Today’s Political Headlines – 19 March 2018

Today’s Political Headlines include Davis in Brussels, the betting machine cap, Momentum ‘radically transforming’ Labour and Facebook’s data issue. 

Davis in Brussels for transition talks amid fears over Irish border pressure
The Financial Times reports that Brexit Secretary David Davis is holding urgent talks in Brussels today to secure a transition deal. Aides say that he is ‘confident’, but there are fears that the UK may be pressured to make new commitments over the Irish border. According to The Guardian, the UK has already abandoned plans to repatriate control of fisheries during the transition period. In The Daily Telegraph, Jacob Rees-Mogg warns that the UK risks becoming a ‘joke nation’ if it cannot sign trade deals during the transition.

Betting machine wagers should be cut to £30 or less, Gambling Commission says
The BBC reports that the Gambling Commission has called for the maximum stake on fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT) to be cut to £30 or less, with the maximum stake on ‘slots games’ £2. The advice is part of the Government’s review of gambling machines, with a decision due in the coming weeks.

Momentum ‘radically transforming’ Labour
An investigation by The Guardian reveals that Momentum is ‘radically transforming’ Labour. The paper finds that local branches of Momentum are ‘challenging party orthodoxies, flouting national membership rules and fighting to get their activists selected’. The paper also says that there are signs of a fightback against the organisation, with Momentum backed candidate only winning a third of parliamentary selections.

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook under fire over data leak revelations
The Times reports that MPs have called for the privacy regulator to be handled stronger powers to investigate technology companies, following the leaking of the personal data of millions of Facebook users. Damian Collins, chair of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has accused Cambridge Analytica of lying to Parliament, and Facebook of misleading MPs.

Johnson under ‘growing pressure’ over garden bridge
The Guardian says that Boris Johnson is under ‘growing pressure’ over the scrapped garden bridge project. Labours’ Shadow Communities Secretary Andrew Gwynne has written to the Foreign Secretary, asking him to provide evidence for his assertion that the journalist Will Hurst criticised the project because he disliked the bridge’s designer.

A&E wait length masked by official figures
The Times reveals that tens of thousands more patients spent more than 12 hours in A&E waiting for a bed last year than revealed by official figures. The discrepancy is because official figures only record the time from a doctor deciding to admit a patient, not from the patient arriving at A&E. Sarah Wollaston, Chair of the Commons Health Committee, warned that long waits raised concerns about patient safety.

Labour to offer ‘more generous’ social care cap
The Daily Mirror reports that Shadow Care Minister Barbara Keeley will pledge to outflank the Tories on social care, implementing ‘a maximum limit on care costs at a more generous level than currently set in the Care Act regulations’. This might include widening the scope of the cap to include costs such as accommodation.

£26m to be spent on breakfast clubs
According to The Sun, ministers are to invest £26m in breakfast clubs at 1770 schools around the country. Two charities, Family Action and Magic Breakfast, will be responsible for running the clubs, funded by the new soft drinks levy and due to start this spring.

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