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Morning,
The second US presidential TV debate in the early hours of this morning saw a snarling Donald Trump respond to the tapes scandal in the only way he knows.
The Republican tried to drag the Clintons down into the gutter with him.
“There’s never been anybody in the history of politics that has been so abusive to women,” he said of Bill Clinton.
This line was not just low and probably defamatory but historically inaccurate.
Depressingly, JFK and Lyndon B Johnson, Grover Cleveland and Warren Harding, to name a few, were far worse.
The most extraordinary line from the debate was Trump’s threat to imprison Hillary.
He also dismissed the tapes as “just words, folks,” and boasted about minimising his tax bill.
Amazingly, some declared him the winner of the contest.
Parliament returns today after the party conference season.
It is perhaps fitting that the opening session is Education Questions with Justine Greening.
The grammar schools row is a reminder Theresa May faces challenges beyond Brexit and her fragile working majority in the Commons needs to be handled with care.
The Prime Minister is in the Netherlands and Denmark today and Madrid later this week as part of a diplomatic offensive ahead of a European Summit in 12 days’ time.
Downing Street sources say this is very much a listening exercise with Mrs May wanting to find out their priorities in the Brexit negotiations and the scale of their resistance to her possible demands.
The PM will also be testing how much she will be able to play off those countries which have taken umbrage at Britain’s pending departure against those taking a more pragmatic approach.
As with all negotiations she will know that each head of state has to bear in mind his or her domestic audience when making public utterances.
But she will also be mindful at how little David Cameron achieved when he was soliciting help for the UK to stay in the EU.
Mrs May is also facing mounting calls for MPs to have a say on the terms of any Brexit deal.
There is an irony that this is being resisted by those who campaigned most forcefully for the return to sovereignty, yet those in favour of such a move risk testing the patience of the 17million who voted to leave. Jeremy Corbyn is proving more successful than expected at filling his frontbench, with several MPs who resigned in June returning to the fold.
But the departure of two whips shows that all is not completely harmonious.
Finding agreed lines on issues such as free movement of people could prove problematic.
It was noticeable that within hours of Keir Starmer, the new shadow Brexit Secretary, suggesting that free movement needed to be looked at Diane Abbott, the shadow Home Secretary, issued a statement calling for free movement to remain. If you want to get in touch my email is jason.beattie@mirror.co.uk and you can follow us @mirrorpolitics on Twitter.
Thanks,
Mirror Politics |
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