Inside Politics: Donald Trump touches down during election campaign’s home stretch

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There are only nine – nine! – days until we go to the polls

Gibbo, Burnsy, Cheeks, Josh and Morty – what a bunch of absolute legends. A screenshot of their WhatsApp group chat somehow managed to start a wild, false, nonsensical social media rumour the Queen was dead. The Queen is not dead, but she may wish she was. Her Majesty has to welcome Donald Trump – the king of false claims and wild social media nonsense – to Buckingham Palace later today. While Jeremy Corbyn tries to get Trump’s attention with a letter about the NHS, Boris Johnson will attempt to avoid the US president during his two-day visit for the NATO summit. Maybe Trump could use some of his downtime to meet up with Gibbo, Burnsy, Cheeks and the boys instead? I’m Adam Forrest, and welcome to The Independent’s daily Inside Politics briefing.

Inside the bubble

Our chief political commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for on the campaign trail today:

Nightmare for Boris Johnson: Donald Trump is in London. They will spend time together at a Buckingham Palace reception for Nato leaders, followed by another at Downing Street. The worst thing for the prime minister’s entourage is that no one knows what the US president will say, according to No 10 officials who had to try to limit the damage the last time he was here. Jeremy Corbyn will no doubt try to maximise the damage by repeating his demands that Johnson tell Trump that the NHS is not for sale and that he is calling off UK-US trade talks until the president has “amended the US negotiating objectives”.

Daily briefing

MICHELLE, MA BELLE: Corbyn says he’s willing to communicate with “anybody” – even his most powerful enemies. And so the Labour leader has written to Trump, asking him to “urgently clarify that our NHS is genuinely off the table” in UK-US trade talks. Corbyn used a speech in Hastings on Monday night to focus on the leaked dossier of government documents. “It’s frightening,” he told supporters. “They are discussing extending the patents on medicines for export to the British market.” American politics was clearly on Corbyn’s mind, borrowing from Michelle Obama as he attacked the nasty Tories. “When they go low we go high,” he said. “We are better than them.” According to the Atlantic Council, a (very) right-wing think tank, Corbyn is not above spreading Russian disinformation. The group told The Telegraph the NHS-related dossier and its release “carries the spectre of foreign influence”.

BROKEN RECORD: Johnson, meanwhile, tried out a new line on an audience in Colchester, claiming the British public was like the “AA,” helping fix the broken-down nation. Not his best. The PM brushed aside accusations he was using the London Bridge attack for political point scoring. Again talking about sentencing and prisoner release, he said some convicted terrorists were beyond rehabilitation – “just too tough to crack”. Dave Merritt, the father of victim Jack Merritt, pleaded against “even more draconian sentences,” and said his son was “being used to perpetuate an agenda of hate”. The government has launched an urgent review of terrorism offenders who are imminently to be released from prison, beyond the 74 released extremists currently under licence conditions. “We will look at a wider list of a few hundred people,” said the justice secretary Robert Buckland.

ATTACK OF THE BRAIN DEAD: It’s been on the schedule for a while, but it’s hard to process the arrival of Donald J. Trump during the final stretch of a general election campaign. Johnson will hide behind the Christmas tree to avoid the idea he’s in cahoots with the guy who wants to get his hands on the NHS. The PM is hoping to focus on a “unity” message and will try to repair relations between French president Emmanuel Macron and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Macron recently said Nato was experiencing “brain death”, prompting Erdogan to tell him: “You should check whether you are brain dead.” If you didn’t already know Corbyn is no fan of Nato, a clip of 2014 speech has helpfully re-surfaced in which he states: “I am no fan of Nato.” So there you go. Now you know.

HEEL OR HIGH WATER: Unite boss Len McClusky has bad news and good news for those hoping to see the Nato sceptic at No 10. Having surveyed 70,000 of his members, he admitted many still aren’t sure whether to vote Labour or not – something of an “Achilles’ heel”. But McClusky is taking heart from the fact there are so many are undecideds in “important weathervane” seats in the north and midlands. The union leader thinks the party can “get them to look, in a sense, beyond Brexit”. Hmmm. Len also stuck his neck out for his pal Jezza, arguing there should “a period of reflection so that there’s not a knee-jerk reaction to blame A, B, C, D or E” if Labour loses. Perhaps the blame game won’t be necessary. The latest ICM survey shows Labour up at 35 per cent – the party’s highest level since the spring.

LIB, ACTUALLY: If you happen to live in one of the Liberal Democrats’ target seats in London, I would half expect Hugh Grant to turn up at your door this week. Out campaigning for the party, he gave a very diffident, Hugh Grant-like speech to activists. Grant also told The Independent: “My personal fantasy would be another hung parliament, in which parliament runs the country.” Does he also fantastise about acting out his Love, Actually role as a political leader? Grant said he did at one point consider standing for parliament. “I talked to lots of people but in the end think I would struggle with party orders.” Meanwhile, chair of Jo Swinson’s re-election campaign, sounds terrified the leader could lose her East Dunbartonshire seat. “Please don’t tell us you mean to come, just come,” she said in an email to activists.

DONE UP LIKE A KIPPER: Did you know Ukip still exists? Well they do. They have a manifesto and a leader. She’s called Pat Mountain and she gave a fascinatingly terrible interview on Sky News. Not so much a car crash as an Evil Knievel-style inevitable wreck, Pat struggled to explain immigration so badly she eventually gave up and asked Adam Boulton if he had any ideas. Denying the party was racist, she was asked if Ukip any black candidates. “No we haven’t got any. Well, we have got … erm … you must think I’m dreadful I don’t know this. We do have, I think he’s Indian.” At the manifesto launch things turned weirder still. Campaign co-ordinator Freddy Vachha has gave an anti-establishment speech so strange it was almost impressive. “You ask what is our policy. I say it is to wage war! War by sea, land and air! War with all our might and all the strength that God can give us!”

On the record

“Welcome POTUS and FLOTUS to the UK – it’s great to have them back!”

Woody Johnson, US ambassador to the UK, is one of the very few people excited at Trump’s arrival.

From the Twitterati

“It does have all the hallmarks of that Hillary email leak. It’s pretty clear Putin preferred Trump over Clinton. It’s blindingly obvious he prefers Corbyn over Boris.”

The Guido Fawkes reporter Tom Harwood indulges in conspiratorial thinking over Labour’s leaked NHS negotiation documents...

“Boris Johnson is refusing to release an actual dossier on Russian meddling in British politics, including the Conservative party.”

...while journalist Rachel Shabi reminds us of the documents we haven’t seen yet.

Essential reading

Tom Peck, The Independent: Using a terrorist attack for political gain is nothing new. But only Boris Johnson could play it for laughs

Chuka Umunna, The Independent: Johnson can try to distance himself from Trump at the Nato summit – but we all know they’re two peas in a pod

Polly Toynbee, The Guardian: To hold back the Tory wave, progressives will have to join forces

Paul Krugman, The New York Times: America’s red state death trip

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