As expected the government has lost the vote in the Lords on the customs union by 348-225. This will be spun up as a huge win for Remainers that means we are likely to stay in the customs union. That is not the case. Even Remainers Guido has spoken to today agree that is an exaggeration – the vote only requires the government to make a statement outlining its position. The problem is it provides room in the Commons for Remainers to toughen up their amendment there, causing potential problems down the line. No10 must hold firm – staying in a customs union is not Brexit…
We may draw the following conclusions from today’s Prime Minister’s Question time: under a Corbyn government, Napoleon would have won at Waterloo, Roger Bannister would have tripped in the third minute of his four minute mile and Germany would have stuck away three goals in extra time of the 1966 World Cup final. If Jeremy Corbyn ever runs this country, at the very moment he takes office, the fabric of the universe will mysteriously and instantly reverse itself at the molecular level. Time will begin to run backwards. Fate will become only the constant advent of ever more impossible outcomes. To Orwell’s dreadful triad (‘War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength’) Corbyn will add the final term. 
Sterling hit its highest level since the EU referendum today, beating a previous post-Brexit high in January. The pound reached $1.437 this morning. 
Twitter is down – thousands of users have reported service interruptions and difficulties accessing their timelines. The Down Detector website recorded a spike in outages. TweetDeck seems unaffected. 
