This morning’s Telegraph is claiming that bottler Boris is set to drop plans to relax England’s state imposed restrictions on Sunday trading hours. Other news outlets are saying the policy change is being kept ‘under review’. Over the weekend the Sunday Telegraph (how dare they print and distribute on such a special day) claimed that 50 Tories were prepared to vote against liberalisation – although only seven names being made public. In Scotland, businesses are happily free to choose their own trading hours, yet this didn’t stop the SNP shooting down 2016 legislation to legalise it in England…
Guido can reveal an incredibly assiduous campaign was organised by former MP and co-founder of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, David Burrowes, who has been frantically ringing round MPs to get them to oppose the Government, even over the floated temporary year long hiatus in trading restrictions. By contrast, the pro-liberalisation side, led by Nus Ghani, has been dormant in recent weeks and appears to have only amounted to one Sun article two months ago.
High levels of organisation may be obscuring Parliamentary reality on this issue. Guido hears that one of the seven MPs named by the Sunday Telegraph had asked for their name to not be printed. Perhaps this wall of opposition is not as strong as it’s being made out to be…
Always keen to see an MP at the end of a rope, Guido popped down to the annual parliamentary Tug of War last night (all proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Support). Ladies first – Macmillan employees versus Therese Coffey’s team of MPs. Kelly Tolhurst chose the losing side again…
Then the men’s Lords v Commons bout, which saw well-built Remainiacs Alec Shelbrooke (his sixth tug of war appearance) trialling the phrase “Remain” instead of “Stay” as a rallying cry to team-mates. Though in the end it was the Leave heavers who made the difference – hardman captain Mike Penning and Eurosceptic musclemen Nigel Adams and David Burrowes tugged their team to victory. Even the Daily Politics’ Giles Dilnot turning out as a ringer for the Lords couldn’t stop them. Highlight was Bercow calling Shelbrooke “a very big bloke” – Shelbers replied “it’s all relative…”
