France uninvites Patel — Going viral … again — Panic-buying Pesto – POLITICO

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By EMILIO CASALICCHIO

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BREAKING THIS MORNING: The French government has responded to a letter written by Boris Johnson urging France to do more to stop undocumented migrants making the Channel crossing by uninviting Home Secretary Priti Patel from a Sunday meeting of European interior ministers and the European Commission. “We find the open letter from the British prime minister unacceptable … Thus, Priti Patel is not invited anymore to the ministers’ meeting,” a French interior ministry source told POLITICO’s Clea Caulcutt. So that went down well, then.

Good Friday morning. This is Emilio Casalicchio.

DRIVING THE DAY

FRENCH PRESSURE: Top Home Office officials are in Paris this morning to hammer out a plan with the French to stop migrants making life-threatening trips across the Channel in small boats — though presumably that’s now going to be a tougher task. The mandarins headed to the Continent as Boris Johnson piled pressure on French President Emmanuel Macron to tackle the crisis together in the wake of the tragic at-sea disaster this week that left 27 people dead. In his letter released last night, the prime minister offered to work “further and faster” with France and the EU to try to stop undocumented migrants making the crossing after dozens drowned in their bid to reach the U.K.

The proposal in full: The PM set out a five-point plan including joint patrols to prevent boats from leaving French beaches … advanced tech like sensors and radar … reciprocal maritime patrols and airborne surveillance … better intelligence sharing … and a bilateral agreement between the U.K. and France to send migrant arrivals back to the Continent, as well as talks on a wider agreement between Britain and the EU.

Top trump: Johnson stressed that an agreement for France to take back migrants who cross the Channel would be “the single biggest step” to neuter the motivation for people to come to Britain and would have an “immediate and significant impact.” In a Twitter thread, he argued that “if those who reach this country were swiftly returned the incentive for people to put their lives in the hands of traffickers would be significantly reduced.” POLITICO’s Matt Honeycombe-Foster has a write-up of the PM’s appeal — and you’ve heard how it went down in Paris.

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Changing tone: One government official Playbook spoke to last night said the talks between officials in Paris would cover the full U.K. offer and was hopeful the French might come on board. “I think the tone has changed somewhat,” the person said about the refusal from France so far to engage in British proposals. Home Secretary Priti Patel talked through the offer with her counterpart Gérald Darmanin in a call last night, with a collegiate-sounding readout from the U.K. side.

Confused, much? A former Home Office official said the department had been veering between confrontation and collaboration on the issue of undocumented migrant crossings for years. One school of thought argues the U.K. should be as aggressive as possible toward arrivals to disincentivize others, with offshore processing, a strict approach to granting asylum claims and efforts to make the process as difficult as possible to navigate. Others argue for working with France and other EU nations to prevent the arrivals in the first place. “If this problem is going to be addressed, it will be through close collaboration with France, Belgium and the Netherlands,” the person said.

It can work: The former official noted that former PM Theresa May argued with the French about truck and Channel Tunnel crossings for a long time before eventually working together to crack down on the issue. The colab was successful. Not that other routes aren’t still being used. “We shouldn’t assume the only problem of illegal migration to the U.K. is small boats,” the person said. “There are probably still significant numbers coming in through lorries.”

What makes it so hard: “The coast is hundreds of kilometers long and it would require huge resources to police that all the time,” the ex-official said. “It’s a large, long coast suitable to launching small boats; miles and miles of sand dunes and beaches.” Indeed, reporting from Paris, POLITICO’s Clea Caulcutt quotes Nicolas Laroye, a police trade unionist and border control officer in Calais. “Some evenings there are up to 50 boats leaving the coast, so we’ll catch half, but it’s not enough. We can’t put a police officer behind every dune,” he tells her. It’s a fascinating piece looking at the challenges of policing a big, well-organized operation across a huge area.

Can’t get the staff: But the U.K. is having staffing issues of its own, with Arj Singh revealing in the i newspaper around an hour ago that Patel has failed to recruit a top official to oversee the Channel crisis despite applications closing in August. The Home Office said it was right for the department to take the “appropriate time” to recruit the right person for the role (which the Cabinet minister dreamed up as a specific measure to tackle the small boats issue) — although in that “appropriate time” the boats keep coming and people die. One Whitehall insider told Singh the recruitment process was floundering due to a “toxic” atmosphere among staff after Johnson backed Patel over bullying allegations.

Get on with it: The revelation will do little to calm Conservative jitters about the undocumented migrants issue harming their chances at the next election if voters conclude “taking back control” via Brexit has been a failure. A former adviser to No. 10 told my POLITICO colleague Esther Webber that immigration was firmly on the government’s radar as something which could be central to the race. “The reason immigration went down in the polls is because people thought it had been dealt with,” the person told Esther. “The anger if people feel they went through all of this [Brexit] for no reason will be brutal.”

But but but: Kent MP and Brexiteer Craig Mackinlay said voters, although frustrated about the issue, would give the government a bit of a break on the understanding that France needs to step up too. “People are concerned about it because it looks chaotic,” he told Playbook last night. “But I think people are willing to give us a degree of the benefit of the doubt because they realize it’s not just us — we need France to be on board with it too.”

Brexit dividend: There is no doubt Brexit has made the process tougher, since the U.K. no longer takes part in the EU’s Dublin agreement on migration, which allowed for 289 returns of undocumented migrants in 2020, my POLITICO colleague Cristina Gallardo explains in this useful piece. Returns to the EU in 2020 plummeted to just five. One former Home Office official wrote in a piece for the Mirror that Brexit had been an “own goal” because of the Dublin agreement loss. The person added that if the U.K. pulls out of the European Convention on Human Rights, which the government has signaled it intends to do, it would be another own goal.

On a similar note: Reforms to the Human Rights Act to make it easier to deport failed asylum seekers and foreign criminals will be at the “spicy, vindaloo end of the menu,” a Whitehall source told Jason Groves and David Barrett in the Daily Mail. Playbook isn’t certain what that means in practice, having never eaten a vindaloo.

What Labour is saying: Probably not much, seeing as it’s between a rock and a hard place on this stuff, navigating the battleground between its members and voters. Listen in to Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds on the broadcast round right now to find out.

Grim tales from the sea: Loads of harrowing reads in the papers this morning about the human perspective on this crisis … from the image of a giant wave from the wake of a tanker hitting a small boat (the Guardian) … to a scared migrant being shot in the kneecaps by smugglers after he refused to board a boat (the Telegraph) … and the pain of a husband who fears his wife drowned when her GPS signal disappeared in the Channel (also the Telegraph). Utterly bleak.

😷 GOING VIRAL … AGAIN  😷

RUH ROH: Flights from six southern African nations will be banned for English travelers from noon after a new COVID variant caused alarm among scientists and government officials. A small number of B.1.1.529 variant cases have been identified in South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong (both the latter cases were exported from South Africa) with a startling number of concerning mutations. South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini and Zimbabwe will go on the red list, with travelers having to quarantine at home on return for the moment, then in a guarded hotel from Sunday morning. Playbook’s Andrew McDonald has a write-up. Health Secretary Sajid Javid tweeted the news last night, and the department put out details here.

Nu mettle: As is often the case, the i’s Jane Merrick was on this like a flash and has a good write-up and an essential thread. She notes the new strain, expected to be renamed “Nu,” is the “worst variant U.K. health experts have ever seen.” Meanwhile, a government source tells the Times team: “South Africa has had some big waves and should have a high level of immunity. The fact that it’s spreading rapidly in a place that you’d think would be reasonably well protected gives us cause for concern.” Not quite the news we were hoping for as the Christmas season approaches.

For the COVID geeks: Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial, spotted the variant earlier this week. His thread on it, which he’s been adding to since, is worth a look. Christina Pagel from UCL has more about how the new variant has put the scientists in a spin (click on the last tweet to see the rest of the thread), as does South African epidemiologist Tulio de Oliveira, who also puts out a call for the African nations to get financial support through lockdowns.

What it all means: As ever, Tom Whipple has the essential Q&A in the Times, this time alongside Transport Correspondent Ben Clatworthy. The pair write that if the Nu variant is more transmissible, it’s not the end of the world. There will be more infections and it will take longer to reach the post-COVID world. If it evades immunity though, that could be a problem. “Our collective immunity has already taken a hit with Delta,” the pair write. “There are serious worries in Whitehall that this could be worse. If so, we might have to consider variant vaccines. They will take weeks to develop, rather than a year — but are still unlikely to be ready to stop a wave once it begins.”

What happens next? The WHO has convened a rapid assessment group to investigate, and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is touring broadcast studios right now to offer reassurance. “The advice from the scientists was that this variant is serious so we haven’t hesitated to act in order to protect the gains we have made thanks to our vaccine program and the boosters,” a government official told Playbook.

And on that note … the latest episode of Jack Blanchard’s Westminster Insider podcast looks ahead to the next global pandemic. Jack interviews a host of experts including health committee chair (and ex-health sec) Jeremy Hunt and a string of professors to explore what we can do now to better prepare for the next crisis and avoid a similar catastrophe. He looks at how different viruses spread, what we can learn from Asian nations like Taiwan and South Korea, and how vaccination can be fast-tracked. Listen here.

YESTERDAY’S UK COVID STATS: 47,240 positive cases, ⬆️ 3,564 on Wednesday. In the last week there have been 303,504 cases, ⬆️ 26,243 on the previous week … 147 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, ⬇️ 2 on Wednesday. In the last week 874 deaths have been reported, ⬇️ 152 on the previous week. As of the latest data 7,641 COVID patients are in hospital.

VAX STATS: A total 50,852,133 people or 88.4 percent of the population aged 12+ have received a first dose, ⬆️ 24,579 … A total 46,232,258 people or 80.4 percent of the population aged 12+ have received a second dose, ⬆️ 23,439 … A total 16,383,575 people or 28.5 percent of the population aged 12+ have received a booster/third dose, ⬆️ 378,946.

STATS DUMP: The ONS will release the latest COVID infection survey at 9.30 a.m. alongside provisional figures for excess winter deaths in England and Wales between 2020 and 2021.

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TODAY IN WESTMINSTER

DRIVETIME NEWS: The government is unveiling its union connectivity review (the one that was going to recommend a new Boris bridge linking Scotland and Northern Ireland, until it didn’t) about how to improve transport links between the four nations. The report is here and suggests modernizing crucial roads and speeding up rail links … although the most interesting document could be the assessment of whether a bridge or tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland is doable. Expect more on this from Shapps on broadcast.

SCOOP: Astonishing exclusive from POLITICO colleagues Esther Webber and Andrew McDonald, who have learned former Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan attended the House of Commons last month, despite providing assurances he would stay away from Westminster while waiting to be tried over a charge of sexual assault. He attended the Commons chamber when colleagues paid tribute to murdered former MP David Amess, and also voted 25 times by proxy — intended as a COVID measure. Khan has been charged with assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008, but denies the allegation. When he was charged, Conservative Party officials said they had received assurances he would not return to Westminster while the case was ongoing.

BREAKING THIS MORNING: Campaigners at the Good Law Project are launching legal action against the government over allegations Conservative MPs have been threatened with having funding for their constituencies held back if they rebel in the House of Commons. The Good Law Project argues the threat of missing out on regeneration funds could be “in the realms of criminal offense” if true. The campaign sent a pre-action letter to Cabinet Minister Michael Gove inviting him to deny the claims. “This is shocking stuff,” said Jo Maugham, director of the legal campaign group.

Talking about local funding … Chancellor Rishi Sunak is refusing to open his wallet for the big “leveling up” white paper launch next month, according to the Tele’s Ben Riley-Smith. Ministers and officials are having to work with existing government projects and look at cost-neutral reforms, BRS notes, suggesting the white paper might be more about cleaning chewing gum and graffiti than much else. In the Sun, Harry Cole reveals tensions between Sunak and Johnson boiled over ahead of the budget last month.

HOUSE OF COMMONS: Sits from 9.30 a.m. with a day of private members’ bills. First up is former Trade Secretary Liam Fox’s Down Syndrome Bill, which has government and cross-party support and would introduce new guidance for public bodies to help with meeting the needs of people with Down’s.

LORDS: Not sitting.

BREXIT LATEST: David Frost and Maroš Šefčovič hold their now regular meeting slot in London at noon. Don’t expect news.

Also in Brexit: The U.K. is braced for French fishers to block French ports and the Channel Tunnel today, in the row about licenses, while Britain’s top organic certifier is warning that changes to EU rules around organic food set to kick in from 2022 will block hundreds of British exporters from accessing Northern Ireland and the single market. POLITICO colleagues Cristina Gallardo and Graham Lanktree have those for EU-U.K., Mobility and Trade Pros.

MAKING THE CASE: Whitehall boss Simon Case admitted the government does not have the “skills and experience” to tackle the biggest challenges facing Britain. He made the comments in a letter to the Times. Err …

LISTEN TO HEAR KEIR: Labour leader Keir Starmer is the guest on this weekend’s BBC Political Thinking podcast with Nick Robinson. In the interview, Starmer reveals he hasn’t spoken to his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn since the Islington MP was stripped of the Labour whip over a year ago. The podcast should appear here.

MENTAL HEALTH CASH: The government has offered an extra £5 million in funding for suicide prevention charities, which have seen increased demand during the pandemic.

Related but shameless plug: Your Playbook author has written about taking medication for mental health for CapX. The piece went up in the last few minutes.

**How will Paris deal with open competition in the single market? Our expert trade and industry policy journalists will give you all the scoops your business needs to stay one step ahead of the French EU Council presidency at our POLITICO Pro briefing call. Not a Pro yet but you’re interested in attending? Email us at [email protected]**

BABIES IN PARLIAMENT LATEST: Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle told the BBC “other mothers” in the House have urged him not to change the rules to allow babies in the chamber, after Labour MP Stella Creasy piled pressure on him to ease the restriction.

LOBBYING LATEST: Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan has been accused of a lack of transparency for failing to disclose lobbying from the owner of Aquind — a controversial energy company, the Times reports.

ICYMI I: Incredible claim from Conservative MP Nick Fletcher that casting women as Dr. Who and other TV and movie characters was reducing role models for men and fueling male crime. He had to release a full-page statement later to claim he didn’t say what he said. Watch the clip of him saying it, from Adam Bienkov.

ICYMI II: Minister Mims Davies revealed she had her drink spiked in 2019, as she called for more action to crack down on the vile behavior.

LORD BAILEY: Failed London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey has definitely, positively, 100 percent not been bragging that he’s been promised a seat in the Lords. Nice scoop from City AM’s Stefan Boscia.

WAR IN NORTH SHROPSHIRE: It’s the Lib Dems attacking the Conservatives this morning after the Tory candidate to replace Owen Paterson was found to have backed measures that would see pensioner tax bills rise by nearly £2,000. One in four in the seat are pensioners. Richard Vaughan has that one in the i.

AND FINALLY … Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess invited Labour MP Kevin Brennan to take part in a listening party (a thing cool people apparently do) for his album … that’s Brennan’s album, BTW. Check out the Twitter love here.

STATE OF THE UNION

TODAY IN SCOTLAND: Deputy leader Keith Brown will kick off the SNP’s second virtual conference in the space of two months with an independence-focused feel-good speech for the rank and file. He’s up at 2 p.m.

But but but: Two eve-of-conference polls are more downbeat. A YouGov poll for the Times found First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s poll ratings have plummeted, from their +50 high last August to a more modest, but still strong, +12. A separate poll by Survation for the Scotland in Union think tank found a clear majority (54 percent) of Scots are against another referendum within the next two years — ie the Sturgeon timetable.

Meanwhile, in Wales: Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price will urge conference-going members to back his Senedd deal with Welsh Labour before it faces a crunch vote tomorrow. BBC Wales has all the details.

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MEDIA ROUND

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps broadcast round: Sky News (7.05 a.m.) … Times Radio (7.20 a.m.) … BBC Breakfast (7.30 a.m.) … LBC (7.50 a.m.) …

Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds broadcast round: BBC Breakfast (6.30 a.m.) … LBC (7.05 a.m.) … Sky News (8.05 a.m.).

Also on the Today program: Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes (7.05 a.m.).

Also on BBC Breakfast: Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes (7.20 a.m.).

Good Morning Britain (ITV): JCVI member Adam Finn (6.15 a.m.) … Scottish government COVID adviser Devi Sridhar (7.15 a.m.).

Also on Kay Burley at Breakfast (Sky News): Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes (7.35 a.m.) … Tory MP Tim Loughton (8.20 a.m.).

Also on Times Radio breakfast: Author and Afghan migrant Gulwali Passarlay, who stowed away in the back of a truck between Calais and Dover (7 a.m.) … Tory MP David Simmonds, chair of the APPG on migration (time tbc) … Chief Minister of Jersey John Le Fondré (8.40 a.m.).

Also on Nick Ferrari at Breakfast (LBC): RMT organizer John Leach (7.20 a.m.) … Former European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos (9.35 a.m.).

Julia Hartley-Brewer breakfast show (talkRADIO): Tory MP Henry Smith (7.05 a.m.) … Tory MP Liam Fox (7.33 a.m.) … Amnesty International Migrants Rights Director Steve Valdez-Symonds (9.05 a.m.).

Good Morning Scotland (BBC Radio Scotland): Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes (7.50 a.m.).

Reviewing the papers tonight: Sky News (10.30 p.m.): Commentator Tim Montgomerie and Fleet Street Fox Susie Boniface.

TODAY’S FRONT PAGES

(Click on the publication’s name to see its front page.)

Daily Express: U.K. troops to patrol French beaches.

Daily Mail: Macron’s ‘non’ to U.K. boots on French beaches.

Daily Mirror: The DIY death boats.

Daily Star: Madonna gets stuck under her bed.

Financial Times: Britain and France clash over response to Channel tragedy.

HuffPost UK: ‘Not migrants. Humans.’

i: ‘I know the risk. This is my only way to reach England.’

Metro: ‘We just want to live like you.’

POLITICO UK: French police face ‘titanic task’ as smugglers up their game.

The Daily Telegraph: ‘My wife was on the boat. I tracked the GPS … then it disappeared.’

The Guardian: Six countries on red list as COVID variant poses ‘significant threat.’

The Independent: Ministers reject plea for safe routes to Britain.

The Sun: Richard out, Arlene & Naughty Boy on brink.

The Times: Variant halts travel to Africa.

TODAY’S NEWS MAGS

The Economist: Adventure capitalism — Startup finance goes global.

THANK POD IT’S FRIDAY 

Brexit and Beyond: Anand Menon talks to Centre for the Study of Corruption Director David Barrett.

EU Confidential: The POLITICO team talks to Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg, French Europe Minister Clément Beaune and Dutch political theorist Luuk van Middelaar.

Iain Dale All Talk: Dale interviews former Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon.

Inside Briefing: The IfG team talk to the FT’s Robert Shrimsley.

Newscast: The BBC team talks to Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle and his pet parrot Boris.

The Bunker: Jelena Sofronijevic talks to journalist Una Hajdari and professor James Ker-Lindsay about whether the Balkans is on the brink of war.

The Political Party: Matt Forde talks to former White House director of communications Anthony Scaramucci.

Walescast: The BBC Wales team talk to former Plaid adviser Helen Antoniazzi and former Welsh Labour adviser Jo Kiernan.

Westminster Insider: Jack Blanchard look at how the U.K. can be better prepared for the next pandemic, with health committee Chairman Jeremy Hunt and experts from around the world.

YOUR WEEKEND IN POLITICS

IN WALES: Plaid Cymru members will vote on the party’s deal with Welsh Labour. Vote and result is on Saturday.

SNP CONFERENCE LINEUP: Deputy First Minister John Swinney (Saturday 2 p.m.) … Westminster leader Ian Blackford (Sunday 2 p.m.). Nicola Sturgeon will speak Monday morning after a date with Marr on Sunday.

SUNDAY SHOWS: Andrew Marr will be talking to Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (BBC One Sunday 9 a.m.). No guest news yet for Trevor Phillips (Sky News, Sunday 8.30 a.m.).

T&G host Tom Newton Dunn and his co-host Jack Blanchard will talk to Labour MP Kim Leadbeater (Times Radio, Sunday 10 a.m.).

Swarbrick on Sunday host Tom Swarbrick will be talking to the U.N. Refugee Agency’s Laura Padoan and U.K. Space Agency Chief Executive Paul Bate.

Westminster Hour host Carolyn Quinn will be joined by Tory MP Damian Green … Shadow FCDO Minister Stephen Kinnock … SNP Westminster Deputy Leader Kirsten Oswald … The Telegraph’s Lucy Fisher (BBC Radio 4, Sunday 10 p.m.).

LONDON CALLING

WESTMINSTER WEATHER: 🌧🌧🌧 Light rain showers for most of the day. Highs of 7C.

PANIC-BUYING PESTO: Great interview with Robert Peston from William Turvill for Press Gazette, in which the ITV pol ed states: “I’m a total wanker sometimes.” But the real insight comes from Pesto’s GF Charlotte Edwardes, who tells Turvill: “He’s pretty laid back, unless it’s weird stuff he obsesses about like having at least four spare toothpastes, or rows of extra bleach. He definitely has stockpiling tendencies. I knew the pandemic was serious when I opened the fridge to find eight packets of butter. I asked him whether we would be smearing it on ourselves to keep warm.”

Also: Pesto ruled himself out for the BBC pol ed job: “It’s not going to be me because I have zero interest in doing it.”

SPOTTED: An amusing seating plan for an event at the Carlton Club last night which placed former Foreign Sec Dominic Raab and often-outraged MP Johnny Mercer next to each other on the same table. Mercer tore into the Afghanistan withdrawal plan that Raab helped oversee, so if the seating plan came to pass, the conversation might have been less than cordial.

SPORTS NEWS: Commiserations to the Commons and Lords Rugby Team, who lost to the Army Vets XV 36-33, playing at London’s Royal Artillery Company in support of Combat Stress. The group, including ex-ministers Matt Warman and Johnny Mercer, Rugby MP Mark Pawsey, Labour’s Sam Tarry, Lib Dem peer Dominic Hubbard aka Lord Addington and a range of staffers and ex-staffers, raised £1500.

NEW GIG I: Former Sun hack David Willetts (nope, not *that* David Willetts) has been appointed as director of communications and digital at the Betting and Gaming Council. He’s been working in press for the MoD.

NEW GIG II: Scottish Tory MP John Lamont has swapped DCMS — where he was a PPS to Nadine Dorries — for the Foreign Office, where he’ll become a PPS to Liz Truss. Here’s his tweet and some gushing praise from Dorries.

BIRTHDAYS: Former Brexit committee Chairman Hilary Benn … Change Britain Chairwoman and unaffiliated peer Gisela Stuart … Tory peer John Gummer … Labour peer Joyce Quin … Crossbench peer and CBI President Karan Bilimoria … Former Labour MP Keith Vaz … Former Labour MP Ann Keen … Scottish Tory MSP Donald Cameron … Channel 4 News Europe Editor Matt Frei.

Celebrating over the weekend: Security Minister Damian Hinds … Former High Peak MP Ruth George … Wantage MP David Johnston … Labour adviser Kate Forrester … U.K. Ambassador to the DRC Graham Zebedee … Labour peer Ann Mallalieu … Fabian Society General Secretary Andrew Harrop … Former Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells … New Statesman Senior Online Editor George Eaton … Former Chancellor Alistair Darling … Transport Minister Chris Heaton-Harris … Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Andrew Jones … Former Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden … … Keighley MP Robbie Moore … Former Lib Dem Head of Media Rosy Cobb … Commons Clerk of the Table Office Tom Goldsmith … Former French PM Edouard Philippe … 5 News presenter Sian Williams … and “The Thick of It” creator Armando Iannucci.

PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editor Zoya Sheftalovich, reporter Andrew McDonald producer Grace Stranger.

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Emilio Casalicchio

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