The mood music of Salzburg

The make-up, under the lights of the press conference in Salzburg, didn’t do Theresa May any favours. Her face ghostly pale, the foundation seemed to have been heavily caked-on in a vain attempt to hide layers of tiredness, frustration and anger.

But her disappointment and exasperation towards the leaders of the EU and the other 27 member states was vivid and unmistakable.

The Chequers deal, unveiled earlier this summer with the fanfares of apparent cabinet unity, was a considered attempt to bounce not only her government but backbenchers into what the prime minister considered a compromise plan. It was hoped that, while the EU might not approve of every aspect of the package, they would see it as a template to work with and, eager not to see Britain fall out of the European Union without a deal, would find a way to make it work. That there had been encouraging signals from the likes of EU negotiator Michel Barnier and European Council president Donald Tusk, makes the humiliation of the Salzburg summit – where the package has been dismissed as ‘unworkable’ – so painful.

The prime minister and her allies would not have expected Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group (ERG) to swing behind the deal.  They remain sizeable in number and the group has considered dethroning Theresa May.  But fractures are clearly visible in that movement, widening as they find themselves unable to forge an alternative plan that could be supported even amongst themselves, let alone by parliament. And, while it is undoubtedly true a no-deal would not, in fact, be ‘the end of the world’, the brighter members realise it could inflict chaos upon the country for which they may never be forgiven.

Downing Street did hope more pragmatic remainers would have reinforced her position. Instead, Mrs May has been under fire.  Justine Greening, for example, called the Chequers plan an ‘unpopular, undeliverable mess’, ‘less popular with the public than the poll tax’ and a ‘dead horse’. The prime minster, however, has continued to flog it. Even May loyalist Sir Mike Penning, who helped run Ms May’s leadership campaign, has performed the last rites on Chequers, calling it ‘dead as a dodo’.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party seem unhealthily obsessed with internal party democracy and functions and their position on Brexit remains vague, though Emily Thornberry did helpfully say the party would vote against any plan presented by the government.

Poor Theresa May, who has clung to her job with the tenacity of a limpet on a wave-lashed rock, looks as though she has been taken hostage by several intransigent gangs simultaneously, yet each cannot decide what ransom demands to issue.

Where does the prime minister go now? It’s hard to see a passage through which Brexit can be navigated with any semblance of control. In her Salzburg press conference, Ms May has a deadline of October to present a new solution to the Irish border question, a date, she confided to Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, which appeared impossible to hit. According to Donald Tusk, this remains ‘the moment of truth’, with the threat Brexit talks could collapse completely.

Theresa May is sticking with the Chequers deal for now, despite Rees-Mogg, David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith, urging her to dump it, repeating her line – which is true – that it remains the ‘only deal on the table’.

It is worth noting the actions of EU leaders in Salzburg would not have done them any favours among the British public. Despite the suggestion that warm words would be ushered forth as part of a ‘Save Theresa’ campaign, and regardless of the few scattered comments of comfort from those who declared that they remained ‘hopeful of a deal’, the likes of Donald Tusk and Emmanuel Macron publicly humiliated the British prime minister today. Many die-hard remainers have made clear their disapproval of these methods. And leavers will point to today as evidence the EU cannot be negotiated with and we’re better off escaping the whole structure, regardless of the consequences.

In Peter Shaffer’s play ‘Amadeus’, the writer imagines Salzburg’s most famous son Mozart working himself to death, trying to finish his Requiem. With her authority draining away, it could prove that Theresa May is forced from office and the responsibility of delivering Brexit is handed on. But, May’s singular determination has been unappreciated before; it would be a bold prediction to write her off again.

Whose policy is it anyway?

The mayor of London has unveiled a new strategy to tackle knife crime in London, the creation of a Violence Reduction Unit, and everyone seems to want to take credit for it.

 

Sadiq Khan says the decision to form the unit, announced on Wednesday, will adopt a ‘public health’ approach towards the problem, and comes after researching and investigating ‘the public health approaches in Glasgow where their own long-term approach over more than a decade has delivered large reductions in violence’.

 

According to City Hall, the new unit will ‘improve co-ordination between the Metropolitan Police, local authorities, youth services, health services, criminal justice agencies and City Hall’ and an initial £500,000 has been put aside to establish the new unit.

 

The unveiling of the new tactic was on the front page of today’s Evening Standard, edited, of course, by former chancellor George Osborne, with the headline ‘Sadiq Khan’s Crime U-turn’. The paper claims it is a policy it ‘demanded’ two months ago and the editorial jibes that the mayor ‘didn’t find time to credit us’.

 

Curiously, the paper itself didn’t manage to find space to mention the role of a certain former Chancellor of the Exchequer who oversaw an 18% fall in police funding between 2010/11 and 2015/16, after taking inflation into account. It also didn’t mention the fall in police officer numbers of more than 21,000 since 2010. Or even that the Metropolitan Police has had to make £1billion of savings since 2010. It’s a pain when a story has to be cut for space. And I wonder what happened to that ex-chancellor; he must feel terrible about his legacy.

 

Meanwhile, London Assembly member Andrew Boff, who hopes to be selected as the Conservative Party’s mayoral candidate to challenge Sadiq Khan at the next election in 2020, claims the current mayor has lifted the policy from his manifesto.

 

In a release sent out today, Mr Boff claims he has been advocating the policy ‘for some months now’ and far from being the mayor’s own idea, Sadiq Khan is ‘just playing catch up with the Conservatives’. He then, teasingly, suggests the mayor reads more of his manifesto for some other good policies.

 

And now this evening, the Liberal Democrats have pitched in and said it’s their idea and the mayor has picked it up after years of ‘tireless campaigning’ by the assembly member Caroline Pidgeon.

 

Clearly, then, this is a popular idea. But after more than 100 murders in the capital this year, Londoners will be more interested in whether it proves effective.

Soho days

The cartoon drawn for Norman Balon's 90th, by Michael Heath

My mind has drifted back to Soho in recent days. There was a time, a dozen years or so ago, when I was a regular in the Coach and Horses in Greek Street, or Norman’s as landlord Norman Balon hoped it would be called but rarely was.

A new book ‘Soho in the Eighties’, by the excellent Daily Telegraph journalist Christopher Howse, has triggered this wave of nostalgia; not that I was present for the escapades he recounts, with the tragicomedic figures likes of Jeffrey Bernard, Daniel Farson, and Francis Bacon dominating his work. Many of the stories, though, are familiar and a few of the characters were known to me.

A central figure in Mr Howse’s enjoyable book is the aforementioned Norman Balon. Now approaching 91, Norman styled himself as the ‘rudest landlord in London’. Every Christmas, regulars would be handed a mug bearing the slogan alongside a cartoon of Norman bellowing ‘You’re barred!’. I had four or five of these once but they have all gone but for one which is hidden from view and all are forbidden from using.

The surviving mug

Norman could certainly be very rude. One quiet afternoon in the early 2000s I was there with a drink, a couple of others were elsewhere in the pub and Norman was leaning over the bar reading a newspaper. A family of American tourists entered and a very-mannered lady possessing a grating, nails-on-blackboard accent, asked ‘could we see the hot menu please?’

Without looking up from his paper, Norman growled: ‘We don’t have a hot menu and we don’t serve fucking tourists, now fuck off’.

Clearly shocked, the American lady replied: ‘Well, that wasn’t the reply we expected’, before swiftly scuttling from the bar.

The few people there simply swallowed their laughter in their drinks and Norman looked up smiling, ‘I enjoyed that’.

Another time, I found Norman with his arm in a sling. I asked what had happened and it emerged he’d been pushed to the ground after leaning on the car of a fellow who had foolishly parked outside the pub in Greek Street.

‘He told me to get off his car and I told him to “fuck off cunt” and he pushed me and I fell to the ground,’ he cheerily recounted. The police had turned up and asked Norman if he wanted to press charges.  ‘No,’ he’d replied, ‘it was my own fucking fault.’

Despite his best efforts, however, Norman was not only a good pub landlord but evidently was and remains a decent man with a warm heart. It wouldn’t have looked so good on a mug though.

Soho in the Eighties, by Christopher Howse, is published by Bloomsbury.