But it would be beyond naïve to assume that there is not more afoot at the BBC here. The changes in our culture due to coronavirus will no doubt shift in many cases from being temporary to becoming permanent, and for those with an agenda and the willpower to force it through, the necessary strictures may serve as a gateway to changes they would quite like to stick forever.

There have been rows going on about the Last Night of the Proms for years – is it jingoistic? Is it embarrassing in this day and age? Doesn’t it seem a bit awkward to sing the anthems of imperial Victoriana when the Empire and its legacy is long gone?

But what is interesting is that the enemies of the Last Night – you know, the snobbish, socially-liberal types who fancy themselves arbiters of cultural value – just don’t like the music. It’s the “worst night” of the Proms, they say – in musical terms this is probably true. It’s kitsch, it’s bathos, it’s nostalgic, misty-eyed stuff for plebs, grannies and football fans.

This is a sleight of hand. In almost every other debate, social progressives with a distaste for anything that smacks of tradition or old-fashioned patriotism usually insist that it isn’t a cultural artefact’s inherent aesthetic qualities or artistic merit that should determine its value; rather, it is its subjective importance to a particular community. Especially when it comes to cultural minorities – their traditions, however recent, confected or silly (or not), must be respected, and of course never appropriated.

Except when it comes to the Last Night. In that case, to hell with the fact that for many it is an important night of national symbolism, celebrating Britain’s historic greatness and in historical terms very recent victories against tyranny. The Last Night’s worst crime of all is that it is fun, and fun of the kind disapproved of by liberal snobs.

In the case of the Last Night, the Guardianista and Beeb class, who form what Coleridge presciently foresaw as a “clerisy”, package up their own aesthetic sensibilities and distaste for what they perceive as poor taste nationalism in the language of offence culture. The Last Night is “irrelevant”, “not a real tradition” or otherwise “made up” – as if all traditions were not so.

This disingenuous condescension is almost impossible to argue against – as Paley said of Gibbon, “who can refute a sneer?” But we should not be blindsided by this barrage of bourgeois bollocks. Anyone with some familiarity with classical music could tell you that Pomp & Circumstance is hardly the best, or that our national anthem is a bit of a dirge. This is entirely to miss the point.

Traditions are created; nobody denies this. They have elements that may seem more “authentic” than others, but to a significant extent this is a matter of interpretation and of taste. This is the point about symbols – their meaning arises in the space between the symbol and the individual. Perhaps some hear “Rule, Britannia!” and dream of colonising the world again (though I doubt it). Others may feel “isn’t it a jolly good thing that we won the war – and that many gave their lives”. Personally, I like the fact that “Rule, Britannia” was originally a poem penned in the 18^th century pamphlet “The Craftsman”, calling for British disentanglement from continental foreign affairs and a reorientation in favour of interests overseas. Infer from that whatever modern analogies you will…

The truth is, most of those who hate the Last Night of the Proms have a deep internal emotional and aesthetic response to it that is negative, for all sorts of reasons – and perhaps those are legitimate. They don’t like the music, or what it represents, or (in many cases I’m sure) the people who do like it. But the aesthetic preferences of an elite embarrassed by Britain’s history and averse to its symbols, visual and musical, should not dictate what should be the case for the rest of us. It is another case of the Left wanting to take something away that it personally doesn’t like, and to get its way – yet again.

Anti-Proms snobs should overcome their own preoccupations with their own taste and realise that other people – most of us – really are very much uninterested in whether the Last Night is, for them, problematic, antiquated or awkward. That is their own preference, and they of course have the option of switching off.

Those who love the Last Night – whatever it represents for them – merely wish to continue something which fundamentally belongs to them, not to musical snobs at the Beeb. Let us never forget that traditions, however silly to some, do not rely for their life on the approval of an elite but arise from the culture they are born out of, and that is where the ownership of those traditions lies. It’s not for the squeamish woke to decide.

My own response to it is closely linked with the memory of my late grandfather. A more pacific person you couldn’t hope to meet: a quiet man of routine yet a staunch patriot who served for six years in the Royal Engineers, losing a brother in France. For him, the Last Night was tied up with his experiences of conflict, loss and victory. As a consequence, my own childhood experience was by extension tied to his. When it comes to national traditions, we all have our own relationship with the ritual in question and with its historical and moral meaning.

Gavin Rice is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Justice think tank. 

Although the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, complemented his opposite number David Frost’s “professional” approach, the language surrounding the prospect of the talks collapsing is the most severe it has been to date. Barnier went so far as to say that an agreement is now “unlikely”, while Frost, the Prime Minister’s EU Sherpa, said UK businesses must “face the possibility” that there will be no future relationship agreed by the end of the year.

Although progress had been made in discussions on goods and services, the conceptual approaches of either side remain worlds apart. Of particular difficulty to Brussels are Boris Johnson’s three red lines – no role for the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the right for the UK to determine all its own laws without constraint, and a meaningful change on fishing.

The first two of these are viewed in Downing Street as absolutely fundamental to “taking back control” of Britain’s laws – the ECJ was a chief target of the Vote Leave campaign, and polling showed that “sovereignty” was the most important motivating issue for Leave voters. The third – fishing – is a hugely charged subject in Scotland, where EU vessels fishing in British waters has been a decades-long bugbear. However, securing generous access to UK waters forms a core part of Barnier’s mandate, given to him by the EU27.

Barnier spoke with candour when he said that his primary goal is to “limit the negative consequences of Brexit”. This statement refers to the interests of Brussels and of the Single Market as an economic and political bloc as much as to mitigating disruption for Britain.

Frost, in contrast, was clear in his articulation of what is at stake: “we continue to look for a deal with, at its core, a free trade agreement similar to the one the EU already has with Canada – that is, an agreement based on existing precedents.”

He went on to remark: “we remain unclear why this is so difficult for the EU”.

The simple answer is that a precedent-based Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is not in the EU’s interests. To grant this to the UK would be to concede the principle that tariff-free access to the Single Market with minimal friction is achievable without remaining a part of the legal regime that governs the Single Market, with the ECJ as the supreme arbitrator of commercial and regulatory law.

In a press conference today, Barnier identified the two stand-out areas of dispute in need of resolution as fisheries (as one would expect), and the so-called “Level Playing Field” (in other words, regulatory standards and competition rules designed to prevent anti-competitive practices and market distortion within the European Economic Area).

On fishing, the two sides are approaching the issue with entirely different philosophies. For the UK, the baseline is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which would give Britain absolute control of its waters up to two miles from the shore. Any access granted to EU vessels into this space would be thought of as a concession.

Brussels, however, is presuming that the present customs union on fisheries, in which there is collective access to EU waters with quotas centrally assigned, should be the starting point. If the British want an alteration to this, the best they can hope for would be a shift of quota. That is unlikely to go down well with the pro-Brexit British media, for whom regaining control over fishing has always been a key symbolic gain of leaving the EU.

On the Level Playing Field, including state aid rules, there is a huge difference between what Barnier says he is trying to achieve and his real objective. He has continually invoked the Political Declaration, accusing the UK of backtracking on it, despite the fact that EU negotiators spent two years insisting that the Declaration is non-binding. In particular, Barnier insists that the UK made commitments on state aid and competition which it is now reneging on. Under Article 184 of the Withdrawal Agreement (the argument goes), the UK is committed to negotiating within the parameters of the Political Declaration using best endeavours, and in good faith – Barnier says it isn’t doing so.

The problem is, the Declaration does not say what Barnier wants it to. The relevant paragraph says: “The Parties should in particular maintain a robust and comprehensive framework for competition and state aid control that prevents undue distortion of trade and competition”.

But it is simply not necessary to be subject to the EU’s state aid regime in order to avoid distortion and guarantee competition. In fact, the rest of the world manages it perfectly well – it just seems that Barnier’s interpretation of “a robust and comprehensive framework” is “OUR robust and comprehensive framework”.

The World Trade Organisation operates a Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) regime, which allows states who feel they have been prejudiced because of subsidies or dumping by another WTO member to impose retaliatory tariffs.

Moreover, pretty much every other FTA in the world – including the ones the EU has with Canada and Japan – regulate market distortions by means of a common commercial chapter in the agreement, policed by an independent arbitrator. There is no need for each country’s laws to be the same, so long as the broad outcome of protecting competition is achieved. For one country to submit to the competition law regime of the other would be completely unprecedented.

In truth, the EU’s state aid system is archaic, and is widely known to be so – it would not be designed in its present form today. It gives extraordinary executive power to the Commission over member states: all instances of state aid – however small – are presumed to be illegal unless the Commission’s approval is granted. There are many and much better ways of ensuring fair competition.

A much more sensible approach – commonplace throughout the world – would be for state aid decisions to be determined by the government of the day according to domestic law. If a private sector party felt they had lost out due to a government subsidising a competitor, they could then bring an action. This would be more efficient, more rational and would guarantee sovereignty, without prejudicing EU-based businesses, who would be protected by the rules of the WTO or (hopefully) by the rules set out in a UK-EU FTA. It’s how the rest of the world operates.

When Barnier says the Single Market must be protected, he has a double meaning. Clearly the EU believes European businesses are protected well enough by WTO rules from the rest of the world and by outcome-based FTA rules with the likes of Canada and Japan. Brussels’s phobia of potential market distortion does not seem to bother it when it comes to China, on whom Germany relies for exports – in spite of its flagrant disregard for its WTO commitments.

In truth, Barnier’s goal is political, rather than a pure concern for “protecting” the EU’s internal market. The EU cannot be seen to be offering the benefits of a Canada or Japan-style agreement to a country that used to be in the Single Market – otherwise the whole thing might start to unravel.

In an attempt to justify this, EU negotiators have argued for the need for unique levels of harmonisation between the UK and EU due to its physical proximity. In the May years, Britain was told it could not have a “bespoke” arrangement. Now it wants something off the shelf, Brussels is saying the deal must reflect Britain and the EU’s unique prior relationship.

Brussels is clearly erecting fishing and the Level Playing Field as stumbling-blocks to progressing onto other issues – such as financial services, where the UK has important interests to secure – weaponising sequencing as they always so adroitly do. But with a Brussels mandate that cannot compromise on these red lines, and a Number 10 seemingly sanguine about No Deal, it’s now a question of who blinks first.

The Prime Minister, who announced that his new ministry will be called the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office yesterday, says the shake-up of diplomacy and aid spending is part of a broader review of the UK’s role in the world and strategic objectives. 

Britain’s ambassadors, he said, will now be responsible for the distribution of development aid, with the aim of ensuring UK aid policy is “rooted firmly in our national interests”. However, the PM said the merger would not affect the O.7% of GDP spend on the aid budget, which will remain ringfenced.

But former prime ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have all criticised the PM’s plans for abolishing DFiD. Blair called the decision “wrong and regressive”, while Cameron, Johnson’s former referendum rival, said it would mean “less expertise,  less voice for development at the top table and ultimately less respect for the UK overseas”.

The move is part of a wider coordinated review of foreign policy led by John Bew. The professor of history at King’s College London, who currently advises the prime minister on foreign affairs, previously ran the “Britain in the world” project for the influential think tank, Policy Exchange.

Opinion polling reveals a high degree of public scepticism about overseas aid, with 53% believing overseas aid should be cut according to British Overseas NGOs for Development (“BOND”), and 59% believing aid is wasted due to corruption.

It is a populist issue on which the prime minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, believes the Westminster establishment is out of step with national opinion. However, with an economy in dire straits and the news agenda dominated by coronavirus, it is doubtful that the government will be able to make much hay out of the issue with the public.

Explaining his decision, the PM said the move would follow in the footsteps of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of whom have combined overseas aid with their respective foreign ministries. He added that the reform was “long overdue” and would ensure “maximum value” for taxpayers, £15 billion of whose money is currently spent by DFiD on aid projects around the world.

The shift in spending priorities reflects the approach taken by China, which uses foreign aid spending as part of its projection of regional soft power.

Johnson said: “We give as much aid to Zambia as we do to Ukraine, though the latter is vital for European security. We give 10 times as much aid to Tanzania as we do to the six countries of the western Balkans, who are acutely vulnerable to Russian meddling.”

The Prime Minister called the current arrangements “outdated”, claiming that British aid has for too long been treated as “some giant cashpoint in the sky” in a comment that has attracted strong criticism. Global aid charities joined in the criticism. Oxfam’s chief executive, Danny Sriskandarajah, called the decision a “brazen challenge to the aid sector”, while Christian Aid’s director of public affairs and campaigns said it was “an act of political vandalism”.

Opposition leader Keir Starmer called the move “pure distraction” from the country’s urgent economic and health challenges, and called upon the prime minister to focus on these priorities.

Although the timing may feel strange to some, the merger has been a long time in the planning, and forms part of a much broader project for rethinking Britain’s role in the world – an impetus triggered by Brexit that has been leant fresh urgency by the effects of coronavirus and the wider reorientation away from China.

The monthly unemployment figures for May (flat month on month) today don’t tell the full story, because the government’s furlough scheme protecting 9.1m employees is still in operation and there is a time lag in the figures. But a tranche of findings issued by the Office for National Statistics suggest that the damage – yet to become visible – will be serious.

The number of UK employees on payrolls fell by over 600,000 from March. This is lower than some of the higher predictions, which included speculative figures as high as two million. But the number of vacancies available in May has fallen to a record low, falling by an estimated 60% between March and May, 342,000 fewer than in the previous quarter.

The largest change is in the number of Britons classed as temporarily out of work, which includes those on the government furlough scheme. That rose by six million between March and April at a current cost to the Exchequer of over £14 billion per month. Employee average pay growth also slowed in April, falling in real terms for the first time since January 2018.

The period February to April saw a record fall in the quarterly number of self-employed in Britain. The number claiming job-related Universal Credit increased to 2.8 million, an increase of 23.3% during the month of May, and a 125.9% increase (or 1.6 million) since March.

The full economic impact of the lockdown is likely to be felt when the Job Retention Scheme is unwound between August and October. Hitherto “concealed” job losses are likely to skyrocket as employers previously reliant on government funds to cover their wage bills find themselves going out of business or cutting back.

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has ruled out a “cliff edge” in which support is suddenly withdrawn, but it remains an inescapable fact that the government will not be able to extend the furlough scheme indefinitely, and it will not be able to prevent many businesses from going bust.

This employment emergency is likely to dominate the politics of the second half of this year. Demonstrating that the government will come under intense pressure – even from its own side – former Conservative leader Lord Hague wrote a withering column for the Telegraph today. Laying bare the catastrophic economic consequences of the lockdown, Hague warned that a repeat, in the event of a second spike, is financially unthinkable. He said that for many families, the recession will mean “depression, family breakdown and despair”. He called upon the government to follow the advice of his once-nemesis Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change, which recommends the introduction of testing on “a truly massive scale” so that a second lockdown can be avoided.

This was a youthful protest. As I watched at the scene it was clear that the majority of those marching were no older than their early 20s, with an overwhelming presence of outraged teenagers, cooped up until recently in their homes for months due to government lockdown measures. Many of those present may not even remember clearly the killing of Mark Duggan in 2011, that sparked the riots that year and are cited now as an example of injustice.

Most of the slogans adorning the thousands of placards and banners that were carried through the streets, slung around statues in Parliament Square and tied in their hundreds to public railings, were about historic British injustices. Only a minority referred to the injustice of Floyd’s killing in the United States.

The majority called for an end to racism more broadly, to the killing of innocent black people, and the need to challenge white privilege and white supremacy. Verbally abusive protesters booed at and harangued largely silent and unmoving police officers, clearly under strict instructions to remain as pacific as possible so that hostilities might be calmed. The individual police officers themselves appeared to be identified as the enemy – whether as legitimised perpetrators of violence against ethnic minorities or symbolic manifestations of the state. Or perhaps the more violent members of the crowd just needed a target to throw things at.

Along Victoria Street protesters confronted regular police, demanding to know why there had been any intervention by the law at all. One officer explained carefully and patiently that it is not that he disagrees with the principle of Black Lives Matter, but that protests need to be controlled and that there is a need to ensure social distancing. The policeman in question spent some minutes in explanatory conversation.

The Cenotaph remained unstained by graffiti at this time – unlike the scenes of defacement witnessed on Saturday and what followed later on Sunday – but the memorial was covered in cardboard BLM placards. Triumphant marchers posed on the monument for selfies to be posted on Instagram, presumably to proclaim the symbolic triumph of the movement.

When I asked officers why the Cenotaph was not being protected – at some points over the weekend perimeters had been formed around the Churchill statue in Parliament Square – an officer replied “Good question”. When pressed, it emerged that which battles to pick was determined by a decision from “command”. “If it was up to us we’d do something about it”.

Police armed in riot gear formed a human barrier under the arches of Treasury Passage on Whitehall where, as the evening drew on, tensions ran high. Large backup units jogged in formation to their strategic posts in case the situation escalated. The smell of marijuana was ubiquitous – smokers were unchallenged, naturally.

The objective of the crowd’s front line at Treasury Passage remained unclear. Crowds were clearly angered by the apparently intimidating display of force; the riot police by virtue of their function became targeted as a manifestation of state power. With riot police only deployed due to the high levels of disorder amongst the protesters in the first place, the stand-off was paradoxical.

A large minority of the protesters were white, almost entirely students or teenagers. This was the white bourgeoisie belting out “Shame on you!” at black police officers. 

Along Horse Guards, two teenage girls on bicycles circled in the middle of the road, as police relieved of their shifts sipped cups of tea from a refreshment stand, looking on. “NO RACIST POLICE!” they yelled, and got no response. A group of black teenagers, unsure of how involved they wished to become, noted the site of riot police squads assembled along Whitehall. A young man remonstrated with a more militant friend, “Do you want to end up in a gulag? Because that’s where we’re going today!”

During the last five years, five people have been killed by British law enforcement. Three were Usman Khan, perpetrator of the London Bridge terror attack, Sudesh Amman, after a killing spree in Streatham, and Hassan Yahya, shot in Westminster after challenging police with knives. The only case in which the shooting has been speculated to be a mistake was of Sean Fitzgerald in Coventry, Wiltshire, in an “intelligence-led” operation about which there is little information in the public domain. He was white. 

Obviously the police were anxious to avoid the deployment of mounted police, and the negative symbolic imagery this can convey when filmed and posted online. No horses were deployed on Sunday. It was a mounted police officer who suffered a collapsed lung, broken rib and shattered collarbone at the hands of rioters on Saturday. One can only imagine the response if such injury had been inflicted on a protester. Extreme restraint was the order of the day on Sunday. 

The atmosphere was surreal, spurred on by social media it seemed as though the protestors believed they were in America. “The UK is not innocent!” proclaimed numerous placards.

Of course racism exists in Britain. But the raw data on police brutality in the last decade – let alone extrajudicial killing of black Britons – simply isn’t there.

For protesters so young, the emphasis was on slogans laden with theory. “White supremacy is terrorism”, proclaimed one sign with Chomskyan flair. “White silence enforces structural violence”, read another. The metaphysical concept of “structural violence”, in which complicity in an unjust social order is to be regarded as morally equal to physical violence against the oppressed class, has its origins in Marxist and subsequently Foucauldian social theory.

The cries of impoverished black Britons, tired of their disenfranchisement and a lack of economic opportunity, blended with humanities students spotting an opportunity to air the jargonistic tools of political analysis that teachers have bestowed upon them.

In spite of the explicit targeting of the symbols of historic British state power – statues of statesmen; uniformed police – the weekend protests had an air of chaotic aimlessness. There was frustration, but with who exactly? There were demands for change. What change? The rule of “white privilege” was declared to be over with the ascendancy of “black power”. How will this be manifested in real life?

As the Metropolitan police officers returned home to their families on Sunday night, battered, bruised and in several cases more seriously injured, some of them will have wondered what great oppression they are guilty of as they try to keep the peace. After the streets cleared, as they left their posts, stepping over the specks of spattered blood on the ground in Treasury Passage, they could be thankful, at least, that no-one had been killed.

But a situation of even greater absurdity is developing in the Lords. The upper House remains virtual, purely online, though currently with no ability to hold votes, the facilities for which will not be in place until the week after next. 

A little commented on feature of Britain’s quaint and archaic democracy is that unelected peers are gently encouraged to take full advantage of having a seat in the mother of Parliaments with the offer of a daily allowance of £323 (the figure went up from £313, above inflation, in April). But how is this to work now that we have virtual lords?

The House of Lords Commission has decided to offer a half daily rate to any peer who participates online. The introduction of a hybrid chamber with virtual participation due to lockdown now presents the Lords with the option of claiming their prize for taking part from the comfort of their own homes. Predictably, scores of peers are now registering to speak in debates that are highly constricted by time and by the limitations of the technology.

The result is that in a debate on the post-Covid economy only 50 lords were selected to speak, and were forced to confine their remarks to two minutes apiece.

Peers were chosen by random ballot, meaning that senior lords such as former Chancellors of the Exchquer or the chairs of relevant Committees were not selected, as they would be during an in-person debate.

The clamour to take part – and claim the prize of an allowance – means that for an upcoming debate on Hong Kong speeches will be limited to a ridiculous one minute.

The plan is now to move to hybrid voting, with a limited number of backbench peers allowed in the physical chamber at any given time, with the rest voting electronically. Astonishingly, the current proposal will include peers being paid to vote. There is bound to be criticism of funnelling money to peers to vote on a division which they otherwise may have ignored. And it is sure to play havoc with the parliamentary arithmetic of the Lords, in which the government remains in minority. Look out for heavy government defeats. 

Pay-per-play seems like an unsatisfactory remuneration arrangement for Britain’s upper house.

Yet the latest economic figures make grim reading. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest scenario analysis suggests that public sector borrowing for 2020-21 will hit £273 billion, or 13.9% of GDP – a peacetime record for the UK. The previous record was in 2009-10, in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Analysis by J. P. Morgan released today depicts a growth in unemployment of 300,000 during the first quarter of 2020; with hundreds of thousands of currently furloughed workers facing redundancy when their employers eventually go bust. The bomb of post-COVID joblessness is yet to explode. One in three 18-24 year-olds have lost their jobs, vacancy advertisements are down 92%; in September thousands of graduates will find their post-university offers of employment to have evaporated.

All this would make one assume the nation must be itching to get things moving again. Things cannot go on like this, surely? Eventually people will fall behind on their rent, homeowners will default on their mortgages, asset prices will crash. As soon as is feasible the British people will want to get the show back on the road.

Or so you’d think. Research by Ipsos Mori for King’s College London finds that out of three broad categorisations of feeling towards coronavirus lockdown – the Accepting, the Suffering and the Rejecting – the Accepting is the largest group on 48% (the Suffering sit at 44%); just 9% have serious feelings of doubt or misgiving about the scale of the measures. Over 90% of the first two categories support lockdown measures with over 80% favouring increased police powers. Teachers have been told by their unions to defy government instruction to restart schools – chatterati orthodoxy about listing to “the science” notwithstanding.

In truth, lockdown has become something of a hobby for many British people – if not quite yet attaining the level of a religion, then certainly a national pastime. With the absence of televised sport, live entertainment or even a good old pub to visit, not the mention the normalising effect of face-to-face social contact, coronavirus culture fills the vacuum.

To an extent this is understandable. We are facing the largest public health crisis for a generation, while the thought of losing elderly relatives and loved ones is too much to bear. At the same time, coronavirus news obsession has taken the nation by storm, and have-a-go epidemiology is the latest craze.

“We needed to lock down 2 weeks sooner, THAT would have solved things” insist critics; “The modelling was completely wrong! They used a totally rubbish system”, cry others. Amid the maelstrom of speculative froth and oversupply of information, how can we know who is right?

Frankly, it has all become rather wearisome. And while the economic catastrophe is bad, the COVID crisis has revealed – and inflamed – aspects of British culture that are somewhat unseemly. Curtain-twitching, whether physical or online, has been in the ascendancy. The passion for call-out culture and bluntly correcting one’s neighbour on their behaviour (in the past it was un-PC word choices or voting for Brexit; now it’s going shopping once too often) has found a new world of opportunity in which to vent a feeling of moral superiority. Nasty (though sometimes funny) memes about the stupidity of lockdown-breakers and “deniers” abound online. And, as ever, criticism of the NHS or of any dimension of perpetual lockdown orthodoxy makes one a traitor at best, a granny-killer at worst.

Even the government seems to have been surprised by the egg it has laid. Jacob Rees-Mogg conceded in the most recent edition of ConservativeHome podcast that the government’s stay-home-at-all-costs advice may have been “too effective” (governments always price in levels of non-compliance whenever making a decision). It’s hard to work out whether the confusion of current guidelines should be attributed simply to chaos at the heart of the government communications machine or whether it is a deliberate tactic. Fudge the advice and you will get a slow trickle-back to work rather than opening the floodgates, while the naturally cautious stay home longer.

It’s disappointingly predictable to map attitudes to COVID-19 – fanatical lockdown enthusiasm versus stoical compliance and a desire to get back to work – onto either culture wars or the Brexit divide, but there are certain tribal traits that can be identified here. It seems to be the most fanatical Remainers, the type who would blame Brexit voters personally for voting to ruin the country, who seem most likely to favour locking down, well, forever.

Some of the very people who said no government would ever vote to make its people poorer are now calling on the government not to ease restrictions or allow schools to open, favouring an approach that looks likely to impoverish the nation further and destroy opportunity for a whole generation, not to mention torpedoing the tax base from which we fund the beloved health service.

Perhaps this is simply a psychological misfire caused by fear. But that’s precisely the point: amateur covidology, like astrology or alchemy, represents a frantic attempt to overcome the unfamiliar sensation of being unable to defeat nature and control the unknown.

Perhaps if the Government had acted differently outcomes would have been statistically significantly different, but somehow I doubt it. The what-ifery, whataboutery and finger-pointing is unbecoming of a nation that prides herself on unity and teamwork in a crisis.

The objective should be clear: beat this thing as quickly as possible, but recognise that the state is not omnipotent and we cannot fully prevent the tragedy of humans falling ill. Proportionality – and sanity – will need to be restored. Let’s hope the culture hasn’t been too badly shattered along the way.

Last Friday the Prime Minister, in a desperate bid to procure more time from the European Council, tried to bring the bare-bones part of her deal – the Withdrawal Agreement – to Parliament for approval, only to be defeated a humiliating third time. In spite of stripping out the more widely objected-to Political Declaration, which is too committed to harmonization for some and too vague in its guarantees for others, 34 Tories MPs defied the whip, placing the hapless May in the most impossible of positions with only 14 days to go.

When questioned on his voting intention in the Commons, veteran Maastricht rebel Sir Bill Cash insisted that he was not in fact jeopardizing Brexit; he simply did not believe that No Deal would in reality be stopped, he claimed. After all, nothing could be worse than the backstop and its threat to our constitutional integrity.

Well, that claim has become a bit embarrassing now. Yesterday Yvette Cooper, in a plot hatched alongside Sir Oliver Letwin, forced a bill through the House of Commons which wrests control of EU exit day from the Prime Minister and passes it to MPs; if this bill is approved in the Lords (they are currently debating the bill), it will grant Parliament the power to set the length of Article 50 extensions domestically and to instruct Theresa May to request such extensions from the EU. European leaders may not agree to these, of course, but the view is widespread in Government that they will do so if they scent the possibility of soft Brexit on the horizon. In other words, Parliament will have completely blocked out No Deal.

All along the ERG have viewed the Withdrawal Agreement and No Deal as the two options between which the nation must choose, with the latter being the less egregiously offensive. Now, if May’s deal does not pass, the alternatives include a long extension with the humiliation of returning MEPs in May’s European elections, capitulation to the red herring of a “permanent customs union”, a General Election, a second referendum, or a revocation of Article 50 in which the whole project is cancelled altogether. Most likely is some combination of these outcomes. By handing decision-making power over Brexit to Corbyn, Letwin and the European Council, the ERG have empowered their enemies and potentially scuppered their own cause.

While constitutional vandalism wreaked havoc today in Parliament, Theresa May suffered fierce criticism from her own party, including Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom and leadership hopeful Boris Johnson, as Jeremy Corbyn was invited into Downing Street for compromise talks. The UK’s chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins (of Brussels bar gaffe fame) was present, indicating that the discussions are being taken with the utmost seriousness. It seems that his role was partially to explain to Jeremy Corbyn what a customs union is – now he’s making decisions he actually needs to know – and to point out that no permanent state of future relations can, as a matter of EU law, be made legally binding in the Withdrawal Agreement. Given that the lack of a binding commitment on this has been Corbyn’s chief criticism of May’s deal (he had to latch onto something), this must have been somewhat awkward for Britain’s least lovable old socialist. Then again, he isn’t known for his keen sense of personal shame.

All may not be lost, however. While the ERG have (rightly) taken flak in the media for their stubborn short-sightedness, the real root of May’s parliamentary woes has been that Labour has voted against a deal with which it is largely in agreement and the changes to which the Opposition would like to see are not in fact possible. Whether it’s a customs union, environmental protections or a commitment to workers’ rights, all of these can only be guaranteed in the Declaration on the future relationship. That means by legal default they cannot be set in stone. While performing the function of an Opposition these have been easy sticks with which to beat the Prime Minister. Labour’s goal all along has not been to secure a more agreeable deal, but to bring down the Government and secure an election at all costs. Now Corbyn and Keir Starmer are being asked what they actually want, their bluff has been called.

The EU are keen to get a deal agreed – they have much to lose from No Deal, arguably more than we do – and have shown some room for manoeuvre, such as their minor concessions over the backstop made in Strasbourg. They have declared that while a commitment to a customs union cannot go into the Withdrawal Agreement, it could be laid down in some kind of supplementary document as has happened before. Or it could just be worked up more fully in the Political Declaration. A future Tory Prime Minister could, of course, then deviate from this provided they had the support of Parliament.

Labour may say that such a non-binding commitment isn’t good enough.  But if as a result of her talks with the Opposition May concedes to making Corbyn’s binding customs union request, only to have the EU rebuff it as impossible, that pretty much kills it dead in the water as a line of attack. This will throw into sharper relief the fact that the Withdrawal Agreement in its current form has to pass, regardless of what type of Brexit you want, and will expose Labour’s objections as disingenuous. This could put pressure on Labour backbenchers to fall behind the deal as the leadership’s position becomes untenable.

In addition to suffocating Labour’s plan by exposure, the best move May can now make is to threaten her own backbenchers with the possibility of no Brexit at all if they refuse to move, or the spectre of a long extension and General Election resulting in a crypto-Marxist Government and / or the softest of soft Brexits. With a legal block on No Deal and Article 50 in the hands of a Remain-dominated Parliament, May’s deal is the only Brexit the Tories are going to get.

With the logic of the Labour position undermined and the necessity of the Agreement to get any sort of Brexit now more apparent than ever, it’s clear that the factor that has been missing from all sides is reality. If it actually dawns on our parliamentarians, May could see a rally for the deal next week. Otherwise, Brexit stands a good chance of being cancelled.

It is true that May has been a worse than poor leader during a time of international diplomatic and domestic constitutional crisis – precisely the sort of time when inspired and visionary leadership is most required. She was wrong to concede to the EU’s timetable for negotiations in the first place (money and backstop now, actual trade deal later), and she should never have allowed EU demands over the Irish border to dominate all aspects of the debate. During constitutional wrangling over “maximum facilitation” and “alternative arrangements”, crucial months were lost in what is – without offence to Unionists – a sideshow.

She has never believed in Brexit; when defending its cause at the dispatch box she repeats her over-rehearsed line again and again, that she wishes to “honour the referendum” but “in a way that protects jobs”. Translation: “I know it’s terrible but we have to do this. I’m doing it the least bad way”. Her rhetoric about “delivering Brexit” has always lacked any positive vision for what Brexit might involve, or what might actually be delivered once the turmoil of the withdrawal process is finally over. As it were, she has always been concerned that the package arrives but has never really shown much interest in its contents, or the opportunities it might bring. As her former chief of staff Nick Timothy recently confirmed, she has always seen Brexit as a damage limitation exercise.

Most fatefully of all she erred in summoning the General Election of 2017. This squandered her majority and exposed Britain to the manoeuvres of hostile EU negotiators who knew she lacked command of her own parliament in Westminster and as such felt emboldened to push her around.

However, she cannot and must not bear the full brunt when the historians come to perform their autopsy. The voting behaviour of many MPs has been bewildering over the course of the Meaningful Vote saga, to say nothing of the circumstances in which the merry-go-round we’re currently witnessing came about, though I’m looking in the direction of Dominic Grieve.

The hard-Brexiteer European Research Group in Parliament (led by Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker) has received a lot of flak for its refusal to support the Withdrawal Agreement, and there is justice in this criticism. Their reading of the Agreement and Political Declaration is in many cases faulty – many think they commit us to some kind of permanent customs union (they don’t), many think we will still be participating in the political institutions and subject to the European Court of Justice (we won’t), and some even seem to think that the backstop is the intended final state of relations (there is some alarming language about this in the Political Declaration, but on closer analysis this refers only to tariffs and not to customs tout court).

Their concerns about the Union and being trapped in the backstop are genuine, but the Attorney-General’s advice that these associated risks are much diminished by the supplementary Strasbourg documents is sound, as is Downing Street’s warning that the far greater risk is that Brexit is stopped altogether. The likes of Boris Johnson endlessly call for a change of direction in favour of a “Canada-style Free Trade Deal”, but they fail to recognise two things: first, that such a deal is in fact possible within the scope of the Political Declaration; secondly this (desirable) end point cannot even begin to be negotiated until the Withdrawal Treaty is ratified by both sides. As a matter of EU law a codification of final future relations cannot be made legally binding while we are still a member state. We have to leave first, negotiate a trade agreement later. So much for the Brexiteer rebels.

Less media commentary has focused on the other side, however. Whether it’s through the Cooper-Boles hijacking of the Order paper, Letwin’s indicative votes or the outrageously partisan decisions of the Speaker, the Remain caucus within Parliament has been doing everything within its power to stop Brexit or to water it down out of existence.

The fact that the majority of Remain-backing MPs consistently vote down the deal is now taken for granted, but why? Were over 80% of them not elected on manifesto pledges of honouring the referendum in 2017? That being the case, why are we seeing such high numbers voting to revoke Article 50 or for a second referendum in the amendment votes before the House? The Independent Group (TIG) are not even voting for the “soft-Brexit” options of the Norway option or a customs union; for them only a second referendum is enough. Of course, MPs must vote according to conscience, but it cannot be forgotten that overwhelming majorities in Parliament voted to trigger Article 50 and for the Withdrawal Act in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

There is a broader constitutional point here, too: the “meaningful vote” requirement of the 2018 Act has placed the UK in an absurd position of having the legislature dictate the terms of a treaty negotiation that in reality has to occur between two governments, not two parliaments. There is no reason to imagine that the EU will consider agreeing to whatever revised form of Brexit Parliament coughs up when it finishes off its indicative votes on Monday.

The most outrageous and under-reported behaviour, though, is that of Labour. When attacking the Government’s negotiating objectives, Corbyn and Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer consistently accuse the Prime Minister of imposing “artificial” red lines (ending free movement and taking us out of the Single Market and customs union). This is disingenuous; clearly failure to deliver on any of these would fall well short of implementing the declared goals of the Leave campaign – namely regaining control of borders, laws and money.

Labour have repeatedly said that they support “a customs union” (but not “the customs union”?), “full access to the Single Market” (without being in the Single Market?), are against the backstop without having any actual objections to it, attack the possibility of reduced workers’ rights and environmental standards but then oppose the PM when she guarantees them, and then after all this they lambast the Government for its failure to get the Withdrawal Agreement through the House – yes, Jeremy, it’s you that keeps whipping your MPs to vote it down. Their Six Tests were designed specifically to me unmeetable, thus creating a supposed justification to vote against anything the Government could agree with Brussels. The majority of Labour members are still sheepishly obeying the whip, apparently caring more about being perceived as Tory collaborators by the far-Left leadership than the very real possibility of frustrating the referendum or facilitating a No Deal.

The Opposition has remained true to form by declaring that it will refuse to vote today for the Withdrawal Agreement on its own, sans Political Declaration. But this has been the one part of May’s deal Labour does not have any official objection to (it deals only with citizens’ rights, money owed, the transition period and the Irish backstop). Indeed, when quizzed by Father of the House Ken Clarke on the reason for opposing the Agreement, Keir Starmer was unable to answer; his party’s objection has always been to deficiencies in the Political Declaration alone. Now the chance to vote for one and not the other is in front of them and they still won’t budge.

Furthermore, Labour has repeatedly committed the same fallacy as the “Super Canada” ERG diehards – namely, not grasping that the details of the future relationship cannot yet be fixed. Corbyn continually pinpoints failure to negotiate a permanent customs union as the only substantive criticism of May’s deal he can think of, but (just like a Free Trade Deal), this is impossible until the actual Withdrawal Agreement is on the statute books. That’s the EU’s insistence, not ours.

It is indeed the job of the Opposition in our parliamentary system to oppose; it is thus that governments are held to account. But these are extraordinary times when the sort of unity that generates wartime national governments is needed. Labour refusing to vote for the bare-bones Withdrawal Agreement – all the elements of which are essentially a legal necessity for any form of future deal – is simply not good enough. They are seeking to exploit the parliamentary arithmetic to paralyse the Government and cause a General Election in the hope of seizing power and implanting Corbynist rule. And it’s the Leader of the Opposition who accuses the Prime Minister of putting party before country.

May has been the wrong Prime Minister at the wrong time, and her mistakes are legion – and should not be overlooked. But Parliament’s role in all of this has been the chief cause of the Government’s gauntlet of woe in the Commons over recent weeks. Whether it’s through lack of understanding of the Withdrawal Agreement, refusal to face facts over the backstop, belief that parliamentarians can do Brexit a-la-carte, a concerted effort to stop the whole thing in the style of TIG and the SNP, or willful and culpable obstructionism by Labour, there has been a collective failure of responsibility.

Wednesday’s indicative votes proved that there is no majority for anything else, and minority views in the House must accept that they are a minority. Without the Withdrawal Agreement approved on both sides, the next phase of negotiations will simply not happen. MPs must back the deal.

Ongoing protests in Sri Lanka throughout the week have resulted in two deaths as the country’s constitutional fabric continues to unravel. Thousands have gathered outside Temple Trees, the official residence of the ousted former prime minister, in support of the former premier.

On Monday, police arrested the sacked oil minister Arjuna Ranatunga and his bodyguard after the latter fired on protesters outside his house.

What caused this recent upheaval?

The crisis has been caused by the shock sacking of the Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on October 26th by President Maithripala Sirisena in a move that critics have declared unconstitutional. Mr Wickremesinghe has not recognised the legality of the move and is still refusing to leave his official residence, insisting that he retains the support of the majority of the Sri Lankan parliament. President Sirisena has performed a U-turn since he appointed Mr Wickremesinghe the head of government in 2015 after the results of the elections held that year.

Has Sirisena acted unlawfully?

Under Sri Lanka’s unique constitution the president wields significant executive power – more power than the prime minister – and has historically enjoyed the right to hire and fire premiers.

The president insists that “the appointments were made totally in accordance with the constitution and on the advice of legal experts”, but Nihal Jayawickrama (one such expert) has declared that this power was stripped from the presidency after sweeping constitutional reforms three years ago, making this potentially the first illegal transfer of power since Sri Lanka became a democracy in 1931. Legality aside, the move by Sirisena is politically surprising as Mahinda Rajapaksa, the strongman he has chosen as the new prime minister, served as president himself from 2005-2015, before being defeated by Sirisena (his rival); the two are from opposing Sri Lankan political factions.

How expected was this?

It is widely known that Sirisena has been looking for a reason to remove Wickremesinghe given various allegations of corruption, public disaffection with Sri Lanka’s economic conditions, and even a claim by the president of a plot to assassinate him.

Is there resolution on the horizon?

Wickremesinghe and those protesting in support of him have been pressurising the president to summon parliament so that the dispute between the rival prime ministerial claimaints can be settled by MPs democratically. However, parliament has been in a state of suspension and will remain so (according to a declaration today) until 16th November in order to allow Rajapaksa to build support. The president has equivocated on recalling parliament earlier than this date in response to mounting public outcry.

What’s the broader context behind the crisis? 

Rajapaksa is an inherently controversial appointment; not only has he served in the highest political office already for ten years; he was a powerful military leader in Sri Lanka’s agonising 26-year civil war, and he still faces unresolved accusations of widespread human rights abuses for actions taken against Sri Lanka’s ethnic minority during the conflict, which ended in 2009.

The broader context is one of competing Chinese and Indian interests in the wider Indian ocean; the current president has brought Sri Lanka significantly closer to China, overseeing significant Chinese investment in the country as well as the transfer of ownership of a port constructed in the south to direct Chinese ownership after Sri Lanka defaulted on accrued debts. It is clear that the country is embroiled in a deep factional dispute that has its roots in Sri Lanka’s historical conflicts and precarious regional situation, but it is also witnessing the kinds of disputes and allegations of corruption and insider dealing that heralds the faltering of a constitutional order.

It is too early to declare a descent into dictatorship, but it seems that the constitutional order is in peril.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them: the solemn annual act of Remembrance is lent extra potency this year as Remembrance Sunday falls on 11th November, Armistice Day. Britain commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the end of the Great War with the Royal British Legion’s National Service of Remembrance.

11th November at The Cenotaph, Whitehall

I am Ashurbanipal at the British Museum

“I am Ashurbanipal, King of the world, King of Assyria” – the British Museum’s hotly anticipated exhibition tells the story of the king who ruled his sweeping empire from the biblical city of Nineveh. Discover the life of the once most powerful man in the world.

Until 24th February at the British Museum

Mantegna and Bellini at the National Gallery

The National Gallery reveals its new exhibition on the artist brothers-in-law Mantegna and Bellini, towering figures of Paduan and Venetian art respectively. A rare opportunity to see works of the highest quality from around the world by these great Renaissance painters, gathered in London for the first – and perhaps only – time.

Until 27th January at the National Gallery

From caves to Cleopatra at the Royal Academy

From caves to Cleopatra: this weekend course at the Royal Academy offers the opportunity to hear experts in the field discuss the very origins of human art with a particular focus on the masterpieces of Greece, Rome, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Art didn’t begin with the Renaissance after all!

24th and 25th November at the Royal Academy of Arts

Anni Albers at the Tate Modern

Combining the ancient art of hand-weaving with the insights and approaches of modern art, the contribution of Anni Albers has been underappreciated. Now discover why this artist-weaver is so important in this vast and groundbreaking Tate exhibit.

Until 27th January at the Tate Modern

The trial of Sir Walter Raleigh

Relive the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh with the Globe company in this audience participation-based re-enactment of the great explorer’s fall from grace on charges of treason. It will take place in the location of his original trial 415 years ago.

16th – 18th November at Winchester Great Hall

Caroline, or change

Free tickets if you’re called ‘Caroline’! It sounds strange, but this is the new promotional gimmick for this acclaimed revival of Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s ‘Caroline, or Change’. This hit musical that moves from the Hampstead Theatre to the West End revolves around a black maid’s servitude in Civil Rights-era Louisiana.

Until 6th April 2019 at the Playhouse Theatre

St Martin-in-the-Fields

Absorb the wonderful atmosphere of St Martin-in-the-Fields with their autumn season of concertos and choral music by candlelight. Upcoming highlights include the sublime Allegri Miserere and Mozart’s Requiem. Truly a unique experience and a staple of London’s classical music repertoire.

Various dates throughout November at St Martin-in-the-Fields

Possum

Halloween may be over but the season for horror is still in swing as director Matthew Holness makes his feature debut with ‘Possum’. Sean Harris is spectacular as Philip, a lonely middle-aged man who spends most of his screen time alone in this deeply unsettling psychological thriller.

In cinemas nationwide

As Philip Hammond attempted to avoid unforced errors while delivering on Theresa May’s conference pledge to “end austerity”, he committed the Treasury to significant fiscal loosening, accepting in effect a £30 billion widening of the annual budget deficit. However, better-than-expected tax receipts emboldened him not to suspend key rises in the personal allowance and in the higher rate threshold (up to £12,500 and £50,000 respectively), but actually to bring them forward by one year to 2019. The move will see 32 million taxpayers benefit in real terms.

Defying expectations, the Shadow Chancellor actually endorsed the tax cuts, which will result in £2.7 billion losses to the Treasury in the short term. He has been slammed by Labour grandees for accepting what Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry described as “tax cuts for the rich” and which New Labour veteran Yvette Cooper said she could “not support”. Seeing the centrist wing of the Labour Party attack the Corbynite leadership for supporting Tory budgetary measures is truly a sight to behold.

The Resolution Foundation, a think tank, has calculated that nearly half of the tax cut benefit will go to the top 10% of earners, with the wealthy benefiting 14 times more than the poorest from the threshold increases. David Lammy, a Labour MP and high-profile former minister, commented: “We should not be supporting tax cuts that disproportionately help the wealthy.”

McDonnell, however, has defended his comments in two ways. The first makes sense from a left-wing perspective: the move comes within the broader context of Labour’s plans to hike taxes on the top 5%, introducing a 45p rate for high earners, to crack down on tax avoidance and to raise Corporation Tax to European levels or higher.

More surprising is the Shadow Chancellor’s second defence “We are keen not to take money out of people’s pockets”, and that “we’re not going to take funding away” from “middle earners”. Andy Burnham said he was “at a loss” over the Chancellor’s reasoning. Well, he isn’t the only one.

In a revealing moment during his Sky News interview McDonnell said that allowing the tax cut – or, as he prefers to call it, “allowance” – will be a “cost to the economy”. But hang on a minute – just beforehand he said that the tax cuts would put money back in people’s pockets and hence boost investment. Which is it? The contradiction emerges from the fallacy committed by all socialists – namely, that the economy is the same thing as the state. Money back in people’s pockets is almost always regarded by the far left as a waste since it’s money that could be taxed and spent for the social good (as the government understands it). Only money that is spent in the public sector is really contributing to the economy, goes their theory.

It looks as though poor old McDonnell may be experiencing some cognitive dissonance here. The notion that tax reductions stimulate the economy and actually result in higher revenues – as has been witnessed with income tax and Corporation Tax receipts in recent years – is a fundamentally Tory belief, not a Labour one.

I don’t believe for a moment that McDonnell has been converted to the fiscal benefits of a small state, nor do I think the self-declared Marxist Shadow Chancellor is experiencing genuine confusion. Rather, the move to endorse the cuts is purely cynical. Deep down he really does believe that money is better spent by government and is wasted in private hands, and his comments on business taxes in particular show it. Rather, he is concerned with strategic advantage. How would it look for the Labour Party to argue openly in favour of someone earning £20,000 a year to be taxed on more of their income rather than less, when the Tories are proposing to allow them well over half their income tax-free?

Generally, most British voters have a common sense approach when it comes to taxation and they are rightly unimpressed when the state seeks to take more of what they take home each month. It’s obviously fallacious to argue that the rich benefit “disproportionately” from tax cuts; clearly those earning more will benefit more in purely quantitative terms, but the proportional benefit to lower earners of the personal allowance is huge.

Taking millions out of income tax is one of the most progressive (in the true, economic sense) moves made by any government, Conservative or Labour, and has contributed to the employment miracle that outstrips anything seen on the continent. McDonnell does not want to see a thriving private sector economy because a prosperous, property-owning democracy creates the opposite of the conditions he needs for a radical socialist overhaul of our society. He hasn’t been convinced by Hammond on income tax – it’s pure political posturing.

If this loophole could be exploited we could be free of the albatross that is Chequers while also averting the chaos that could be caused by No Deal, as well as having greater options made available to us for the future. Sound implausible? I thought so to.

The magic gap in the small print is within the Article 50 letter, sent in March of last year, which gives formal notice to the EU of Britain’s intention to withdraw. Crucially, no mention whatsoever was made of intention to withdraw from the European Economic Area (EEA) under Article 127 of the EEA Treaty. It has been assumed by government ministers and by the Opposition that Exit Day next year will automatically bring our membership of the EEA to an end, but eminent lawyers including Sir Richard Aikens (a former Lord Justice of Appeal) don’t believe this to be the case.

Why does this matter? Well, Britain is currently trying to negotiate a withdrawal agreement from a position of weakness and with no legal grounding. The EU can choose to offer us a deal if it so chooses, but if it finds the terms Britain is offering unacceptable (as it has stated), then it can tell us to take a hike. Indeed, it’s motivated to give us the worst agreement possible. But if Tregfarne and Aikens are right, Britain has existing legal rights under the EEA Treaty independently of our membership of the EU; rights that the EU must respect.

This could be a trump card capable of breaking the deadlock over the negotiations. Being in the EEA but not the EU has for most countries served as a half-way house on the journey towards full membership. Britain on the other hand would be using it as a stepping-stone on the way out. This hasn’t been tried before, but there’s no theoretical reason why it can’t be the case. From the legally secure footing of EEA membership, Britain could apply to join EFTA, which includes Norway, Lichtenstein, Switzerland and Iceland. These countries enjoy full access to the Single Market without being members of the EU or customs union.

Nick Boles, the former Remainer whose campaign “Better Brexit” describes the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan as a humiliation, is an advocate of Britain seeking EFTA membership – often termed the ‘Norway option’. Brexiteer ears will start to prick up at the sound of this: surely it must be a soft Brexiteer plot to park Britain half-in, half-out? But this isn’t quite right. There are a number of advantages, not least of which is flexibility about our final future relationship with the EU: flexibility that our current negotiating strategy risks casting to the wing.

Britain could plug the EEA option straight in – it’s ready to go. This would completely eliminate the need for a 2-year transition period while we remain subject to EU rules, paying into the Budget and with no say in how the money is spent until 2021 – possibly longer. We would need to pay in for certain limited programmes, but Oxford economist George Yarrow (the brains behind Better Brexit) estimates that our contributions would fall from £9bn per annum to just £1.5bn. Immediately, this is an enormous saving. Without having to wait any time at all we would leave the Common Agricultural Policy and hated Common Fisheries Policy on 29^th March.

Would it give us control over our own laws, that vital Brexit pledge? We would be subject to the EFTA Court, which (contrary to popular belief) does not simply follow the European Court of Justice. We would be in the same boat as Norway here: we would follow Single Market rules (just 28% of all EU law) for areas that are directly applicable to us, but we would enjoy significant opt-outs and vetoes over new legislation coming from Brussels; Norway effectively rebuffs about 40% of rules coming from the EU.

We would be subject to EFTA rules and the EFTA Court as a sovereign nation that has voluntarily signed up to a commercial treaty, not as a subsidiary state of an international polity with its own Parliament and Qualified Majority Voting, the system by which the Council of the EU could overrule dissenting minority countries when passing new regulations, as frequently happened to us. Rather than being stuck in an indefinite transition period, deprived of all agency on the formation of new rules, we would (like Norway) be able to contribute to the rules-making process.

We would regain significant border control: British passports would be restored with an end to common citizenship. Furthermore, Articles 28(3) and 112 of the EEA Treaty could be invoked – as they have been by Norway and Lichtenstein – vastly to limit European migration. This can take the form of a numbers cap or of administrative barriers to entry, such as having to have a job or home before emigrating. If the government were willing to respond to public demand with a crackdown on unskilled non-EU migration, the package could be sold as one that is overall tough on border control.

Most importantly of all, Britain would be outside the customs union. EFTA countries enjoy dozens of free trade agreements with non-European countries including China, and we would be liberated to pursue our own trade agenda in exactly the same way. Because of this the Norway option is inestimably superior to the Chequers plan, which would bind us forever to the majority of the EU’s customs arrangements, hamstringing us permanently as global traders. EFTA completely short-circuits this customs headache.

And finally, Britain would not have to remain in the EEA forever. Simply triggering Article 127 of the EEA Treaty initiates a simple 12-month exit process. We would be free to do this once we have alternative trade deals in place – ideally something resembling Canada’s Free Trade Agreement with the EU. As EFTA members outside the customs union we would be free to negotiate with the USA, Australia, China, New Zealand, South America and African nations without a time limit.

Once enough of these are in place – and these deals take time – we could transition smoothly out of EFTA and onto the economic high seas as a global trading nation, having saved all the pain and setbacks that would be implied by a No Deal. Brexiteers including Boris Johnson have spent a lot of energy laying out an alternative plan based on the Canada model; the most thought-through example of this is the report by the Institute of Economic Affairs on a free-trade based Brexit (“Plan A+”), and we should not abandon these excellent plans as an ultimate destination point.

The single largest objection to these proposals is simply one of timing – the Canada deal took 9 years to thrash out. Ask yourself this: if there were an as-yet unnamed status that entailed being outside the customs union and hence free to strike trade deals globally without a time limit, that could command the House of Commons, but that also averted short-term disruption that might derail Brexit and end up in its reversal – and it didn’t have “European” in the title – don’t you think Brexiteers would be jumping at it?

To smooth trade in the immediate future, Britain should recognise unilaterally all EU produce and hence completely remove the need for checks on inbound commercial traffic, as well as unconditionally guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens who are already here. Only this week this was recommended by the former Australian Prime Minister, writing in The Spectator, as a sensible move in the event of No Deal – something he insists as an Anglosphere nation and fifth largest economy in the world we should not fear. In the absolutely worst case scenario – that we fail to strike a single non-European deal while we are in EFTA – we could take the time necessary to prepare properly for a future trading relationship with the world based on World Trade Organization terms.

The EEA option is deliverable, saves vast amounts of money, grants significant border control straight away, avoids the snare of being tied to the EU customs union whether in the guise of Chequers or of a transition / backstop, gets us out of the EU, guarantees free trade, and gives us limitless options for the future. It has flexibility and choice built into it in a way that no other proposed solution so far does. Whether your end goal is Norway as a permanent option, as some softer Brexiteers and former Remainers do, or you want a full-blown Canada Brexit (or even a No Deal!), right now the EEA is the practical way forwards for every potentially successful Brexit, whether European or global in aim. We should ditch Chequers and the customs union, exercising our existing rights to outflank the EU negotiators who want to frustrate a successful Brexit. It will be all the more gratifying as it will take them completely by surprise; let’s go for it.

There were some good things in this Budget that arise from a conservative view of how wealth is generated. A one-third business rate cut for independent retailers with a rateable value of £51,000 or less is a welcome break for the high street in an era when online shopping is driving traditional stores out of business. The newly announced digital services tax that will seek to raise a fairer level of revenue from international tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon must be understood in this context; as well as seeking to rectify an obvious inadequacy in the tax regime, the Chancellor is showing symbolically that he supports economic fairness and is on the side of local business, not faceless dot com corporations that exploit offshore tax havens.

Freezing fuel duty for the ninth year running is costly to the Exchequer but is a worthy move; the cost of living remains high on the public agenda. Stamp Duty will be eliminated for first-time buyers making use of shared ownership arrangements for properties under £500,000, which represents a useful development of the existing break for all first-time buyers purchasing properties under £300,000. This will hopefully boost liquidity in the flagging housing market as well as help with access to property, the Tories’ single biggest electoral weakness and demographic threat. Technical reforms to local spending and borrowing rules should see an improvement in the spread of ownership – capitalism doesn’t sell if you don’t own any capital.

The most important (and encouraging) headline-grabber was the decision to press ahead with raising income tax thresholds to £12,500 for the basic rate and £50,000 for the higher rate, and actually to bring this forward by one year to 2019, delivering the promise ahead of schedule in defiance of expectations. This will compensate for fiscal drag and mean real money back in taxpayers’ pockets.

However, herein lies the rub: higher than expected tax receipts have generated a £13 billion revenue “windfall” that has allowed the Chancellor to keep his income tax pledges, but the rest of this boost to funds has not been put to responsible use – i.e. deficit reduction or a meaningful dent in public sector net debt.

Instead, the Chancellor has agreed – contravening the 2010 Tory pledge to balance the books – to the notion that the deficit will actually rise (in effect by around £30bn) in order to fund various spending increases on schools, potholes, infrastructure, training, an injection to Universal Credit and, of course, the NHS (the latter making up the vast majority of the spending splurge).

Now, not all the Chancellor’s new spending commitments are inherently bad. Some increased spending on the troubled Universal Credit welfare reform programme is necessary but measures to ease its implementation and smooth out the “taper” experienced by taking on more work make sense.

But Hammond has completely abandoned the notion that fiscal restraint should be an overriding goal of a sensible government. With poor growth forecast by the OBR (the Office for Budget Responsibility) for the next 5 years (not topping 1.6%) and debt at 83% of GDP, it’s not at all clear that the immediate economic future is going to see the kind of growth and revenue generation that will make far looser spending plans affordable.

Labour will always outflank the Tories on spending by making pledges the government can never afford to match, but Labour-lite economics is unlikely to be a win with the voters. Polling and focus groups show historically that if you sell the electorate a watered-down version of an idea, on the day they plump for the real thing. Accepting that ever greater spending is always the answer and can be afforded concedes the economic centre ground to Corbyn and McDonnell.

Eventually there will be a reckoning in which the affordability of fully socialised healthcare and the modern welfare state (when you factor in our ageing population and low birth rate) will have to be addressed in the public conversation. By suggesting that “austerity” was simply an historically contingent, unfortunate necessity (Hammond’s own words) for which the time has passed, Hammond has shirked the opportunity pursue a serious rebalancing of the UK economy away from big budgets, big deficits and ever-expanding debt.

The UK tax burden is at a 50-year high and government spending, depending on how it’s measured, stands at about 42% of GDP. It’s extraordinary that this has been allowed to become our public consensus; Hammond’s tinkering does nothing to challenge it. Instead, it continues to propagate the myth that we can live forever beyond our means.

Discover the creative mind behind The Shard with the Royal Academy’s uplifting exhibition on Renzo Piano, the architect who has redefined skylines from London to Paris to New York.

Until 20th January at the Royal Academy of Arts

Hadestown at the National

Anais Mitchell’s critically acclaimed concept album is now transformed into an astonishingly creative new musical, blending New Orleans jazz with modern American folk in a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Director Rachel Chavkin brings you Hadestown.

Until 26th January in the Olivier at the National Theatre

Lucia di Lammermoor at the ENO

Award-winning director David Allen brings Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti’s dramatic opera based on Walter Scott’s novel, in a much-anticipated return to the ENO after 8 years. Sarah Lynan (‘The Barber of Seville’) stars as the title role.

Until 5th December at the English National Opera, The London Colosseum

La Bayadere at the Royal Opera House

A visually stunning performance of iconic 19th Century Russian ballet La Bayadere is staged by director Natalia Makarova at Covent Garden this November. A tale of temple dancers and noble warriors that fires the imagination.

Until 17th November at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Bohemian Rhapsody

Rami Malek steals the show as rock legend Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, the gripping story of Queen.

In cinemas nationwide

Halloween

Director David Gordon Green has achieved far more than a predictable reboot in his take on seasonal thriller Halloween. Jamie Lee Curtis takes this rendition to a new level as the instantly recognisable Halloween series protagonist Laurie Strode.

In cinemas nationwide

Hatched

Serious foodies should make sure they don’t miss Hatched, a fabulous high-end European restaurant in St John’s Hill, Wandsworth. West End quality dining can be found in SW11, here, with a small but confident menu. Octopus, beef cheek arancini, gnocchi and boutique lamb chops are just some of the delicious fare on offer.

Hatched can be found at 189 St John’s Hill, SW11 1TH

Photography Spotlight

The V&A celebrates the opening of its Photography Centre with Photography Spotlight with a series of talks, workshops and a two-day conference on the history and practice of photography. See the V&A website for details of what’s on.

Until 27th November at the Victoria and Albert Museum

60 years of the Tate

Celebrate 60 years of Tate members with this exclusive show and tell exploring the collections in the Archive and Reading Rooms. Membership required, but why not take the opportunity to join now?

On 3rd November at the Tate Britain

The rivalry between these two men transcended the political and plunged into deep personal animosity, with the current President insulting Senator Cruz’s wife, endless mutual accusations of dishonesty, and Ted Cruz joking on live TV that if his car rolled out of his garage and Donald Trump was walking behind him, he’d have to think twice before deciding to stop. It remains one of the nastiest and most visceral leadership rivalries of modern political history on either side of the Atlantic.

The two men, other than their conservative credentials, could not be more different in background, tone or style. One the son of a billionaire New York real estate magnate, a twice-divorced alpha male of poor reading and limited vocabulary; the other, a self-made lawyer of humble background and razor-sharp intellect, a champion debater who regularly appeared as an attorney before the Supreme Court.

While Trump made his political name with bullish rhetoric, ad hominem name-calling and good old-fashioned demagoguery, Cruz was famed for engaging with his opponents one-to-one in the street in the most dignified manner, refusing to lose his temper and giving multiple minutes of direct dialogue on policy with protesters in Indiana and farmers in Iowa. His ability to turn around a hostile member of the public with calm reasoning is a sight to behold.

Yesterday saw a different story as President Trump flew to a rally for Ted Cruz’s senatorial race in Houston, Texas, as early voting commenced. As expected he lent bombastic, Make-America-Great-Again gusto to the re-election campaign of his old nemesis, who beat Trump in the primaries in the Lone Star State. When quizzed by reporters on the jarring rapprochement, Trump simply declared: “He isn’t Lyin’ Ted anymore, he’s beautiful Ted! I call him Texas Ted!”. The incongruity of the two GOP giants’ newfound rapport with their old animosity was driven home yet more forcefully when Cruz, addressing the assembled crowd of tens of thousands in Houston’s Toyota Centre, opened his rally by bellowing: “God bless President Trump!”

Critics have taken a dim view of Cruz’s U-turn, with some accusing him of cynicism while others have written off the Texan’s embrace of Trump as a personal humiliation. It seems hard to believe that less than two years ago Cruz confronted a hostile Trump supporter by insisting that “we are a nation that is better than anger and insults and cursing and rage”, and tried at every opportunity to distance himself from The Donald’s erratic and bullying character, placing himself instead as the representative of civilized and principled conservatism.

Just as striking as the coming together of these two old enemies is the change in Cruz’s own style. Now deploying Trumpian shorter sentences, threefold repetitions, direct and boo-garnering lacerations of his Democratic opponent, Beto O’Rourke, Cruz struck a more belligerent tone. Trumpeting the President’s achievements, slamming the immigration button with rallying indictments of sanctuary cities, barking “We need to build the wall!” to thunderous applause, and deploying tribal culture wars rhetoric over NFL’s national anthem controversy, Cruz sounded more like the famous drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket than the bookish, scholarly attorney and constitutionalist he really is.

The Senator is clearly learning from the President’s playbook – if anything, his crowd-baiting and jingoistic performance made Trump’s more jocular manner look comparatively cheery. Cruz is a sharp operator and he will have sensed which direction the wind of political discourse is going – he tried the measured, factual, policy-focused approach and it didn’t pay off. He’s not so naïve as to try the same failed strategy twice.

With Trump’s unabashed embrace of the word “nationalist” to describe himself during his part of the rally the overall tone was tub-thumping in the extreme. Americans seem to have different standards when it comes to the feel of their political culture in this regard; misty-eyed patriotism (“Our hearts bleed red, white and blue!” cried Trump) doesn’t strike as embarrassing, candidates are announced and arrive to sentimental pop music like rock stars (Theresa May’s Dancing Queen doesn’t come close), and crowds bay, whoop and cheer in the way we in Britain would expect to see at a festival or concert, but not a political rally.

The shift towards a nationalist aesthetic may alarm some, but it must be contextualised within a proper understanding of the American democratic tradition. Gushing emotion about the nation is a part of daily life in the USA in a way that is simply not the case in Britain, and public perceptions of what is embarrassing or kitsch are just not the same. Americans regard themselves as heirs of a unique and precious democratic heritage, with many US citizens the descendants of immigrants from countries where oppression was the norm and the rights and freedoms available in America could never even be dreamed of. American exceptionalism is not a fringe theory for right-wing crooks on the other side of the Atlantic; rather, it is a default position, taught in schools and families, and felt in the rhythms and processes of everyday life.

There does indeed seem to be something shifting in America. The society is as divided as it has ever been since the Civil War, and Donald Trump is not a normal incumbent for the office he holds, nor are the circumstances and political culture that created him normal. But Britons should not rush to presume that MAGA hats and Trump banners necessarily herald a far-Right revolution, even with the Texas Senator’s more aggressive approach. Ted Cruz has been opportunistic in his cosying to Trump, but he is a politician who wants to keep his job, and Texan crowds love showbizz. We should keep an eye on the American republic, but Cruz’s change of tone may be no more than tactics and showmanship

‎This well-branded campaign closely resembles Voltaire’s description of the Holy Roman Empire – “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire” – in every respect. Representing a minority of opinion who lost the referendum, orchestrated by unabashed elites from George Soros to George Osborne, and determined to rig the wording of a second ballot, one wonders how much the PR men who came up with the title were paid.

But the irritating nature of the People’s Vote crowd isn’t enough: they must be combated with arguments. I’ll endeavour to do so.

They claim that there is some kind of democratic deficit in the result of the Brexit referendum result of 2016. Well, it’s now repeated endlessly on news panels that 17.4 million voters – a clear majority on a three-quarters turnout – is the largest democratic mandate in British electoral history. No disagreement so far.

The opponents of Brexit then decided to reject the legitimacy of direct democracy in this case, invoking parliamentary sovereignty as their rallying cry: only the legislature can take us out of the EU; referenda are only advisory.

This would be a good argument, but for the fact that in 2015 David Cameron’s government legislated for the referendum and stated that the result would be implemented. He included this pledge in his 2015 manifesto and was returned with a majority. Later, Parliament voted overwhelmingly to trigger Article 50. In 2017 both major parties pledged to implement the result – between them they gained over 500 seats in the House of Commons. In short, there is now both direct and representative authority for Britain to leave the EU.

Not content with ignoring this, the Remainers then decided audaciously to change their tune on referenda. The people must be given a say on the final deal, they claim. The facts have changed, we didn’t know what the deal was, we were lied to, Vote Leave cheated, we must be allowed to vote again.

It’s unclear why if the result of the first referendum wasn’t binding the result of the second would be. How many referenda would the Remainers like? Perhaps a best of five? A Test series? When would we decide to call it a day? The answer is, of course, when they get the result that they want. Echoes of Ireland and Denmark being asked to vote again on the Lisbon Treaty abound.

Now to the more plausible points: they claim that Vote Leave broke electoral law. Well, the High Court ruled that the Electoral Commission and not Vote Leave was at fault in the dispute over campaign funding, so that argument goes out the window. Then there is the claim that Vote Leave lied. Over what, exactly? The £350 million number is often touted as a fabulous fib, but the facts on this are far from clear. £350m can plausibly be described as a net figure if you exclude the UK budget rebate and the money spent here by the EU that we don’t control. But the bigger point is that this was discussed at length during the referendum campaign; people had the chance to hear the arguments on either side and to cast their vote accordingly.

Some Remainers now argue that opinion has shifted in their favour as a justification to vote again. This is Alastair Campbell’s “democracy is a process, not a moment” argument. Nice soundbite from the old King of Spin, but this is deeply insidious. The argument relies on polling, and polling was so accurate before the Brexit vote, right? And in fact before the 2015 general election. And 2017. Spot on every time. The fact is the only poll that actually matters is the one that actually occurred on 23rd June 2016.

He argues that general elections are not binding forever; we can cast out governments that fail us. However, we give them up to 5 years to make a go of it before voting again. Otherwise, many governments would fall after their first couple of years in office. How long should referenda be binding for? One answer, on this issue at least, might be “forever”. But I’ll grant that that’s extreme. “A generation” (the length of time since the last referendum on Europe) might be a middle ground. But as a bare minimum, how about “at least until the result of the first one has actually been implemented”? Remainers are trying to stop Brexit not after the fact, but before it’s even happened.

The only good argument for a vote is that the terms of the negotiated deal were not known in 2016. But it’s the job of elected governments, supported in the Commons, to negotiate treaties; you cannot export the minutia of foreign policy to popular plebiscites constantly. The simplicity of the In/Out vote reflected the fact that it came down to a fundamental question of sovereignty and whether the demos endorsed its being given away by government to Brussels. But even if there were to be a second referendum, then on the basis of this “facts have changed” argument, the question should be “Deal vs No Deal”, not “Deal vs Remain”.

It’s here that People’s Vote types give themselves away. In a recent debate with Peter Hitchens, Lord Adonis – who, staggeringly, backs a second referendum even though he thinks referenda are unconstitutional – let slip that his main motivation was not democratic but his desire to stop Brexit. Likewise Matt Kelly, editor of the New European, is brazen about wanting to exclude ‘No Deal’ as an option from any second vote. They sometimes say that the people should not be deprived of the Remain option, but the people deprived themselves – willingly – of that option in 2016. That’s called democracy. You can’t run the ‘vote on the deal’ argument consistently while also seeking an effective re-run of Leave vs Remain – it’s just intellectually dishonest.

The question that must be put to Adonis and Campbell should be: what would Leavers have to do for you to agree that that they have finally done enough? In what possible world would you be satisfied that Brexit has a mandate? Ask People’s Vote supporters this and they become rather embarrassed.

Any reversal of the 2016 result – especially if it’s by sleight of hand, with a rigged question and under a phoney name – would absolutely shatter faith in the whole concept of democratic legitimacy upon which our peaceful, constitutional order is based. The notion that the government will respond to the people’s wishes and take action based on what they choose would be dispelled forever, with appalling consequences for our reputation both domestically and abroad as a democratic power. It’s vital that ‘People’s Vote’ are stopped, and that the final relationship between Britain and the EU is decided by Parliament.

The government has responded by asking the Law Commission to look into amending legislation to extend protected status to yet more groups and sub-categories of person and to consider making recommended penalties for hate-aggravated crimes even more severe. To quote Yes, Minister: “Something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done.” But is ever more legislation and an endless shopping list of protected categories really the answer?

Under Tony Blair the Crime and Disorder Act was amended to introduce specific protection if victims of crime were targeted specifically on grounds of race or religion; these provisions were extended to include disability, sexual orientation, and then gender identity. MP Stella Creasy is now campaigning specifically to outlaw misogyny – however, this is going to be defined – and the Guardian reports today that the Law Commission is even considering including subcultures such as Goths.

The elephant in the room, however, is that the crimes aggravated by hateful motives under the law are already crimes in their own right. Assault – including verbal assault – is forbidden by the common law, and discrimination in the workplace is contrary to the Equality Act.

The likes of Stella Creasy, a Labour MP, make a powerful emotional case by affirming the obvious truth that women should not be made to feel unsafe or be subject to harassment in the street. But why the need for yet more laws to deal with what is already forbidden? Either a criminal act has occurred or it hasn’t – why is the motivation of the assailant or group identity of the victim relevant at all?

A major problem with “hate crime” laws is that whether a crime is aggravated by hatred is determined by the subjective impression of the purported victim. According to the Metropolitan Police: “A hate incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone’s prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender.”

In other words, if someone feels as though they have been the victim of a hate crime, regardless of the objective fact of the matter, it gets reported to the police as such. Enormous numbers of such cases are reported based on entirely subjective impressions – in many cases arising from things said online – and they end up being counted in police report records. Given this totally open-ended definition, no wonder it looks on paper like Britain is experiencing a hate crime epidemic.

Although motivated by a noble objective – the protection of the vulnerable –  the move to criminalise dispositions as opposed to actions represents an insidious departure from the traditions of English criminal law, a legal system that criminalises only actions for which objective empirical evidence, not personal emotional reaction, can be established.

There is a broader authoritarian atmosphere emerging here. There has been a deeply worrying rise in cases of offensive speech seeing individuals dragged through the courts. Mark Meechan, a Youtuber and comedian going by the screen name Count Dankula, posted a video in 2016 of his pug performing a Nazi salute on command. He was found guilty of grossly offensive speech contrary to the Communications Act and fined £800, eventually being jailed upon refusal to pay. He posted the video to annoy his girlfriend.

Graham Linehan – the creator of Father Ted – has found himself on the wrong end of the law after a row with a trans rights activists for so-called ‘Dead-naming’ – that is, referring to a transgender person by their old name. Should this really be a crime?

A final factor few seem to have spotted is the context of proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. If such changes go ahead then all external criteria (medical approval, having lived in a new gender for 2 years, and so on) for someone to qualify as legally ‘transgender’ will be removed. Instead, you will simply be able to declare that your gender identity at will – and demand that others respect and recognise this as a fact, to boot. Indeed, individuals would be free to change gender at will from one day to the next; one can imagine an inattentive office manager finding themselves under fire simply for failure to keep up. And the implications aren’t only for the criminal law either; companies are already introducing even more draconian speech protocols in-house, adding losing one’s job to the list of possible sanctions for Thoughtcrime.

Now put two and two together: if an action can be interpreted as a hate crime on the grounds of hostility to someone’s gender identity, and one’s gender identity can be determined as one sees fit – that is to say, it can be entirely in one’s head – then legal chaos could ensue. People could be prosecuted in effect for failure to read minds. Now an individual’s view of themselves and of an action – no matter how capricious, changeable, impossible to foresee or divorced from reality – stands to be enforced on others by the state. This is a shift towards the government regulation of all behaviour so that the sensitivities of very small minorities can be placated.

Some religious groups have welcomed these proposals, viewing the bolstering of anti-hate laws as a signal from government that it’s serious about protecting minority communities. They should be wary, however: it won’t be long before churches, mosques and synagogues find themselves on the wrong end of such laws, as will others with attitudes outside the socially liberal mainstream. To support a measure because it seems to benefit you right now is short-sighted; the tables can turn all too quickly.

We are privileged to live in a society that forbids harmful actions but does not in general subject feelings, ideas or internal dispositions, to the scrutiny of the law, and the impressions of a victim are not enough to change the nature of an action. The drive to incorporate our sensibilities and sensitivities into the criminal law may aim to be inclusive, but moves to regulate thought and speech in service of this end are nefarious, and must be resisted.

Franz Liszt’s Mayerling tells the true story of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary in a tale of intrigue, secrets and desire. Large-scale court and crowd scenes prove a dazzling spectacle in Kenneth MacMillan’s choreography of this exciting ballet that is particularly demanding for male dancers.

Until 30th October at the Royal Ballet

First Man

Ryan Gosling is Neil Armstrong in La La Land director Damien Chazelle’s retelling of mankind’s greatest step in the critically acclaimed First Man.

In cinemas nationwide

Fridays at the British Museum

Tired of being confined to weekends? You can make the most of what the British Museum has to offer with late-night Fridays. Explore the collection and enjoy the food and drink in the Great Court restaurant without the frustration of closing time.

Every Friday

Porgy and Bess

The ENO stages 1937 jazz opera Porgy and Bess. Full of moody music and memorable numbers, director James Robinson of Opera St Louis superbly handles this important piece of African American history at the London Colosseum.

Until 17th November at the English National Opera

Measure for Measure

Josie Rorke directs a daring rewrite of Measure for Measure, powerfully contrasting the way the story would pan out in 1604 and in 2008. If you’re into edgy retakes of great classics, check this out.

Until 1st December at the Donmar Warehouse

Edward Burne-Jones at The Tate

The Tate is hosting an specialist exhibition on Edward Burne-Jones, one of the last Pre-Raphaelites. Knights, angels, biblical characters, mythological scenes, stained glass and medieval realms abound in the work of a painter who made his subject the human imagination.

Until 24th February 2019 at the Tate

Kacey Musgraves

American country singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves is a must for fans of contemporary Western and blues. See her at Wembley on her Oh, What a World tour, which announces her fourth studio album, Golden Hour.

On 27th October at Wembley Arena

U2 at the O2 Arena

U2 at the O2! Extra date added due to high demand. Get your tickets here.

23rd and 24th October at the O2 Arena

With Theresa May repeatedly turning up empty handed with no progress to report other than wranglings over the hypothetical Irish ‘backstop’, and absolutely no movement on the shape of the final future EU-UK relationship, hopes have not been high for progress at the November summit.

However, commentators have had their fingers crossed that EU leaders might have taken the hint that the Prime Minister – at least in theory – means business, given her justifiably frosty response to her rude rebuttal by Barnier & co. at Salzburg this September.

Neither side wants to see a No Deal – something that is frequently overlooked – so it’s hard to understand why brinkmanship and running down the clock seems to be the approach taken by Barnier’s team. As net exporters to the UK (we buy more from them than they do from us), EU nations have an awful lot to lose in the event that we retreat to World Trade Organisation rules, so one might hope that as time runs out the theology of the European project might be superseded by the practical requirements of trade.

No such luck, I’m afraid. The latest proposals from Theresa May is that she is willing to consider extending the transition period (the time period in which we gradually disentangle ourselves from the EU) for another year up to 2022, which will involve another £17 billion of Budget contributions. A visibly rattled Prime Minister’s voice wavered as she tried to gloss this – it’s just a possibility, only an idea, don’t judge me yet! – as she spoke to journalists live from Brussels today. In contrast, German Chancellor Merkel and the insufferable French President Emmanuel Macron enjoyed a beer together after granting May the most meagre morsel of their time, appearing like medieval monarchs casually hearing the plea of an impoverished minor noble.

The absurdity of this has been criticised by Nick Boles MP, who points out that the government is willing to pour £17 billion into extending our membership of the EU rules structure in exchange for nothing in particular, and without a definitive end in sight, while at the same time refusing to countenance a much smaller £2 billion bailout for the struggling Universal Credit rollout. Voters are within their rights to balk at this waste.

Meanwhile arch-Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg has highlighted that we would be committed to a new multi-annual financial framework, probably without our rebate and with no voting power on how the money is spent. Moreover, the Fixed Terms Parliament Act commits us to a General Election in 2022 at the absolute latest; if we are stuck in the limbo of a limitless, undefined transition period and then Corbyn is elected Prime Minister, there’s every possibility that Brexit simply won’t happen.

If Labour wins, it could go one of two ways: the Remain camp within the party wins out and suspends Brexit, possibly with the collusion of the fanatics in the ‘People’s Vote’ who seek to use parliamentary wizardry to force a second referendum. Alternatively, Corbyn could stick with Brexit in a fudged form, which seems to be his current policy – insofar as he has one. It’ll be interesting to see whether his working-class, Leave-voting supporters – a majority in two thirds of Labour constituencies – retain their loyalty to the great socialist leader in that eventuality. Either Brexit could fizzle out, or there could be an almighty Brexit backlash as people realise they’ve been sold short.

It shouldn’t be beyond the wit of man to come to some kind of deal over Britain’s future. This isn’t the Congress of Vienna, the Treaty of Versailles or the Yalta summit, but EU leaders are acting like there’s simply nothing that can be done. And they wonder why British voters regard their arrogance with scorn.