Top story: PM heads into fraught weekend
Warren Murray with you at curtains-up this Friday.
An embattled Theresa May heads to a hectic weekend in Brussels with cries ringing in her ears from rebel Tories to renegotiate her Brexit deal. A heated Commons debate took place after it emerged that the second half of the Brexit deal – the political declaration – was finalised on Thursday. Iain Duncan Smith, Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab are among those demanding a rethink. But in Europe, Germany said it was time to “put a lid on this pot” and conclude the deal at Sunday’s special summit when May hopes that the EU27 leaders will formally sign off both agreements. The PM will actually go to Brussels a day early, on Saturday, to meet European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker – prompting concerns from Germany and others that she might seek last-minute concessions given the Commons outcry. Meanwhile Spain is continuing noisy eleventh-hour objections about Gibraltar’s status in a future trade deal.
The political declaration finalised on Thursday is a non-binding document meant to outline the future political and trade relationship. It sits alongside the legally binding withdrawal agreement published last week setting out the divorce terms. No 10 is planning to kick off a campaign to win over sceptical MPs ahead of the final vote after May returns from Brussels. Many MPs believe May will start the tortuous process of trying to get the deal through parliament on 10 December. If the plan is defeated in the Commons, then officially a no-deal departure would be the default, but many MPs have vowed to stop this as well. If both are blocked, the options would include a general election or perhaps, if logistically possible, a second referendum. Here are the key dates ahead.
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‘Amicable solution’ – The United Arab Emirates’ London ambassador is due to make a statement this morning on Matthew Hedges, the British doctoral candidate jailed for alleged spying. The UAE said on Thursday afternoon that “both sides hope to find an amicable solution” – although a justice official stressed “compelling and powerful” evidence was shown in Hedges’s prosecution, and rejected claims he confessed under duress. Hedges’s wife, Daniela Tejada, said after meeting Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary: “[Hunt] has assured me that he and his team are doing everything in their power to get Matt free and return him home to me. This is not a fight I can win alone and I thank the Foreign Office for now standing up for one of their citizens.”
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Life after novichok – Nick Bailey, the Salisbury police officer poisoned by novichok, has spoken of the “emotional battering” it continues to inflict despite his physical recovery. Bailey told BBC Panorama how he succumbed after searching Sergei Skripal’s home on the night of the March attack. “My pupils were like pinpricks. And I was quite sweaty and hot … Everything was juddering. I was very unsteady on my feet.” His hospital treatment was “painful at the beginning … I had lots of injections. One of the Skripals was in the room right next to me. It was all guarded by the police.” Since the incident he and his family had not been able to return home, Bailey said. “Not only did we lose the house, we lost all of our possessions, including everything the kids owned.”
Further video has been released of the suspected poisoners – two Russian agents known by the aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – in Salisbury on the day Sergei and Yulia Skripal fell ill. A scientist named only as Professor Tim from the Porton Down defence laboratory said realising novichok had been used was a “jaw-dropping moment … I went through a number of emotions, from disbelief to anger. It’s one of the most dangerous substances known.”
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Big question answered – Fiona Bruce appears poised to become the first ever female host of Question Time on the BBC. David Dimbleby is due to leave the show at the end of the year. Bruce is a presenter on Antiques Roadshow and the art programme Fake or Fortune; used to do Crimewatch; and has hosted the News at Six and News at Ten bulletins. After the furore over pay disparities between men and women, the BBC will face pressure to ensure she receives the same as Dimbleby, who has missed only one programme in 24 years when he was kicked by a bullock on his East Sussex farm.
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Black Friday dawns – Retailers are hoping for a boost from Black Friday, with as much as £1.5bn expected to be spent online alone (as per your flooded inbox) and a number of high-street chains opening early and closing late. Britons are predicted to spend £10.4bn in total over the US-inspired event. Consumers are being warned to be on their guard for rip-off deals and not to shop themselves into debt: Which? says nearly nine in 10 “deals” available on Black Friday in 2017 were actually cheaper at other times of year. And here’s how a shopping spree got such a dark-sounding name.
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A very Trump thanksgiving – The US president has used the annual turkey-centric national fete to give thanks for … himself! “This country is so much stronger now than it was when I took office … we’ve gotten so much stronger people don’t even believe it.” In seasonal phone calls with military personnel on active service, he shoehorned the Mexican border, his problems with judges, the economy and trade into the conversation. Trump explained to a US Coast Guard commander that trade was “a very big subject” for him personally. The commander replied: “We don’t see any issues in terms of trade right now.”
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Financial fitness – A Ukrainian bank is giving savers a 21% interest rate if they log 10,000 steps a day on a smartphone app. Anyone who fails to do it three days in a row is knocked down to 11% by Monobank. Some people tried to trick the app without doing the steps but were found out and penalised. Ukraine has a booming financial technology scene, and Monobank says it would also like to launch its “sports deposit” platform in the UK.
Today in Focus podcast: Is big pharma ignoring the poor?
Pharmaceutical companies are driven by profit. Is that why diseases that kill thousands of people every year have been ignored – even though the cures may already exist? Health editor Sarah Boseley investigates.
Plus: Hillary Clinton argues that Europe must curb immigration to stop rightwing populists gaining ground
Lunchtime read: Tinfoil hat Britain
Sixty per cent of British people believe at least one conspiracy theory about how the country is run or whether they are being fed fake news, a major new study has found. And the correlation with Brexit is eye-opening: 71% of leave voters believe at least one theory, compared with 49% of remain voters.
Remain voters are more likely (50%) to use social media regularly for news than leave voters (34%), and more likely to read a newspaper website (by 41% to 18%). Of those who get their news from social media, Facebook is used frequently by more leave voters than remainers (74% leave, 65% remain), while the opposite is true of Twitter (39% remain, 28% leave). The large-scale research project by Cambridge university and YouGov reveals a pattern of deep distrust of authority across Europe and the US. Some of its other findings might shock you …
Sport
Fifties for Nat Sciver and Amy Jones took England past India and into the final of the Women’s World Twenty20, where they will face the old enemy, Australia, who thrashed West Indies in the other semi-final. For the first time in a major Twickenham Test against a leading nation, Jamie George has been picked at hooker in preference to a fit Dylan Hartley, while Manu Tuilagi – who has been at the centre of England’s social scene – is finally ready to rejoin the international fray in Saturday’s match against Australia. Jürgen Klopp has claimed every club in Europe would covet Sadio Mané after the Senegal forward became the latest Liverpool player to commit his future to the club by signing a new long-term contract.
Magnus Carlsen confessed to nerves after holding on for a high-wire draw with Fabiano Caruana in the marathon 10th game of their world championship showdown. England’s men’s Test cricketers are set to be made available for the knockout stage of the new 100-ball tournament, the playing conditions for which are due for sign-off by the England and Wales Cricket Board next week. The third Sri Lanka v England test is under way. And William Hill has decided to offer an additional payment to those who took the firm’s own starting price of 16-1 about Untold Secret, a winner at Meydan on 8 November who paid 28-1 elsewhere.
Business
Asian markets have mostly been lower ahead of Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, meeting at the G20 summit in Argentina next week. Wall Street was closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving. The pound is trading around $1.287 and €1.127 this morning.
Japanese automaker Nissan has gone ahead and fired Carlos Ghosn as its chairman after he was arrested for alleged financial improprieties. He remains chairman of French carmaker Renault and Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors – the latter will consider his fate next week.
The papers
Most of the front pages today are occupied with Theresa May’s Brexit woes. The Telegraph warns the Conservatives are not happy: “Dump the backstop, Tory MPs tell May,” while the Guardian notes the PM is surrounded by naysayers: “May battles on all fronts to save her Brexit deal”. The Mail which can’t seem to decide if it is for Brexit or against it these days splashes with the PM’s call for bystanders to let her “Get on with it!”.
The Express goes in with “Brexit exit” and poses the question: “Can we trust our MPs to deliver on the referendum when they can’t even be bothered to stay to the end of the PM’s defence of draft EU deal on which all our futures depend?” The FT focuses on May’s appeal for businesses and the public to support her deal. Elsewhere the Times has a story on MPs calling for advertisers to shun Facebook and Google until they tackle extremists using their sites: “Boycott tech giants over terror, MPs urge”. The Mirror goes with “4 missed chances” to stop the Manchester bomber.
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