Mailwatch(ed) Forum

"Why aren't the Government doing better?", the Guardian constantly asks. Weak sauce attacks like this which get shared with dramatic sounding previews probably don't help. "Revealed" though.

Government "directly lobbying" to get The Open held at Trump-owned Turnberry, per, er, one anonymous source. Other sources have said they just asked about the issue in general, which well you might do if the American President was in your ear about it, and on this occasion will probably remember to keep raising the issue. That's basic fact finding, no?

It won't happen because local infrastructure isn't up to it. The R&A say so on the record. The idea that the Government are going to shell out a fortune for new roads so that the Open can be held there in 2028 (the next 3 years are already allocated) is obvious nonsense.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... tournament

With 'friends' like The Guardian, who needs enemies?

Story that the government is pushing to give Trump a golf tournament at his place in Scotlaned.

The headline:

Revealed: Sources say bosses at R&A, which organises the annual golf tournament, were quizzed about 2028 event

First para:

Senior Whitehall officials have asked golf bosses whether they can host the 2028 Open championship at Donald Trump’s Turnberry course after repeated requests from the US president, sources have said.

But...

One source described the talks as direct lobbying from the government, although others said officials had asked about hypothetical problems with the idea, rather than insisting that it happen.

(my emphasis)

So, the US government asked if this could happen, civil servants responded saying no, and this is 'revealed'. On the basis of a single, anonymous source.

This is dishonest, even by the standards of British journalism. Even by the standards of the tankies at The Guardian.

The guilty party is Kiran Stacey. Biasly gives him a 57% reliability rating.

Another example here.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -ministers

The headline is a blow to ministers, but buried right at the end

However, the UK is making better headway with India and the EU.

Negotiators held crunch talks on Tuesday afternoon with their Indian counterparts, after Piyush Goyal, India’s trade minister, told businesses at a roundtable in London that 25 out of 26 aspects of the deal had been agreed.

UK officials were hopeful of finalising the deal on Tuesday, but one source briefed on the talks said they broke up without agreement on national insurance contributions. A longstanding sticking point has been Delhi’s concern that Indians working temporarily in the UK on business visas must pay national insurance despite not being eligible for UK pensions or social security benefits.

The expectation is that at least one more round of talks will be needed to clinch any deal. Officials are in discussions over a potential visit by Keir Starmer to India this year once an agreement has been finalised.

Meanwhile, British ministers including Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, met Maroš Šefčovič, the EU trade commissioner, amid signs that a UK-EU deal could be getting closer.

Šefčovič tweeted afterwards it had been “a productive exchange on securing balanced trade relationships, as we face new global dynamics”.

The Guardian revealed last week that Brussels was willing to make major concessions to its proposals for a youth mobility scheme to get a deal over the line, including limiting work visas to 12 months, restricting the sectors EU citizens can work in.

However, experts say that the plans to align British agricultural standards with European ones would make it impossible to give concessions on US demands to align with US ones instead.

Anand Menon, the director of the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe, told MPs on Tuesday: “If the Americans say you have to lift the regulations that restrict the access of our goods to your market, that is incompatible with what we need to do to sign a … deal with the EU.”