Day: October 29, 2020

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Kara Alaimo on CNN

on presidential sexism

With ‘husbands’ remark, Trump has sealed his fate with women

“As President Donald Trump pleaded for the support of suburban women at a Michigan rally, he argued that he deserved their votes because ‘we’re getting your husbands back to work.’ Before these comments, it wasn’t entirely clear that Trump was a sexist; he did put some women in powerful positions in his administration and in the Trump Organization. But by appealing to suburban women to support him because he’s helping their husbands, Trump suggested he believes the workplace is the proper domain of men. This is textbook sexism.”

2. Maighna Nanu on HuffPost

on the home secretary’s guilt

Priti Patel has blood on her hands. Her condolences mean nothing

“Priti Patel and Boris Johnson have expressed their condolences, making sure that both of their apologies refer to the ‘ruthless criminals’ or ‘callous criminals’ who they attribute to be at the helm of these tragic losses. In both cases, they abdicate culpability from a situation that the British government bears responsibility for. Their apologies have become as rehearsed as the faux compassion that they show. These words ring incredibly hollow given the government’s barbaric stance on asylum seekers and those seeking refugee. Words mean nothing without actions to back them up.”

3. Robbie Gibb in The Daily Telegraph

on bias in public broadcasting

Tackling the BBC’s endemic bias will be a mammoth task

“It seems having a non Left-wing comedian has become a new form of tokenism. Since the rise of alternative comedy in the Eighties, the BBC has never moved culturally away from the dominance of Left-wing Tory-bashing comics. Only ‘anti woke’ Geoff Norcott seems to have broken through this barrier. Norcott is a funny man but so too are Andrew Doyle, Leo Kearse and Dominic Frisby. You would be forgiven for never having heard of them unless you are a comedy circuit regular. And how on earth did the jaw-droppingly biased Roadkill drama get commissioned? With its grotesque caricature of a Tory minister and ludicrous plot line about secret plans to privatise the NHS – surely this is the most inane, inaccurate and biased prime time drama to air on British TV.”

4. Owen Jones in The Guardian

on an environmental revolution

Tory MPs are right: the north needs a renaissance – but it’s got to be green

“You see, the neglect of the north and the climate emergency are two problems in search of a common solution. A debate about how we reshape the post-pandemic economy should be welcomed, even if it is coming from the Tory benches. Across the globe, the coronavirus has underlined how states can mobilise vast resources to confront an unprecedented crisis when the will is there. While the virus has required the suppression of economic activity, the climate emergency seeks to reorientate that activity away from fatally harming the only home our species has. That means replacing the skilled, secure jobs stripped away from northern communities by deindustrialisation.”

5. Harriet Hall in The Independent

on celebrity foolishness

Kim Kardashian’s birthday posts were beyond insensitive – but what did we expect?

Brexit talks have today moved from London to Brussels, with both sides stepping up efforts to flesh out the framework of an agreement in the next week.

After days of talks in the capital, Lord David Frost and the rest of the UK’s negotiating team are “now expected to stay there until 4 November as they try to hammer out a deal”, Politico says.

The change of scenery comes after last week’s reports that three phone calls between EU and UK officials had “unlocked” talks and the parameters for subsequent negotiations had been mutually agreed.

What needs to be agreed?

Despite the relatively small size of Britain’s fishing industry, which consists of just 12,000 fishermen, it is still proving a major sticking point in talks. The EU wants to preserve the arrangement that grants fishermen on the continent the same access rights to UK waters, whereas the UK wants “the Europeans to accept that Britain has left their club”, The New York Times says.

“The face of Brexit will be the face of our fisherman, so we must be able to tell them that their interests were protected,” France’s Europe minister, Clement Beune, said on Wednesday, alluding to the issue’s symbolic importance. “There is no reason for us to give in to British pressure” he added.

The two sides are also still struggling to resolve differences relating to “level playing field” guarantees and conditions for business and governance, the Financial Times reports.

However, the Daily Express says both parties “have started work on the text of an agreement on the level playing field and are edging closer to finalising a joint document covering state aid”. “The UK and EU have also moved closer to deciding essential aspects of how any accord will be enforced” the paper adds.

What’s the mood music?

Negotiations have now entered the “tunnel” phase, with both sides eager to get stuck into the finer detail away from the gaze of the media, The Guardian reports. EU officials have said that mid-November is now the deadline for a deal “for there to be time for parliamentary ratification on both sides of the Channel”, the paper adds.

According to Bloomberg, the EU’s mantra of “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” is holding firm despite a clear willingness from both sides to reach a deal.

Negotiators on both sides of the channel believe a political intervention from Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron is increasingly likely, as a consequence of the EU linking British access to transport and energy markets on the continent to fishing.

“Will we get a deal? I don’t know – it will depend on what will be on the table” European Council President Charles Michel told reporters yesterday. “You know the most difficult topics, and we are working to try to find solutions… it’s not possible for me to assess what will happen in the next days or in the next two weeks.”

Britain is hoping German Chancellor Angela Merkel will help broker a compromise, with one Whitehall source telling the Daily Mail: “We are relatively optimistic but that doesn’t mean it won’t end in tears.”

Pressure growing

Public pressure on the government was dialled up a notch this week after YouGov poll found that 57% of Britons would blame Boris Johnson if no-deal was the final outcome of talks. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they felt that the government has “generally failed” in fulfilling its negotiating objectives.

The poll came as the head of the UK’s leading employers’ organisation also “stepped up pressure on the government to conclude trade talks”, The Guardian says.

Confederation of British Industry Director General Carolyn Fairbairn told the paper that the country needs to move on from the “suspended animation” of the past four years, adding that “a deal is enormously better than no deal”.