Theresa may

Brexit is going well, apparently. And the prime minister seemed in chipper mood at PMQs. She was even enjoying herself. To neutrals this is a distressing sight. To fans of the Tory leader it must seem downright dangerous. History has taught us that when May feels she’s on top the world, the world promptly lands on top of May. Corbyn raised council tax. His theme was Tory misrule, higher bills and vanishing services. Privatisation fetishists at Northamptonshire, he said, had caused the council to implode entirely. May felt herself on solid ground as she fought back by cataloguing Corbyn’s troubles at council level which have led to two recent Labour

Although Theresa May has earned a reputation for being robotic and predictable, today she did something that took almost everyone by surprise. On a visit to Salisbury in the wake of the poisoning of a Russian double agent, May met with locals. When one put out their fist to greet her, May went in for a fist bump: Perhaps there’s hope for the Maybot yet…

Theresa May has been continuing to call Britain’s allies today to discuss the poisoning of Sergei Skripal. She is expected to give a statement to the Commons tomorrow about Russia’s response to the allegation that the state was responsible for the attack, and has been seeking assurances that countries such as France, Germany and the United States are on her side. This evening, she spoke to Donald Trump, who told her that ‘the US was with the UK all the way, agreeing that the Russian Government must provide unambiguous answers as to how this nerve agent came to be used’, according to the Downing Street read-out. You can almost hear

There was a striking use of language in Theresa May’s statement to the House of Commons on the Salisbury nerve agent attack. Pointing an accusatory finger at Moscow, the Prime Minister declared: Mr Speaker, on Wednesday we will consider in detail the response from the Russian State. Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the United Kingdom. And I will come back to this House and set out the full range of measures that we will take in response. This is quite something. It suggests the government is treating this as far more than a

Happy International Women’s Day. To mark the occasion, there are several events taking place across Westminster this evening – with Liz Truss opening up the Treasury to leading businesswomen. So, how would the Prime Minister like to mark the occasion? That’s the question that left Theresa May flummoxed today in an interview with ITV. The Maybot appeared rather taken aback when Julie Etchingham innocently asked what May would do to let her ‘hair down’ on her ‘perfect get-together’ with her ‘girlfriends’: ITV News asked Prime Minister @theresa_may how she would be spending International Women's Day #IWD18 pic.twitter.com/FtX8pQudwe — ITV News (@itvnews) March 8, 2018 Time for a reboot?

Theresa May should have had a rather difficult Prime Minister’s Questions today. Jeremy Corbyn chose to lead on the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and then moved onto rough sleeping. Both matters are vulnerabilities for May, and ones Corbyn has consistently made a great deal of noise about. But there were two flaws in Corbyn’s approach which allowed May to have one of her strongest sessions as Prime Minister. The first was that of course she had guessed the Labour leader was most likely to lead on Saudi Arabia, and so she turned up well-prepared to offer a robust defence of Britain’s ties with the Kingdom. She

When Theresa May gave her big housing speech today, in front of a rather strange fake brick backdrop that made the Prime Minister appear to be emerging from a chimney, she was trying to speak to two audiences. The first was those who believe, as she says she does, that the housing crisis is one of the biggest barriers to social justice in this country. The second was those who may agree with the first sentiment in abstract, but who are very worried about inappropriate development and destruction of our green and pleasant land. It’s a tricky game, playing good-cop, bad-cop all by yourself, but that’s what the Prime Minister

Was Theresa May’s big Brexit speech simply a string of ‘phrases, generalisations and platitudes’? That’s the claim from Michael Heseltine over the weekend. The Conservative peer made the Observer front page with an attack that’s said to break the Tories’ short-lived Brexit unity. He says May’s pitch on Friday fell flat as it only ‘set out the cherries that Britain wants to pick’ and complains that rightwing Tory MPs held ‘a knife to her throat’. But if anything, Heseltine’s lone criticism highlights the Tories’ newfound unity over Brexit. If you’d told Theresa May this time last week that the most prominent Tory to criticise her plans after her speech would be Heseltine

Theresa May’s speech today won’t have left any portion of her party ecstatic. As the Prime Minister promised ‘ups and downs in the months ahead’, she warned that ‘no-one will get everything they want’. With compromises coming down the track, May made sure to dish today’s disappointment out in an even-handed manner. For the Remain side of her party that meant their hopes for a customs union compromise – as Isabel reported earlier in the week – were dashed. She not only re-iterated her stated position that the UK would leave the customs union but said that the UK should be able to set its own tariffs. That suggests not even a partial

The Cabinet met earlier today to discuss Theresa May’s big speech on Brexit tomorrow. I understand that in a lengthy meeting most ministers applauded the speech. But there is one particular area of controversy, I hear. Both David Davis and Boris Johnson pushed back against the idea that the UK should make a ‘binding commitment’ to align with EU rules and regulations in certain sectors. The Brexit Secretary, I am informed, led the charge against this idea which the Brexiteers feels go further than what was agreed at the Chequers meeting of the Brexit inner Cabinet. My information is that Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, passionately defended the speech’s language,