Donald Trump had talked up prospects for ‘very big’ deal that could be achieved in a year

Boris Johnson has played down the prospects of striking a trade agreement with Donald Trump within 12 months, saying that timetable was “tight” and would require flexibility from the US.

Trump talked up the prospects for a US-UK trade agreement when the two men met face to face in Biarritz on Sunday, for the first time since Johnson became prime minister.

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Stand with our party at the next general election to help end violence against women

• Abuse survivors to take on five MPs at next general election

This is personal. What kind of person makes our laws should be personal to all of us.

Since allegations of sexual harassment and violence by MPs first emerged 20 months ago, the Women’s Equality party, for which I am a candidate, has been campaigning to hold those accused to account. As a survivor of domestic violence, I know only too well how important justice is.

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It’s not leaving the EU without a deal but jitters in parliament afterwards that the prime minister should worry about

Are you ready for a no-deal Brexit? Have you stockpiled enough toilet paper? Built a small fort of tinned tomatoes, just in case? Over the next few weeks, government adverts will start warning the British public, businesses and neighbouring countries to prepare for Britain leaving the European Union without a deal, even though the official position of the government is that it still wants an agreement with Brussels.

Ministers insist that they are now preparing properly for this sort of departure on 31 October, and that leaked documents predicting chaos are out of date, wrong, and being released by political opponents who want to scaremonger. They point to the extra ?2.1bn being spent on protecting the supply of medicines, on ports and important freight routes, and on preparing local authorities. They argue that Boris Johnson’s administration is taking no deal seriously, unlike Theresa May and her chancellor, Philip Hammond.

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Action urged as research shows the impact of symptoms on large proportion of workforce

British MPs are pushing for clear workplace policies to protect women going through the menopause, which exacts a hefty personal and professional toll on as many as one in four females.

A menopause policy should be as commonplace as maternity schemes in businesses and organisations, said the MPs, some of whom want legislation to force through the reforms.

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PM says keeping ?39bn is not threat but ‘reality’ before meeting with Donald Tusk

Boris Johnson has said the ?39bn Brexit divorce bill would not “strictly speaking” be owed to Brussels in full in the event of no deal, insisting: “It’s not a threat. It’s a reality.”

Speaking to broadcasters as he prepared to meet the European council president, Donald Tusk, at the G7 summit in Biarritz, Johnson said: “If we come out without an agreement it is certainly true that the ?39bn is no longer, strictly speaking, owed.”

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Letter to Boris Johnson marks escalation of war of words between ex-chancellor and No 10

Philip Hammond has written to Boris Johnson to demand an apology from the prime minster for suggestions that he or other ministers in the previous government could have been behind the leaking of a dossier detailing Britain’s plans for a no-deal Brexit.

Blaming former ministers cast questions on their integrity, said the former chancellor, in a letter to Johnson of which he also tweeted a copy on Sunday morning as the prime minister was engaged in the G7 meeting in Biarritz.

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Labour frontbencher accuses Lib Dem leader of wanting to drag Queen into political crisis

Jo Swinson was being “extremely petulant” when she dismissed Jeremy Corbyn’s call to make him prime minister to block a no-deal Brexit, according to the Labour frontbencher Barry Gardiner.

In comments likely to ratchet up tensions between the two parties before a meeting Corbyn has called of parliamentary opponents of no deal, Gardiner accused the Liberal Democrat leader of wanting to propel the Queen into a constitutional crisis.

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The dialectical relation between politics and comedy is taking us somewhere deeply unfunny

Hello, I’ll be standing in for David Mitchell this week, and Stewart Lee next. I’d like to apologise for this in advance: regular readers of this column have become used to scintillating satire from these two, delivered via crisp, witty prose. What do I have to offer in return? Nothing but grim jeremiads about the dreadful state we’re in – and pretentious, jargon-laden analyses about how we got here. True, I too was once a well-known light entertainer on national television, but in recent years I’ve fallen victim to the worst character trait of the ageing farceur: a desire to be taken … seriously – an inclination that has, quite rightly, coincided with my gently smelly slide down into Stygian obscurity.

Bobbing about down here, I’ve begun to suspect that my status in our septic, MRSA-ridden isle exists in an inverse correlation to that of Her Highness’s current first minister. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that, in search of his destiny as “world king”, Boris Johnson turned to television to build his base, and in particular to the satirical news show Have I Got News for You. Throughout a number of barnstorming appearances, Johnson cemented his reputation as a charming and self-deprecating Old Etonian, whose tousled blond mop nonetheless surmounted a mind like a steel trap. Even at the time, commentators remarked on how bizarre it was that serving politicians were prepared to go on the show and risk being eviscerated by their fellow panellists – however, by perfecting his routine (in Marxist terms, his “praxis”), Johnson enacted the dialectical relation between politics and comedy that has since typified our era.

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Opinions are polarised over the reaction in Berlin and Paris to the PM’s Brexit gambit

On an unfavourable day, viewing Brexit-era Britain from the outside is like watching a goldfish circling the castle ornament in its bowl. The country seems short of memory, hazy of sight and prone to fluttering around kitsch visions of the past.

The reporting of Boris Johnson’s tour of Europe was a case in point. Eurosceptic tabloids celebrated the supposed infectiousness of the prime minister’s optimism: “Ja, we can,” ventriloquised the Daily Mail over a photo of Angela Merkel sharing a drink with him. On Friday, the newspaper covered his return from a meeting with Emmanuel Macron with a shot of him raising his hands over his head in victory. By contrast, some Remainers saw in Merkel’s comment – “we could also find [a solution] in the next 30 days, why not?” – an attempt to mock or troll the prime minister. They rolled their eyes at film footage seemingly showing Macron urging Johnson to get his feet off a table during their meeting in the ?lys?e Palace.

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The health of the nation depends on not acquiescing in the folly of no deal, however tempting it may be to retreat

I have a message for the many people I encounter who have given up reading anything about Brexit: I feel your pain! I sympathise with those who say: “I am fed up; why don’t they just get on with it?” Unfortunately, they could not be more mistaken.

“Getting on with it” would be – well, allow me to quote a recent leading article in my journalistic alma mater, the normally restrained Financial Times. A fortnight ago, the FT warned: “The UK is careering towards the precipice, with dire implications for its economy, security, and the union of nations it comprises. It is now parliament’s duty to prevent the British government from visiting a calamity on its own country on October 31.”

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Is it really any wonder that there is so much consternation in Europe at the negotiating tactics employed by the prime minister over Brexit and the blasted backstop?

His full linguistic prowess was on display before his meetings last week with Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron: “We can’t get it through parliament as it is. So I’m going to go at it... with a lot of oomph.” For good measure, he added that there needed to be a “total backstop-ectomy” if there is to be any chance of a Brexit deal.

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The foundations of the dynamic economies of the 21st century will be massive agglomerations of people. In the new era of the learning machine, anything that is routine – from a production line to the legal processes surrounding buying and selling a house – will be performed by a robot. What will drive economic activity instead are myriad face-to-face interactions, from education to medicine, which can’t be done by machines but can be done by people living in vast, highly-connected urban areas that foster such interactivity.

This trend is already clear – think Tokyo and Tokyo Bay, San Francisco Bay, the M25 area in London, the Beijing orbital rings. In an age of capitalism with robots, the advantage of such areas is going to become even more marked. Essentially, the more an economy can agglomerate, the more it will take off, especially if it is supported by fit-for-purpose public interventions and investment.

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The UK has enjoyed the privileges of the single market. Things are tougher outside it

The blame game is upon us. Since it is hard to believe that Boris Johnson could be so naive as to think that the European Union will reopen the withdrawal agreement or ditch the Irish backstop, it seems likely that he is actively pursuing a no-deal Brexit. But it is obviously in the prime minister’s interest to be seen as the innocent party, especially in the context of a general election that now seems highly likely.

And so, in his recent letter to Donald Tusk, Johnson wrote: “This government will not put in place infrastructure, checks or controls at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.” Few outside the UK take such a claim seriously. If the UK were to follow such a course of action, it would be in breach not only of its World Trade Organization obligation to treat all its trade partners equally but of sundry other international obligations and agreements. The British government’s own Yellowhammer report, which was leaked last week, concluded that attempts to avoid a hard border in Ireland would be “unsustainable”.

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As the two meet for first time since Johnson’s election, PM lists British products facing US ‘bureaucratic obstacles’

Boris Johnson will challenge Donald Trump to throw open US markets to British exporters after Brexit, when the two men sit down together on Sunday for their first face-to-face meeting since Johnson became prime minister.

Speaking to reporters en route to the G7 summit in the French town of Biarritz, Johnson listed a string of British products, from cars to cauliflowers and pork pies to rulers, which he claimed faced unnecessary export barriers in the US.

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A quarter of UK voters have started taking precautions against the adverse consequences of a no-deal Brexit, including stockpiling food, toiletries and medicines, according to a new Opinium/Observer poll.

While 75% of those questioned said they had taken no special action, the remaining 25% said they had taken one or more of a series of measures listed by Opinium, which also included altering travel plans and delaying major purchases.

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Secret plan to block any delay in leaving EU is likely to anger European leaders at G7 summit

Boris Johnson has asked the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, whether parliament can be shut down for five weeks from 9 September in what appears to be a concerted plan to stop MPs forcing a further extension to Brexit, according to leaked government correspondence.

An email from senior government advisers to an adviser in No 10 – written within the last 10 days and seen by the Observer – makes clear that the prime minister has recently requested guidance on the legality of such a move, known as prorogation. The initial legal guidance given in the email is that shutting parliament may well be possible, unless action being taken in the courts to block such a move by anti-Brexit campaigners succeeds in the meantime.

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Look who’s trotting up to join climate change, global recession and war…

• You can buy your own print of this cartoon

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Former senior diplomats write to PM urging him to ‘signal a different approach’ at G7 summit

Leaving the European Union without a deal would vastly shrink the UK’s international influence and would represent “the biggest unilateral abandonment” of long-term British interests in modern history, a group of former ambassadors have claimed.

In a letter, signed by 25 former senior diplomats and published in the Times, they urged Boris Johnson to “signal a different approach” at this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz, France, and retain “close relationships with our European neighbours”.

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Boris Johnson also expected to discuss Iran with Donald Trump at summit in Biarritz

Britain will continue to be an “energetic partner” to its international allies after Brexit, Boris Johnson has said, as he prepared to fly to Biarritz for the G7 summit – his first major appearance on the world stage as prime minister.

Fresh from Brexit discussions in Berlin and Paris this week, Johnson will use a string of bilateral meetings with world leaders in the French resort to underline Britain’s determination to remain internationalist.

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Labour leader vows to unlock children’s potential as he gears up for possible snap election

Jeremy Corbyn has met children at a lunch club in Swansea to highlight Labour’s policies for young people, in the latest of a series of campaign-style stops as his party gears up for a possible snap general election.

The Labour leader claimed the government was “failing a whole generation of children” and vowed his party would “unlock the potential of every child, not just a lucky few” as he helped to serve lunches, alongside the MP for Swansea East, Carolyn Harris.

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Chief of staff also arrested after police reportedly raided MP’s constituency office

The independent MP Jared O’Mara has been arrested on suspicion of fraud, sources in Sheffield have said. He was arrested at the same time as his chief of staff, Gareth Arnold, the BBC reported.

Police arrested the pair a week ago and Arnold was held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud, according to the Daily Mirror.

Officers raided the MP’s constituency office, removing documents and computers for investigation on Friday last week, the newspaper reported. The two men were released on Saturday evening pending further investigation.

It has previously been claimed that O’Mara, who was formerly with Labour before becoming an independent, has submitted paperwork for his resignation as an MP for Sheffield Hallam, dated for when parliament returns in September.

In July, O’Mara said he was “taking time out for mental health treatment” and promised to resign at the end of summer recess after allegations of sexual misconduct towards staff.

Arnold quit his role in July in dramatic fashion, posting his resignation statement on O’Mara’s Twitter account, however earlier this month he claimed to be still working for the outgoing MP.

Arnold told the BBC two weeks ago that he had “extended his notice period” but admitted he had not been cleared by parliamentary authorities to work in the office, including having access to O’Mara’s official email account.

He said: “I am running a constituency office on behalf of an MP without the required security clearance from the parliamentary authorities. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

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Independent MPs also say preference is to use legislation rather than no-confidence vote

• Follow all today’s political developments live

Rebel Conservatives and independent MPs have expressed deep scepticism after an invite from Jeremy Corbyn to discuss ways to stop a no-deal Brexit, making it explicit that their preference was to stop it by legislation, not through a Labour-led vote of no confidence.

The former Conservative MP Nick Boles demanded the Labour leader rule out backing a general election that could lead to the UK leaving the EU without a deal on 31 October.

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Richard Braine accused of stoking tensions after also saying there are no ‘moderate Muslims’

Richard Braine, the new Ukip leader, has been accused of whipping up religious tensions and anti-Muslim prejudice after leaked emails showed he argued that people should no more want Muslims to settle in their country than Nazis.

Braine, who won the leadership after a campaign in which he expressed anti-Islam views, also suggested that non-Muslims needed to help Muslims to “cast out their demon” and argued there was no such thing as “moderate Muslims”.

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Party finds itself isolated after opposition figures – and some Tories – say they would back Labour plan

The Liberal Democrats are under growing pressure to back Jeremy Corbyn as a caretaker prime minister to stop a no-deal Brexit after leading opposition figures and even one former Conservative minister said they were open to the idea.

With anti-no-deal groups rapidly calibrating their positions in the aftermath of Corbyn’s intervention, a split has opened up among MPs hoping to block Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy. But while the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens said they would engage with Corbyn’s offer, the Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, laid out a rival plan for a national unity government led by the Tory veteran Ken Clarke or Labour’s Harriet Harman.

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