Well, that was a bit of a damp squib from Boris and Ursula. I’d waited to write this until we had news of today’s great deadline: to terminate the trade talks, or to move forward on the basis of some concrete breakthrough. We’re still talking, but on the basis of - we cannot tell, but there doesn’t seem to have been any progress.
It’s right that the negotiations are being conducted in confidence. If the two sides were meeting in public (or like a British cabinet meeting which is to all intents and purposes public, such is the leakiness of our leaders) it would be impossible for each side to explore options, let alone take steps towards each other and coordinate the mutual gains and pains. For this reason there’s not much point analysing the smoke signals we’re receiving from Brussels. I remain logically convinced that a deal will be struck because it is so evidently in both sides’ interests; and it is good news that the vexed issue of the Irish border was quietly sorted out this week. But I appreciate that a deeper logic is at work than practicalities and mutual interests - the pride and integrity of two sovereign authorities may yet prover superior to the attractions of frictionless trade.
I will understand if so. On Monday I asked the Cabinet Office minister Penny Mordaunt to confirm (though I put it in a more long-winded way) that no deal is better than a bad deal, which she kindly did (see here). The long-term effects of an arrangement that keeps us subject to the EU would be far worse, both economically and politically, than the short-term effects of reverting to WTO rules on 1 January. But I fully recognise that for people who deal daily with Europe, or whose businesses depend on our trade with the continent - and whose margins would be wiped out if high tariffs were imposed - the prospect of a no-deal exit is simply appalling. I am glad that we had news this weekend that the Chancellor is working up a package of support for the sectors most likely to be impacted by no-deal - of which farming is the most important, of course.
I spent Thursday on a cold tank range in Dorset. Between the B3070 and the Jurassic Coast is a mile or two of plain. Here the British Army trains its tank crews, and shoots its rounds miles out to sea. With colleagues from the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, dressed in inadequate camouflage (I noticed the generals all wore fleeces or woolly jumpers under their tunics), we watched the big Challengers trundle up and down the dirt tracks and blaze away at targets. We also had a chance to peer inside these ‘platforms’, as they seem to be called, and talk to the soldiers who operate them. I am fuller than ever of admiration for our troops, who endure great hardship, discomfort and danger on our behalf.
Wiltshire benefits from a significant slice of new investment in the NHS announced this week. I explained the new grants in a post here, adding that I won’t be satisfied till we get the long-promised Integrated Health Centre in Devizes. My predecessor Claire Perry O’Neill succeeded in getting the NHS to agree to fund this much-needed medical practice. My job is to make sure they deliver on the promise, and soon. I am on the case.
I had the pleasure yesterday of a visit to Wellington Academy, a big secondary school in Tidworth which also takes boarders. I spoke to a hundred or so sixth formers, and started by commiserating with them on their disrupted education. I needn’t have - no doubt they have missed out on a lot of teaching, but they seemed bright, well-informed, engaged and ambitious.
Tidworth is, of course, the real (if not official) home of the British Army, where I had the honour of laying a wreath on Remembrance Sunday last month. The Army didn’t know this in 1897 when it moved in, but as settlements discovered in 1995 showed the place was inhabited 3,000 years ago. Tidworth, with all its military kit, is one of the most modern parts of my constituency, and one of the oldest.