AUSTRIA’S “I thoughtI’d be Aburgerthat RIGHT-WING adamngood could save WHIZZKID president” theworld TALKINGPOINTS P23 PEOPLE P10 LAST WORD P60 21TH OCTOBER 2017 |ISSUE 1147 |£3.50EWTHE BESTOFTHE BRITISHEEK AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA Hammondhorror Draining thelifeout of Brexit? Page6 ALL YOUNEED TO KNOWABOUT EVERYTHING THATMATTERS www.theweek.co.uk NEVERKNOWINGLY UNDERSOLD SINCE1925 Our commitment to value means that we match the prices of high street competitors (this excludes online-only or mail order businesses). Service conditions must be comparable. See our ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ leafl et in our &.. h udreycocktail chairintealwith ]VcY"äc^h]ZYWjiid andpipingdetail shops or online for details. Products available online and in store whilst stocks last. Distribution can vary per store per item. Price correct at time of going to press. 4 NEWS The main stories… What happened What the editorials said The mask has slipped, said the Daily Mail. While EU Brexit stalemate negotiators claim they are delaying trade talks because they Hopes of abreakthrough in the Brexit first want firm guarantees for EU citizens negotiations dissipated this week as EU leaders living in the UK and an agreement on the prepared for acrucial summit on Friday. Irish border, they made clear this week that In alast-ditch attempt to kick-start trade talks, money is the “main sticking point”. They’re Theresa May had telephoned the French and deliberately holding the talks up in the hope German leaders, and dined in Brussels with the of extorting more cash from us. How much European Commission president, Jean-Claude longer is the UK expected to “endure this Juncker. But to little avail. While Juncker and belittling treatment”, asked The Daily May reached avague agreement on the need Telegraph. It raises the question “whether there to “accelerate” talks, European leaders made is any point continuing to negotiate when good clear that they wouldn’t start discussing a faith is absent on the other side”. future trade relationship until she offered more detail on the UK’s exit bill. No. 10, meanwhile, EU leaders aren’t to blame for the slow signalled that it wouldn’t offer any more progress of the talks, said The Observer. The financial commitments until Europe agreed to real fault lies with our shambolic, feuding expand the talks beyond separation terms. government, which “cannot agree basic May and Juncker: afruitless dinner negotiating positions from one day to the The summit is set formally to declare that next”. Brexit zealots are positively excited by insufficient progress has been made on agreeing the UK’s exit the prospect of anodeal exit, but let’s not kid ourselves that terms for the talks to move on to the next phase. By way of an this outcome would be anything other than disastrous for the olive branch, however, the 27 EU states will reportedly agree UK. The economic skies are already “darkening”, said The to start discussing among themselves the framework of a Guardian, with inflation and household debt on the rise, and transition deal, so that trade talks with the UK will be able to real wages and tax revenue falling. At this rate, it may not be get off to aswift start when London offers further concessions. long before public opinion shifts decisively against Brexit. What happened What the editorials said Trump takes on Tehran “Donald Trump has taken awild swing at his predecessor’s key foreign policy legacy,” said The Guardian. The 2015 deal Donald Trump last week threatened to scrap offered the “best possible assurances” that the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. In Iran’s military nuclear programme would be acombative speech on Friday, the US contained for adecade. By defusing the nuclear president argued that Iran is failing to uphold crisis, it helped to consolidate “moderate its part of the agreement, which curbed the factions” within Iran and to prevent an arms country’s nuclear capabilities in return for race in the Middle East. The president now easing sanctions –although international finds himself at odds not only with his own observers say it has been in full compliance. advisers, but with key world powers. “America However, he stopped short of immediately First” has become “America alone”. withdrawing from the deal. Instead, he called on Congress and US allies to fix its “many Actually, Trump’s move was not so extreme, serious flaws”. If they failed, he said, he said The Wall Street Journal. It was “a political would pull the US out unilaterally. fudge”, which satisfies his campaign promise to renegotiate the deal without “blowing it up”. The UK, Germany and France jointly stated “The worst deal ever”? This gives the US time to persuade its allies to that they were “concerned” by the move and beef up the terms: the original deal merely remained committed to the deal. The other signatories to the suspended Iran’s nuclear programme and did nothing to deter Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), China, its “imperialism” in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Yet abandoning Russia and the EU, also deplored Trump’s decision. Israel’s the accord would not solve these problems, said The Times. If PM Benjamin Netanyahu, however, congratulated the the deal –the result of 13 years of diplomacy –were to fall president for “boldly” confronting “Iran’s terrorist regime”. apart, there would be “no winners from such an outcome”. AYorkshire pub run by Agroup of Muslim men took a It wasn’t all bad two brothers has been gift of flowers to asynagogue Apreviously unseen story by named the best in Leeds after it was vandalised Vita Sackville-West, written for a restaurant in the world. by racists, to show their book the size of apostage The Black Swan, in solidarity with the local Jewish stamp, is to be published. Oldstead, came top in community. Shahab Adris, 36, Sackville-West was one of 200 TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ was so appalled when he saw authors –among them Hardy Choice awards, which is that Etz Chaim synagogue been and Kipling –who, in the 1920s, based on reviews daubed with aswastika and an contributed tiny volumes to posted on the website. anti-Semitic slur, he and three Queen Mary’s dolls’ house, a Tommy Banks, 28, who friends decided to pay avisit, Lutyens-designed replica of an runs the kitchen, and his so that they could express Edwardian residence. Unlike brother James, 27, who their sympathy in person. most, hers –about an ageless runs front of house, “Some of our group had been sprite –was written specifically were teenagers when they took over the pub, in 2006. It now abit nervous as they’d never for the house, and may have holds aMichelin star, serving dishes –such as squid dressed in been to asynagogue before,” inspired her lover, Virginia horseradish juice –that use fruit and vegetables grown on-site he said, but they received a Woolf, to write Orlando. or at the Banks’ family farm. “It’s ahuge honour,” Tommy said. warm welcome. COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM THE WEEK 21 October 2017 …and how they were covered NEWS 5 What the commentators said What next? The British are famed for their pragmatism, while EU leaders are supposedly masters of The scene is set for ahaggle compromise, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. So why, after “five rounds of jaw-jaw in over money before the next Brussels”, has the bargaining “still not advanced beyond square one”? There is fault on both EU summit on 14 December, sides. EU leaders make the understandable point that it is hard to negotiate with aBritish reports the FT. Britain has government that is still negotiating with itself (see page 6). UK ministers, meanwhile, argue with agreed to pay s20bn in net some justification that the EU is being unreasonably rigid about the sequencing of talks. That budget contributions for much is undeniable, said Christopher Meyer in The Independent. It’s “daft” to insist that 2019 and 2020, but further Ireland’s border arrangements must be settled before the shape of the UK-EU trade deal is liabilities may yet be discussed, because the former clearly depends on the latter. included: Brussels has talked of a s60bn net settlement. It’s in both sides’ interests to reach atrade deal, said Philip Aldrick in The Times. But the EU is in less of ahurry to get there. The UK needs atransition deal in place by February to prevent The Government delayed the businesses triggering contingency plans and moving to Europe, so “the longer Brussels holds second reading of the EU out, the more business it can poach”. Britain is hoping to get round that problem by linking the Withdrawal Bill, which generosity of its offer to the date atransition is agreed. It’s asensible strategy. After all, if transfers EU law into UK law companies shifted enough businesses abroad to cost the UK one percentage point of GDP, that ahead of Brexit, after MPs would wipe “£20bn off the economy and £8bn off tax revenues”. put forward hundreds of amendments. Across-party “Only the most swivel-eyed Ukipper” would pretend that leaving the EU without any sort of group of MPs, including deal wouldn’t have costs attached to it, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. But the reality is former Tory chancellor that these costs diminish as we get closer to the March 2019 deadline, because we’ll already Kenneth Clarke, is seeking to have had no choice but to start spending cash on contingency plans. In six months’ time, if no amend the bill in such away deal is in prospect, it “won’t make much difference either way”.