Trump

-Osborne is the new editor of the Evening Standard, people wondering how he can hold three jobs and how the other two (MP and Black Rock role) means he can be a neutral editor

-Governor Carney urges G20 to finish international finical reforms

-FTSE100 hits record high

-Dawn Butler signs her question for question about recognising sign language as a protected language

-Sir Gale getting flak for calling his secretaries "girls"

-John Nicholson wonders if Corbyn struggles at PMQ's because he is used to preaching to the choir rather then having a debate

-Mann says Osborne has too many jobs and should resign as MP now rather then await for general election

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-Brain Taylor on referendum stand off

-D'Arcy on Labour peers next plan for Brexit fight

-Kuessenberg on May's calculation for Scotland

-Bush puzzled by Osborne's move

-James Frayne urges May to seek an early referendum

[Dong Zhou]

-D'Arcy on a quiet week

-Sturgeon says will of Hollyrood must prevail

-Trump denies making claims that GCHQ wiretapped him

-Troops sent to Estonia

-Caroline Lucas wants Osborne removed from Privy Council

-Corbyn says Osborne's appointment leaves questions about media's neutrality and is an insult to those who voted for him though Khan seems fairly happy with it

-Government (plus guardian+Channel 4+BBC) removes it's ads from Youtube and summons Google as it's ads appeared alongside extremist materials

-Rumours government to intervene on energy prises with government might being concerned at the rumours it is going to be an energy cap

-Papers really do not like Osborne's new job (I don't recall this much fuss when Boris was editing Spectator though?)

-Gordon Brown suggests Hollyrood gets power to set VAT rates and sign international treaties (I see a problem with that one), suggests control over agriculture, fisheries and environmental regulation, Bank of England to be renamed Bank of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with fully staffed representation in Scotland

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-Amol Rajan on Osborne's appointment

-Forysth on weakened Hammond, May's SNP strategy, possibility of early elections and Osborne

-Patrick Coburn warns English tin ear on nationalism, including it's own, could cost the United Kingdom

[Dong Zhou]

-Farron compares May's aggressive politics to Trump, le Pen and Putin, centre-left must reclaim patriotism

- Committee on Standards in Public Life responds to Osborne by looking at MP's second jobs

-Liz Truss says she plans to allow rape victims to give evidence by prerecorded video

-Sir Major accuses Brexit "Ultra's" of bullying anyone of a different view and launching personal attacks on judges, civil servants and so on

-Angus Robertson on Labour "The Labour Party is not in a position to deliver a pizza at the moment. They're in opposition in Westminster, they're totally divided. Labour is so weak in Scotland now that they are the third force in political, I mean, they're not even a force"

-Gove says migrants raised school standards and expectations in London but numbers put pressure on services, fears education systems are getting geared too the hyper-successful

-Jess Philips rages against Osborne, Wes Streeting says in fairness to others, Osborne must choice being MP or editor

-Shapps blames Number 10 for NiC reassurance

-Talks of early elections refuse to end

-Gwynne says Labour are on election warfooting

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-Peter Htichens on May's troubles

-Brain Taylor on Sturgeon's speech to the nation

[Dong Zhou]

-May and Davis go to Swansea

-Police team created after Cox's murder to deal with crimes against MP's have had 53 reports so far

-DWP expecting to get hammered for backlog of £3.8bn in uncollected child maintenance payments

-Sturgeon says she is flexibile on timetable but beyond 2021 would be too much, says bare minimum she wants for independent Scotland in relation to EU is in single market

-Ruth Davidson argues Scottish people do not want another referendum, questions how Osborne can juggle his jobs

-Clegg, Powell and Morgan have formed an alliance against grammar schools.

-Farron urges British businesses to drop May's Tory party due to hard Brexit, says May's government is as anti-business as Corbyn and as anti-refugee as Farage

-May will enact article 50 next Wednesday. Also Sir Major's birthday

-Watson says Momentum is in cahoots with McCluskey to launch a hard-left coup of Labour (I think that is a major exaggeration to put it nicely), predicts early election . Unite (and McDonnell, Momentum) accuse Watson of interfering of with Unite elections

-Momentum's Jon Lansman recorded saying if McCluskey wins then Momentum will affiliate with Unite, general election getting in the way of Momentum plans, want to seize control of regional Labour parties (I just doubt Unite is part of this). Unite formally deny this and McCluskey denies meeting Lansman

-Local Government Committee to launch inquiry into the business rates mess

-Number 10 rules out early election. Again. Must be really annoying having to explain this to press every few weeks

-ICM polling sees Tories rise to 19 point lead despite budget (only three times since 83 a bigger lead) as does their econimic competence

-Corbyn and Watson agree statement calling for unity but note Momentum does not speak for Corbyn

-Michel Barnier says EU preparing to impose custom controls on UK if need be

-May tells Vogue she thought Trump was being a gentleman over hand-holding, delivery matters more as PM then popularity, has got so annoyed at "her lucky suit" she is going to dump it to stop people calling it that

-Boris to visit US and likes of Bannon this week

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- Institute for Government predicts 15 Brexit bills (plus Repeal bill) and warns there will be very little space for anything else

-Blair isn't sure Osborne can juggle workload but thinks Osborne has potential to be a great editor, says Labour should be prepared to reconsider Brexit stance

-Morgan defends Osborne becoming editor, saying those liberal Tories sacked by May will find other ways to make their voices heard

-Clegg says Osborne is taking on too much

-Our former ambassador to US Sir Peter Westmacott says Trump has damaged intelligence relationships due to peddling falsehoods

-Sir Pickles and Flint not confident we will hit 2 year negotiations target

-Flint accuses Momentum of breaking word on removing non-Labour members

-Momentum NEC member Christine Shawcroft says Watson is right-wing (also Blairite. Meanwhile Zhang Jiao was a Han loyalist) and Corbyn's faction are the moderates, that media reporting is reason Corbyn is struggling, Labour has a democratic deficit, Momentum needs union help to combat Progress

-Bill Cash says we shouldn't pay anything to EU because we waived Germany's war debts (you know what the rest of Europe loves. Our mentioning WW2)

-Osborne argues taking outside interests will enhance his life experience which he can bring to bear as an MP


-Zahwai on the Scottish situation

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-Conrad Landin gives a good defence of Momentum's plans

-Zoe Williams is rather confused that those she dislikes are the main defenders of her Brexit world view

-Harry Phibbs defends Osborne