Politics

When Liz Truss took to the stage at the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards, she used her speech to send up her Cabinet colleagues and boss – cracking jokes about the indefinite length of the backstop, Karen Bradley’s loose grasp of history and – in a dig at her own department – called for a ban on Treasury forecasts. So, given Truss’s straight-talking attitude, I’m delighted to have the Chief Secretary to the Treasury as my guest on the latest episode of Women with Balls: In the interview, Truss talks about the regrets of her youth ( … joining the Liberal Democrats), why she cares strongly about British cheese

Inside the Dominic Grieve amendment carried on Tuesday is the embryo of a new political party. Any parliamentary majority for what Sir Oliver Letwin, who voted for the amendment, calls ‘something real’ (‘Norway plus’) if Mrs May’s deal falls would depend on the support of a good many Labour MPs. After three months’ work, the organisers believe they have got 75 such on board, led by Chuka Umunna. These are anti-Brexit, chiefly Blairite Labour MPs who cannot bear Jeremy Corbyn. If their number held up (a big ‘if’), the organisers calculate, the House could carry ‘Norway plus’, with the government and most Conservative backbenchers supporting, even if the ‘hard’ Brexiteers

It’s the question that’s on everyone’s lips this week in Westminster: now that the Brexit negotiations have been finalised by the EU, will Theresa May be able to get her withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons? So far, the numbers are not in her favour. Labour have confirmed they will whip against her deal, as have the SNP and other opposition parties. Meanwhile the DUP have said they will vote against the proposal – rather than just abstain. That means even if Theresa May could count on complete party loyalty in the upcoming meaningful vote, she would still be four votes short of the 320 needed for a majority.

Over the few years, a battle has been quietly simmering between farming communities and a conservation organisation who want to reintroduce the Eurasian lynx to the UK. The cats have been extinct in the UK for well over a thousand years, and while farmers worry that the big cats will threaten their sheep, Lynx UK – the trust behind the plans – argue that the animals would help the economy, and cause little damage to livestock. But now Defra secretary Michael Gove has rejected a request to release six lynx into Kielder Forest, in Northumberland. The reasoning given for their decision included a lack of support from locals and major

‘Project Fear’ didn’t work out in the 2016 Brexit referendum, with voters turning against the ‘experts’ maligned by Michael Gove and other Leave campaigners. So it’s strange to see the Conservatives reigniting it again in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, warning of six months of disruption at Dover and other ports in the event of no deal. There’s no evidence that this squeeze message is really going to work on Tory MPs and whittle down the scale of the expected defeat next week. The return of Project Fear is also a reminder of the danger of a second referendum for those who hope that it

In the corridors of Westminster and the salons of some remainers, there is a lot of excited chatter about the “Norway option”. This would involve being a member of the EEA and single market, but not of the EU. Depending on who is pushing, Norway is presented as either a temporary or permanent alternative to Theresa May’s troubled deal. But there are problems with this quick fix. The well discussed issue that being in the EEA doesn’t end freedom of movement is one; another is the fact that the Norway option doesn’t end EU budget contributions. But more fundamentally, few appreciate just how a regime that (sort of) suits Norway