After four years at Sky as political editor, Faisal Islam is off to the BBC to become their economics editor. As ever Guido brings you likely runners & riders:

Beth Rigby – she wants it and many viewers think she’s already the pol ed. Must be in with a good chance.

Sophy Ridge – conflicting information as to if she really wants the job, which entails being on the road a lot, given a young child at home. Sky are a progressive employer so they would want to make it work for her. No doubt she could do it.

Chris Mason – if Sky wants to get one back from the BBC Mason would be an obvious choice. Mason might feel that Laura Kuenssberg is going to be in position for a long time and this is a chance for promotion and more money. Is rumoured to be interested in a move.

Nick Watt – again Sky could get their own back on the BBC by pinching Nick from Newsnight. Is he tired of the late nights?

Ross Hawkins – seems a bit frustrated on BBC radio. Could be interested.

Tom Newton-Dunn – a regular on Sky’s late night paper review, Tom’s enthusiasm for appearing on television is well known. Not sure if Sky’s executives share his enthusiasm…

Lewis Goodall – just too young, too Labour and too irritating?

Paul Brand – if Sky were to cast their net further afield – ITV’s political correspondent has had a few eye catching scoops lately.

Ed Conway – Impressive journalist and writes authoritatively about economics. During elections he has covered politics well. Guido’s outside bet.

Amol Rajan – has not publicly ruled himself out for the job.

Sky News’ political editor Faisal Islam quickly backtracked on his doom laden ‘Breaking News Alert’ story today, which initially heavily implied that BMW was to extraordinarily shut down its factory immediately after Brexit. In reality a planned annual maintenance shutdown happens every year.

A quarter of an hour later, Faisal posted an update, for the first time admitting that in reality the factory undergoes an “annual shutdown”.

After pilot licences and mobile roaming scares fell flat last week, Faisal has now scored a hat-trick in bogus Brexit bluster.

The Civil Aviation Authority has put out a searing statement in response to Sky News’ breathless report by Faisal Islam that British pilots would need to be reissued with their licences and would no longer have them recognised by European Aviation Safety Agency in the event of a no deal Brexit. Fasten your seatbelts…

The CAA blasted the Sky report as “misleading” and dismissed the idea that UK pilot licences would cease to be valid in the EU without a Brexit deal. Sky have got it plane wrong:

“Both commercial and private UK pilot licences would remain valid for use on UK-registered aircraft as the United Kingdom is a signatory to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Chicago Convention. Our licences are internationally recognised – including by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) – both now and after 29 March 2019.”

Sky’s claim that all licences would need to be reissued “which would cost millions” was also shot down, with the CAA pointing out that this was a “purely cosmetic change” which would simply be carried out as and when pilots needed licences to be reissued in the normal course of events. It is as daft as suggesting that the Home Office is going to reissue every single British passport the day after Brexit simply to erase the words “European Union” from the cover. Pretty terminal for the report…

The CAA also accused Sky News of further departures from reality with their claims that there would be turbulence in its ability to provide safety oversight to the aviation industry in the event of no deal, “strongly refuting” any suggestion they were concerned and dismissing Sky as “confused”. It certainly wasn’t a First Class story…

The UK’s aviation regulator is confident of a smooth landing whatever the outcome of Brexit – it’s only Sky who are making for the emergency exits. Let’s hope Faisal’s next report is more grounded in reality…

Faisal Islam says linking the disappointing 0.1% growth figure to the bad weather is “laughable”. Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson tweets: “ONS says weather nothing to do with it”. If you actually read the ONS release rather than the Remain spin, they confirm the snow did have a “limited” impact on slowing growth, in three separate ways, on retail trade, petrol sales and construction:

• “some impacts on GDP from the snow in the first quarter of 2018 have been recorded for construction and retail sales”
• “The fall in retail trade was driven by a decrease in petrol sales. This could be attributed to adverse weather conditions, which impacted on travel” 
• “There is some evidence of an impact of the bad weather on construction output… 3.3% fall in construction was the largest downward pull on Q1”

The impact might have been limited overall, it’s just not accurate and snow joke for the Guardian to report “ONS says weather nothing to do with it”…

Robert Peston caused a bit of a stir yesterday afternoon reporting that Theresa May was about to “do a Canada”:

“Her aspiration for after those two or perhaps three years of transition is for our future trading relationship to be what is known – in the ghastly jargon – as CETA plus… What this means is we want a trade deal modelled on Canada’s new one (CETA) with the EU, that has just become operative in interim mode, and not the more intimate integration with the EU of Norway or Switzerland. The reason we are doing a Canada is there has been no resiling from the position taken by the PM in her landmark Lancaster House speech… all of that is broadly May’s position, to be expressed tomorrow.”

May actually ruled Canada out:

“One way of approaching this question is to put forward a stark and unimaginative choice between two models: either something based on European Economic Area membership; or a traditional Free Trade Agreement, such as that the EU has recently negotiated with Canada. I don’t believe either of these options would be best for the UK or for the European Union.”

Doh!

Over at the Telegraph they has this top pre-speech scoop:

Except it didn’t come true, there was no mention of this in the speech. Boris seemed happy too, rather than on the verge of resigning. Doh!

What about all those Remain pundits who said again and again that May had dropped her view that “no deal is better than a bad deal”? Asked by Laura K, May confirmed this was still her position. Doh!

Then there was Sky’s Faisal Islam, who after the speech claimed May was “65% towards the Norway model”. Nope, you can read May’s damning verdict of Norway here. Doh!

Brexit reporting not particularly enlightening at the moment…