Top story: PM accused of repeating ‘all the same lines’
Good morning readers, this is Alison Rourke bringing you the top stories to start your week.
Confused by the weekend Brexit events? Does May still have control? Will there be a cabinet/Brexiter coup? Will parliament take control? All reasonable questions, but hard to answer in any definitive way as we start this week of Brexit brink(wo)manship. One thing that is looking less likely this morning is the PM’s twice-rejected deal getting through parliament, after a high-stakes meeting with Boris Johnson and other hardliners broke up at Chequers without agreement yesterday. Tory rebels said she repeated “all the same lines” about her deal and that nothing new emerged during the three-hour meeting.
Cabinet will meet this morning and some are speculating that May might announce her own version of possible Brexit options beyond her deal. This would pre-empt parliament doing the same – MPs are due to vote on whether to take control of the parliamentary agenda and hold a series of indicative votes on alternative options, including a customs union and a second referendum. It comes as the Brexit petition to revoke article 50 gained more than five million signatures. You can read what’s coming up each day this week here, and what the front pages have to say about it here, including the Sun giving the PM her marching orders: “Time’s up, Theresa”.
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‘No collusion’ – The long-awaited report by US special counsel Robert Mueller has found that neither Donald Trump nor any of his aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Many observers had predicted the biggest danger to Trump in the report was from possible accusations of obstructions of justice, particularly over his decision to sack the FBI director James Comey, who headed the investigation before Mueller. But the US attorney general, William Barr, said in a letter to Congress that the evidence in the report “is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offence”. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a joint statement that said Barr’s letter “raises as many questions as it answers”. Trump himself described the Mueller report as “an illegal take-down that failed”, saying it was “total exoneration”.
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Housing ‘sweeteners’ – Cash-strapped London councils are paying private landlords £14m a year in “incentives” to persuade them to house homeless people. The payments of up to £8,300 each were made to landlords more than 5,700 times in 2018 to house people who were either homeless or considered at risk of homelessness. At the same time just 680 council housing units were completed. The payouts were made in addition to rent and have been branded as ludicrous by housing campaigners and intolerable by councils. Landlords said the payments compensated for accepting homeless tenants who were more likely to fall behind on their rent, especially if they received universal credit.
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Pick-up pollution – Nearly two-thirds of teachers would support a traffic ban outside schools before and after school to reduce air pollution, a survey for walking and cycling charity, Sustrans, has found. Sixty-three per cent of teachers surveyed said air pollution was a problem because their school was based on or near a busy main road. “Idling car engines and snarled-up roads poison the air and our children’s bodies across the UK,” the chief executive of Sustrans, Xavier Brice, said. “Our survey makes it clear that teachers want urgent action to clean up toxic fumes. They see closing the roads outside their school as an effective solution but need support.”
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Smacking ban – A new law in Wales will remove the Victorian defence of “reasonable punishment” by parents. Under legislation being introduced today, the Welsh government has argues that the time when it was acceptable to strike a child to punish misbehaviour had gone. “We are sending a clear message that the physical punishment of children is not acceptable in Wales,” said Julie Morgan, the deputy minister for health and social services. Research published last year found one in 10 parents in Wales said they had recently smacked a child to manage their behaviour.
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Rodent rort – Dead rats are being used by gangs to smuggle drugs and mobile phones into a Dorset prison. Staff at HMP Guys Marsh found dead animals with contraband, including sim cards and chargers, stitched inside their stomachs. The rodents had been thrown over the fence into the prison. Previously, gangs have used pigeons and tennis balls to attempt to bypass prison security measures.
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Today in Focus podcast: Outsourced schools: the mums fighting back
When Waltham Holy Cross primary school was given a failing report, it was immediately under threat of a private takeover in the government’s academisation drive. But parents have fought back – and may yet prevail. The Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty explains how. Plus: Mark Rice-Oxley on why we should embrace the four-day working week.
Lunchtime read: Van Gogh’s London
Vincent van Gogh is perhaps best known for his scarlets, greens and azure blues of Provence. But London, where he lived and was employed by an art dealer between 1873 and 1875, immersed him into the life of a fully industrialised metropolis. He painted prisoners, devoured Dickens (who died in 1870), and worshipped the London News. Books such as Hard Times fed his empathy for the downtrodden, as he observed the teeming masses, glamour, wealth, cruelty of the city. One of his late portraits of his friend Marie Ginoux, made in 1890, shows her with copies of Dickens’s Christmas Stories and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Van Gogh also immersed himself in the city’s galleries and, after his death, aged just 37, he was embraced in Britain, writes Charlotte Higgins. When his work was shown at Roger Fry’s famous post-impressionist exhibition in 1910, it changed the course of British art. In 1947, bombed-out, austerity London was given a blast of his trademark colours, and Van Gogh’s paintings, by then sanctified into mass popularity, astounded the public. The Manchester Guardian’s critic, Eric Newton, wrote of that exhibition, held at what is now Tate Britain: “When he painted with reckless courage from a full heart … the results are astonishing.” The exhibition, Van Gogh and Britain, opening this week in the same building, looks at what he drew from British culture and what he bequeathed to it.
Sport
Gareth Southgate has warned his England players of the hostile environment awaiting them in Montenegro as they seek to extend a pristine start to their Euro 2020 qualification campaign.
Josh Magennis scored three minutes from time to give Northern Ireland a 2-1 win at home against Belarus in their qualifier while Nico Schulz scored a late winner as a new-look Germany side snatched a 3-2 win away to the Netherlands.
Two goals from Beth Mead helped take Arsenal to the top of the Women’s Super League table, where they now lead Manchester City by a point with a game in hand.
Mauricio Pochettino gazed on as the first event at Tottenham’s new stadium revealed a sporting arena to take the breath away.
And Tammy Beaumont hit an unbeaten half-century to help England cruise to an eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in their first Twenty20 International in Colombo.
Business
City optimism is falling at its fastest rate since the financial crisis, according to the CBI, with Brexit uncertainty leading the way. A survey of 84 major City firms conducted last month suggested the mood had not fallen this fast since the months immediately after the government bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds during the credit crunch, when panic spread, prompting banks to stop lending to one another. “Brexit is now a national emergency,” said Rain Newton-Smith, chief economist at the CBI. “It is in absolutely nobody’s interest for the uncertainty to drag on, and continually chip away at our economy and financial services sector.”
Shares in Asia Pacific have slumped after a key market indicator flashed an “amber warning” that the United States is heading for a recession. Bond yields also continued to fall across the world with Australian 10-year Treasury yields falling to a record low on Monday of 1.756% in what analysts see as a strong indicator of a downturn hitting the resource-rich country. Stocks were also under pressure in Sydney with the ASX200 benchmark index falling by more than 1.3% by 3pm.
The pound is buying $1.319 and €1.167.
The papers
Things don’t look good for the prime minister on the front pages today. The Sun calls for her resignation: “Time’s up, Theresa”. The Times says “May clings on and defies call to set No 10 exit date”, and the FT has: “May’s battle to win over sceptics spurs doubts on survival chances”.
The Telegraph has the most surprising front page, quoting Boris Johnson, who says: “It is time for the PM to channel the spirit of Moses in Exodus and say to Pharaoh in Brussels – let my people go”.
The Guardian’s splash is “Brexiters pile on pressure as May’s deal drifts away”. The i says “Lonely May refuses to stand down”. The Daily Express is the one paper to continue to back May: “Get behind PM and sort out Brexit!”
In other news, the Daily Mail has “Children aged nine damaged by cannabis” and the Mirror’s lead is “Skint mums using ‘baby banks’”.
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