To grasp why Tories still polling well while petrol runs out, count number of references in coming days to wages rising. It is obv hogwash that Boris backed Brexit to deliver high wages BUT when his answer to every shortage question is ‘firms shd pay more’… ..it makes it sound like this was somehow part of the plan, rather than chaotic consequence that he has no idea what to do about. It’s hard for Labour to oppose (you’d rather people got paid less?) & recasts mess as short term pain for long term gain..

I get the calls for PM to intervene in NI after awful scenes in Belfast but not what people imagine he’s going to do about it. He has no history there, no previous hint of interest/understanding (or he won’t have done the Brexit deal he did). We are used... ...to PMs stepping in to save the peace process, I spent years writing those stories right back to the GFA, but you need the applicable skills: patience, mastery of detail, ability to inspire trust, precision & care. To put it mildly; not his forte.

I’m probably going to regret this but here are a few things about lobby reporting/‘no 10 sources’ it might be useful to know (small thread follows, RIP my mentions) 1. repeating what source says in response to hostile story is not ‘being a mouthpiece’’, it’s reporting. It matters to repeat the alibi exactly; sometimes it *does* explain why a thing that looks bad actually isn’t (that field? It was for rescuing donkeys)...

Good that W Mids police investigating Carl Benjamin's rape remarks re @jessphillips but there's a broader issue here that I worry criminal law is ill placed to resolve (thread, sorry but it is) speech used by aspirant politicians/people in public eye needs holding to higher standards than speech down the pub because it has more consequences. It can incite threats/hatred/actual attacks obv but also it can normalise what shdn't be norm..

Look I haven't a clue what Gavin Williamson, or of course Another Mystery Person, said to Steven Swinford but generally: there seems to be some confusion about how leaking happens, so a brief boring thread What ministers almost never do is ring you up going 'HOO BOY GUESS WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS NSC MEETING' (to take a random example). Nor do you generally ring them up going 'ok so what happened in the NSC meeting'.

So on a day when MPs are warned not to travel home alone because of threats to their safety, one v small story I wanted to share. 1/ Last week I was at a unit for kids excluded from school, interviewing kids sick of being described as violent/feral/beyond the pale etc. One girl had just found out she'd been offered work experience in an MP's office. 2/

So there's now a genuine chance of a witlessly offensive joke, in a column Boris Johnson presumably knocked off in under an hour from holiday, triggering a Tory leadership contest. If May had just ignored the Attention-Seeking One, she'd have been silently condoning racism. By launching disciplinary process, she's making him a martyr & strengthening his appeal for the voters he's after. There is no good option.

I still can't quite believe the Labour party has ended up here but it is ending up here again & again & again theguardian.com/commentisfree/… & i think it's doing so not just because Corbyn has a blind spot on Jewish issues but because he has a problem with criticism. He cannot accept being in the wrong on "his" issues, such as racism, ergo all critics must be acting maliciously.

Loving the idea that Brexiteers only didn’t offer their own better plan due to ‘lack of time’ to produce. It’s been two years, guys

https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/1015502931326570496

Srsly tho suspect summit’s key achievement wasn’t agreeing plan the EU may not like, but exposing weakness of Cabinet Brexiters’ position

The entire USP of Theresa May's govt was to be more competent than Corbyn. That's it. That's all it's got. And it's blown it. Tory govts don't ask to be loved. They don't aim to be nice. They sell on brisk competence; the idea that they can manage stuff, add up..