Cummings going opens up a little UK-EU trade window. But only a little one

The odds should still remain on No Deal

Coincidence? Maybe. Dominic Cummings’ departure from Downing Street has been a long time coming. Ever since that fateful dash to County Durham during the first lockdown was revealed to the media, he’s been a man living on borrowed time. But then he always was.

Cummings claimed in a blog at the start of the year that he wished to make himself largely redundant to Number 10 by the end of the year. Well, mission accomplished. Or not. That line came from his famous blog where he reached out to “weirdos and misfits”, and others, to improve performance and create “the sort of expertise supporting the PM and ministers that is needed”. If that was what success looks like, he’s fallen very far short. True, he didn’t know that Covid-19 would become a global pandemic but then Black Swans are a feature of government and in any case, a prime driver of radical change. He failed despite Covid, not because of it.

But what Cummings never understood, or took heed of, despite his success in leading public vote campaigns – most notably Vote Leave in the Brexit referendum – was that politics is above all a people business. Being wantonly rude and making enemies needlessly is a fast path to failure. People will remember and will rarely forgive. While directness and confrontation can sometimes be necessary in the short term, you cannot fight all the people all the time. Referendums have no aftermath; governing does. There comes a point where the hassle simple isn’t worth it. Besides, as noted, what benefit was he actually delivering anyway?

Which brings us back to the original question: timing. Maybe the toxic atmosphere inside No 10 just came about organically, as the culmination of months of dismissiveness and factionising; maybe it was one comment too many that broke the relationships beyond repair. Or maybe there was something of more substance, of which we’re not yet fully aware.

This next week is critical in terms of Brexit. I know we’ve said that before but this one really is. The government ruled out an extension to the transition period in June, meaning that it ends in seven weeks unless there’s a whole new treaty to extend it. That might be possible – it could probably be done in only one or two clauses, amending the date in the Withdrawal Agreement – but would still need full ratification across the EU. If a deal is not done this week, whether a substantive trade one or a rollover transition one, No Deal on January 1 becomes all-but inevitable.

The reason for that is simple: the EU holds its next European Council on Thursday (by videoconference but a meeting all the same). That is the last realistic moment a deal could be signed off, not just because of the heads of governments’ calendars – another meeting could not doubt be arranged – but because deals need translating with legal tightness and ratifying.

Was the bust-up in Downing Street over what to do about Brexit? Is it significant that the two casualties were both core members of Vote Leave? Does that indicate that Johnson is about to offer a major concession to the EU? We can’t know yet but it’s certainly a possibility.

Three things stand in the way of a deal being done. The first, as mentioned, is time. The second is expectations. Both sides have been preparing for No Deal while continuing to talk – but no meaningful progress is being made on the key sticking points. The rest of the Agreement may well already be fully settled and translated into legally-tight language but unless compromise or concession is offered on fish, subsidy regime and governance, a deal cannot be done.

And the third, following on, is political pressure. Both sides do not want to compromise on what they believe are core principles of the Union (on the European side) or of the rationale for Brexit (on the British one). We know that the EU always concedes as little as possible: we saw that with both Cameron and May, despite where that inflexibility led. It is unlikely to be any more accommodating to a government which is joyfully promoting the benefits of Brexit, while also ripping up a critical part of the Withdrawal Agreement. But its demands on governance and the level playing field are going to be hard for the UK to accept, as they always would have been, and run counter to what Brexit is supposed to allow.

And HMG has, for whatever reason, introduced the Internal Market Bill which it has invested political capital in and must know is unacceptable to the EU.

Does Cummings’ departure signal, or even enable, a change in policy? Maybe – but the odds are still stacked heavily against a deal (whatever the markets might say). I don’t see how a deal can be done if the IMB is still sat before parliament with the contentious clauses on trade between Britain and N Ireland not definitively removed.

Is Johnson thinking about junking the Bill? Maybe. Consistency has never been his strongest suit but if he does, he’ll be spending more political capital. MPs and ministers do not appreciate being marched to the top of the hill only to be marched back down again. Particularly for something as controversial as breaking an international agreement. Following on from the dismissal of Cummings, six months after it was due, it would indicate on the part of No 10 a desire to do the right thing, after exhausting all other options.

If it is to happen, it’ll need to be by Tuesday. That therefore becomes the deadline for the government to decide whether it’s serious about doing a trade deal with the EU. I don’t think it will. Whether by miscalculation or design, No Deal still looks favourite to me.

David Herdson

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Cummings out with immediate effect

Dominic Cummings has now decided to leave Number 10 today for good – (subtle hint walking out with a box – Lee Cain also now out from today

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) November 13, 2020

Cummings was due to stay until the end of year but leaving with immediate effect https://t.co/eZbEK422eu

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) November 13, 2020

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What’s Trump’s sulk going to do to his party’s chances in the Georgia run-offs?

The two things that dominate US politics at the moment are the refusal of the incumbent, Donald Trump, to acknowledge that he was beaten in the the general election two weeks ago and what is going to happen in the Georgia election in January when the future control of the Senate will be at stake.

It’s got to stage where even ultra trump loyalists like Senator Lindsey Graham are calling on the President for Joe Biden to be allowed to see Secret Service briefing documents. Apparently in the White House at the moment and nobody dare even mention the word Biden call or dispute Trump’s unfounded assertion that there was electoral fraud.

The Georgia runoffs on January 5th are the unfinished business of the November election and involve run offs for the two senate seats following the failure in either race to for the winner to secure 50% of the vote.

Historically the Democrats have struggled in run offs there but this time it could be very different. Victories in both races would give them control of the Senate.

I just wonder what the impact of Trump’s post election sulk is going to be. Could it shift a few votes to the Dems – enough for victory?

I’ve just had a bet with Smarkets at about 3/1 that they’ll do it which seems a reasonable price.

Mike Smithson

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Inter and Milan to Rival Liverpool for Ajax Defender Perr Schuurs

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Free Agent Daryl Janmaat Linked With Unlikely Liverpool Move

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Marcel Sabitzer on Tottenham Hotspur’s Transfer ‘Wish List’

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Alisson Reveals ‘Desire’ to Return to Brazil in Future

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Jerome Boateng to Leave Bayern Munich in Summer With Arsenal, Chelsea & Spurs Linked

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Cummings – the end of the line for his time at Number 10?

This really is the end of an era

The big UK political news this morning is that it appears that Dominic Cummings is on the way out as Johnson seeks to reset his team in an effort to try to pull his party’s and personal ratings back up.

There’s nothing official yet but when asked about his future plans he replied “My position hasn’t changed since my January blog.”. In that lengthy post he had written “We want to improve performance and make me much less important — and within a year largely redundant.“

On the Smarkets betting exchange “who’ll go first Cummings or Patel” market he’s moved from a 57% chance to a 97% in the past 36 hours.

Given the huge impact that Cummings has had on UK politics and his influence on Johnson then we should expect to see big differences in the way the PM operates. The joke has been, of course, is that it is Cummings who has been running the government not the PM.

My guess is with new PR head Allegra Stratton and his fiance Carrie Symonds apparently now ruling the roost we’ll see a much less macho approach. It is widely reported that they were behind the changes.

Mike Smithson

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Moving on from Trump punters make it 69% chance that there will be UK-EU deal this year

Above is the market from Smarkets, the betting exchange that unlike Betfair settled Biden bets at the weekend, on whether there’ll be a UK deal with the EU by the end of December.

Undoubtedly what happened on November 3rd in the US and the prospect of President Biden has impacted on punters. The chances of a quick deal with the US in the event of a no-deal Brexit must have greatly diminished and that is something that the UK and Boris have to face up to.

The new political environment means that whatever the agreement with the EU then the position of the Good Friday Agreement cannot be undermined. Biden is going to be very influenced by the view from Dublin.

This probably gives the upper hand in the negotiations to Brussels but then sobeit. Maybe Boris will surprise us by holding out but my guess is that he won’t.

Mike Smithson

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Newcastle United Could Bring Jetro Willems Back to Tyneside for Cut-Price Fee in January

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James Tarkowski Reveals Why He Rejected Burnley’s Contract Offer

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Salomon Rondon Explains Why He Had to Leave Newcastle in 2018

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Arsenal & Juventus Among 6 Clubs Targeting Brazilian Forward Brenner

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Juventus Should Sell Cristiano Ronaldo While They Still Can

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Legendary Republican political strategist, Karl Rove, says the WH2020 outcome will be hard to overturn

With the Trump continuing to fight the verdict of voters in last week’s election there’s a warning to the White House from former adviser to Republican presidents and longstanding GOP operative, Karl Rove, about the current en passe.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal he notes:

To win, Mr. Trump must prove systemic fraud, with illegal votes in the tens of thousands. There is no evidence of that so far. Unless some emerges quickly, the president’s chances in court will decline precipitously when states start certifying results, as Georgia will on Nov. 20, followed by Pennsylvania and Michigan on Nov. 23, Arizona on Nov. 30, and Wisconsin and Nevada on Dec. 1. By seating one candidate’s electors, these certifications will raise the legal bar to overturn state results and make it even more difficult for Mr. Trump to prevail before the Electoral College meets Dec. 14

My understanding of the process in the US is that the state certification procedure is absolutely central and interestingly Georgia, where a recount is taking place, is very early on the schedule a week tomorrow.

In the betting punters on the Betfair exchange continue to rate Trump’s position which went down to a 3.8% chance last Saturday. That’s now a 10% one. The Betfair rules state “This market will be settled according to the candidate that has the most projected Electoral College votes won at the 2020 presidential election.” My guess is that the firm will settle the £609m market once certification has started.

Whether Trump will concede by then who knows?

Mike Smithson

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A Vaccine against Stupidity

The government must hope that Pfizer’s vaccine announcement will overshadow the continued rumblings about Kate Bingham, Chair of the Vaccine Task Force and her expensive (and, judging by results, useless) PR consultants. She is due to leave in January, as originally planned. If you believe Hancock, that is. He’s fast becoming this government’s Marie-Antoinette. According to his latest interview, people paid £670,000 for 6 months’ work in government should be thanked as they have “given up” six months of their life. Who knew that being highly paid to do the job you’re trained for was such a sacrifice? We can only guess at the likely reaction of low paid essential workers (some in the NHS) and unpaid volunteers. Let alone that of the rest of the public, for whom the last 6 months have not exactly been days of wine and roses.

The press and Opposition MPs have largely focused on the payments to PR consultants. But there are more important aspects of this story which are being missed. It contains many of the elements found in investigations into wrongdoing and other foul-ups.

A hurried/inadequate appointments process and poor/non-existent due diligence. According to reports, the PM picked her personally. There was no formal public appointment process with the role advertised and applicants considered and interviewed against agreed criteria. Even Ms Bingham herself wondered whether she had the right knowledge for the job, though that does beg the question of what the job actually was. This does not just raise concerns about “who you know” being the only relevant qualification. It does a disservice to good candidates who risk being tainted and their work – particularly if there are difficulties – being undermined by this charge. It almost inevitably leads to no or poor due diligence being done, though not just in such cases. In pretty much every investigation I did, there were clues, sometimes bloody big ones, right at the start of the hiring process, that the person being hired was a wrong’un. Why these are ignored is for another time. But a failure to ask or address hard questions only stores up trouble for later.

What is the mandate? What was Ms Bingham brought in to do? What did success mean? How was this to be assessed? By whom? Does anyone know? If the mandate is unclear, it allows people to do what they want. Some of that may be worthwhile. Some may be utterly pointless or inadequate. And some may be highly questionable. Or, at worst, criminal.

Reporting lines. Usually seen as boring HR stuff. Don’t believe this for a minute. Someone needs to be in charge of an appointee, needs to be clear about what their job is, what can and cannot be done, what the limits are, what decisions need the involvement of others etc. Someone needs to be able to read the riot act, if needed. Apparently Ms Bingham reports to the PM. For all practical purposes, this is meaningless. The PM is directly responsible for 22 Cabinet Ministers, the Cabinet Secretary and his special advisors. Even a Stakhanovite micro-manager existing on 4 hours sleep a night would have difficulty managing that lot. The current PM hardly merits such a description. Ms Bingham’s role seems to have a Cheshire Cat quality. No department was responsible for signing off what she did (including talks given to private investors) but nonetheless civil servants felt able (or were ordered – by whom?) to prepare presentations and authorise expenditure for her personal benefit.

Conflicts of interest. This is the nub of the issue – not the expensive PR. There are any number of actual or potential conflicts of interest here, inevitably given her background and role at SV Health Investors: between her governmental role and her private equity role, between the SP7 Impact Medicine Fund she is Managing Partner of and the fund (British Patient Capital) set up by the government to invest in vaccines, between herself and her husband, a Treasury Minister in a department which controls what how much is spent and where, between herself and her fund and other investors in this sector, between her PR advisors and their other clients. What should be the case is that the interests of the public, as mediated through government, should be put ahead of any other interest, including the political interests of the Conservative party, any Ministers in it, herself, her other employers or other actual or potential clients/investors. Some of these actual or potential conflicts require careful consideration of legal and regulatory requirements if laws are not to be broken or wrongful conduct by others facilitated. The key is to understand what they are and manage them very carefully indeed – not just to avoid any actual misbehaviour – but even the suspicion of it. Full transparency is essential. Like Caesar’s wife, those brought in from the private sector for a limited period – something which can be of benefit to both government and public – need to be above suspicion.

Some questions:-

Why are the names of those on the Vaccines Task Force not public? 

What conflicts of interest might they have?

How are these being addressed? In particular, what “mitigating measures” have been put in place to manage any conflicts of interest? 

What legal/compliance advice on these has been obtained and from whom? 

Who is responsible for monitoring this?

Did Ms Bingham continue to receive a salary or other payments from SV Health Investors after she took on a government role?

What controls were placed over the use she could make of confidential information obtained by virtue of her government role? Not just during her time in government but for a period after she returns to the private sector?

What guidance was given about the laws on the use/misuse of Unpublished Price Sensitive Information, the misuse of which may amount to insider dealing, a serious criminal and regulatory offence? This particularly arises in the context of her reported talk to a private investors’ conference. But also with regard to her comments about limiting a vaccine to certain age groups or its potentially harmful side effects, comments which can impact the share price of pharmaceutical companies. These are not purely theoretical concerns: there have been numerous regulatory actions here and in the US targeted at those in the pharmaceutical sector who whether because of their medical expertise or other inside knowledge (such as knowing what investments a government is likely to make) have valuable information but are careless in how they use it.

Who authorised (did anyone?) her presentation to an investors’ conference? Have there been others? Or other private meetings with potential investors?

What was shared and on what terms?

What about the PR advisors, their conflicts and their use of governmental/confidential information? Why are they needed at all?

Did she need to get government approval for public statements eg on who would get a vaccine?

There may well be good answers to these questions. But they really should not need asking now when concerns have been raised. These matters should have been properly and transparently deal with and made public right at the start. It would have been wise of Ms Bingham to insist on this rather than PR advisors. But if four decades in the City has taught me anything, it is that there is a sort of stupidity that only the highly educated are capable of. 

It is not just a matter of good governance. It is a question of trust. Trust that the right people and advisors are being appointed for the right reasons. Trust that taxpayers’ money is being spent wisely. Trust that government roles and information are not being misused for private gain. Trust that there is proper Ministerial accountability for those brought in to help government work effectively. Trust that laws and rules apply equally to all.

The only way we are going to get past the miseries Covid has inflicted on us is if there is a vaccine, taken up by the majority of the population. What we don’t need at such a time is behaviour which risks undermining trust in vaccines, not when the most minor point or loopy concern is leapt on by those with absurd conspiracy theories about either viruses or vaccines. As for Hancock, he should try engaging brain before opening his mouth or, better still, staying away from interviews until he has learnt some common-sense.

Cyclefree

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