Daily catch-up: The Cameron and Corbyn speeches their own parties hated

More Europe, titles that give away the ending and another genuine shop name

John Rentoul
Tuesday 23 February 2016 09:20 GMT
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A Chinese takeaway and delivery service in Worcester for my collection of Genuine Shop Names, from Toby Barrett.

• An extraordinary day in the House of Commons yesterday. The two main party leaders spoke to the intense discomfort of their own benches behind them. David Cameron was heard in silence on the Conservative side, broken by occasional barracking, including Boris Johnson shouting, "Rubbish!" The Labour side, meanwhile, had not enjoyed themselves as much since 2007.

Then Jeremy Corbyn stood up to reply and the roles were reversed. "The bankers the bonuses the Tories," was an approximate paraphrase. I cannot think of a worse speech delivered by a party leader from the despatch box:

The European Union will be a vital part of how we, as a country, meet those challenges, so it is therefore more than disappointing that the Prime Minister’s deal has failed to address a single one of those issues. Last week, like him, I was in Brussels meeting Heads of Government and leaders of European Socialist parties, one of whom said to me – [Hon. Members: “Who are you?”] [Laughter.] No. What they said[Interruption.] The Conservative party might care to think for a moment about what is going on. One person said to me, and I thought it was quite profound, “We are discussing the future of a continent and one English Tory has reduced it to the issue of taking away benefits”from workers and children. The reality is that this entire negotiation has not been about the challenges facing our continent or about the issues facing the people of Britain. Indeed, it has been a theatrical sideshow about trying to appeaseor failing to appeasehalf of the Prime Minister’s own Conservative party.

Do read the whole thing if you can bear it.

I have written for The Independent today on Labour's failure to provide leadership on the European question, at a time when the Conservatives are so deeply divided.

Clarification needed. "We’re going to settle all that later," the Prime Minister told Andrew Marr on Sunday about how in-work benefits for new EU arrivals will be phased in during their first four years in this country. Is that not an important detail? Does it not have to be negotiated with the European Parliament? Will it be settled before the British people vote on 23 June?

The Top 10 in The New Review, the Independent on Sunday magazine, was Titles That Give Away the Ending.

There were many other good nominations. Gina Jolliffe proposed Brief Encounter: "It was not going to extend to a diamond anniversary..."

Julia Hartley-Brewer ‏suggested The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, "although that actually tells the story backwards".

Many correspondents including Darren Sugg and Sarah Terry wanted The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and there were nominations for Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Warwick Smith) and ‏The End of the Affair (Terry Stiastny).

Sahar Zivan suggested Snakes on a Plane, saying that it "gets extra credit for giving away not just the ending, but the whole film". I excluded it because it has also been nominated for forthcoming Top 10 Films In Which the Pitch Must Have Been the Title, suggested by Peter Stewart (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is another). Daniel Jackson says they are called high-concept films, which is a brilliant euphemism.

Phillip Edwards drew my attention to a list of Spoilerific Titles at Good Reads.

And finally, Graham Fildes nominated The One That Got Away:

A book by Kendal Burt and James Leasor that was adapted to make a movie of the same title starring Hardy Kruger in 1957. The story was based on true events, namely the fact that Luftwaffe pilot Franz von Werra, shot down over Britain in 1940 and captured, became the only German prisoner of war of the Second World War to escape and make it home to Germany.

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