Politics

Here we go again. It’s no big secret that these days the New York Times isn’t so fond of Blighty. The American paper frequently publishes gloomy articles about what’s gone wrong in the UK – whether it’s mistaking a newspaper sketch writer’s joke about the French for Brexit bias, factually incorrect articles about London’s once ‘mutton-filled’ culinary scene or questionable claims about ‘Austerity Britain’. But the latest issue of the NYT may just take the biscuit. The front page carries a story on the many Brits who have apparently started to ‘stockpile for Brexit’. Apparently Brits are already getting rationing underway with one interviewee comparing the situation to WW2: Thursday’s International NEW

In recent months, there has been speculation that John McDonnell has leadership ambitions – and a rift has formed between the shadow chancellor and his one-time comrade Jeremy Corbyn. So, it won’t have gone unnoticed by the Leader’s Office that McDonnell today embarked on a charm offensive of the MSM – also know as the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Speaking at a Press Gallery lunch, the socialist politician told hacks that he had decided to address lunch after his local priest suggested he needed to ‘soften’ his image: ‘He persuaded me to do this. He said you need to soften your image. So do Mumsnet and do this…. I’m trying to

Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a little shorter than usual. This was partly because, as James says, John Bercow spoke rather less. Normally, the Speaker likes to lecture MPs about how their behaviour will appear to the public, even sometimes using the word ‘bullying’. Such lectures will have considerably less force now, given Bercow is one of those criticised by the Dame Laura Cox report for failing to tackle the ‘toxic culture’ of bullying and sexual harassment in the House of Commons. There has, though, been undue focus on Bercow as a result of the way some on both sides have been approaching this matter. Labour’s frontbench line that Brexit