Brat(wurst) summer

Good Wednesday morning. This is Dan Bloom.
GET BREXIT DONE: Keir Starmer kicks off a two-day lovebomb of European allies this morning by promising to open negotiations on the U.K.’s biggest ever treaty with Germany. The prime minister who once wanted a second referendum on Britain’s EU membership will say it is now time to “turn a corner on Brexit” … by “resetting” relationships with Europe that were “broken” by the Tories. This long road we’ve been on since 2016 ain’t over yet.
Starmer’s schedule: The PM is due to meet German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in the next hour, followed swiftly by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Starmer and Scholz will then hold a short joint press conference around 10.45 a.m. U.K. time. (The PM will also do a huddle with traveling Lobby hacks.) The PM’s whistlestop trip then moves to France — sans Lobby pack — where he’s due at an Elysée reception ahead of the Paralympics opening ceremony at 7 p.m. He’ll meet with President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.
Tear down this wall: While Downing Street says the trip is all about economic growth and military defense — the PM will meet the CEOs of Siemens Energy and military vehicle supplier Rheinmetall in Germany, and have breakfast in Paris with firms including defense giant Thales — it’s his overnight comments on Brexit which splash the Times, i, Guardian and Independent. No matter how many times Starmer protests he won’t reverse Brexit, return to free movement or join a youth mobility scheme, his friendly language will be seized on with delight in Brussels — and with horror by the Tory Party’s few surviving Brexiteers.
DEVIL IN THE DETAIL: The real question is how this charmfest translates into hard policy. No. 10’s overnight press release said the proposed treaty with Germany will be about “increased collaboration” in areas including — deep breath — “market access, critical science, innovation and tech, clean energy, trade across the North Sea, supply chain resilience, energy security and green transition education, biodiversity, and the environment.” 
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What it doesn’t spell out … is the finer detail around that, such as the U.K.’s biggest asks from the negotiation. No. 10 hasn’t yet elaborated on this, nor said who is on the negotiating team. The Times’ Geri Scott and Bruno Waterfield report officials want preferential access for British businesses to Germany, focused on certifications, tenders and legal hurdles … the Guardian team suggests it could involve sourcing German defense contracts in the U.K. 
Just 1 problem: The Times team also reports that Germany is keen on a mobility scheme for young Europeans to live and work in Britain — the very thing that the U.K. government ruled out last week. One EU source tells the paper Starmer needs to realize “that any access to the EU’s single market comes with obligations on mobility and alignment with European laws, on food safety for example.”
Another issue: The U.K. has “no plans” to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus student exchange scheme, a government spokesperson tells my colleague Jon Stone. Another one off Berlin’s wish list.
All good questions, in summary, for the press conference.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: No. 10 says its negotiating team will spend six months on a treaty which both sides hope will be ready in “early 2025.” And no wonder — dire polls for Scholz’s SPD and a threat from the right mean he may have only 13 months left as chancellor.
Help us, Keir! Neither Macron nor Scholz is a shining light of centrist/center-left success right now, with Macron in negotiations over who will become PM after his snap election left French politics in turmoil. My colleagues Sam Blewett (who’s on the trip with Starmer), Nette Nöstlinger and Esther Webber have a great long read on how it may be the new kid who gives tips to the old hands about keeping the center-left in power, not the other way round.
This probably won’t be in the readout: One No. 10 official tells my colleagues that Starmer’s team is wary of repeating Scholz’s errors. Former Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry and ex-Starmer aides Claire Ainsley and Joss Garman highlight climate policy in particular after the far-right AfD weaponized a planned ban on gas boilers.
THE WIDER PICTURE: A separate defense pact between the U.K. and Germany is in the works between now and the fall, and Starmer and Scholz will discuss intelligence-sharing to tackle illegal migration — a topic on which Scholz is feeling the heat after three people were killed in a knife attack near Düsseldorf last week.
Even wider: All this is about the Labour government’s attempts to cosy up to key European allies in a post-Brexit world where the U.S. is more unreliable, and China is … well, China. (Although Foreign Secretary David Lammy still hopes to visit Beijing in his first 100 days, as first reported by the Guardian). No. 10 was talking up the fact that it is Starmer’s fifth meeting with Scholz and fourth with Macron. Sophia Gaston of the Policy Exchange think tank tells Playbook: “What’s striking about this U.K.-German treaty is its ambitious scope, bringing it much closer to the type of relationship we have with France.”
So, since we’re all bezzies … Perhaps Starmer can do a whip-round for the £10.5 million Britain is spending to get ready for the EU’s new “smart” border? In a not-ominous-at-all development, the operations chief at the port of Dover tells the Times’ Ben Clatworthy that the French government hasn’t actually signed off the planned processing zone yet. Ulp!
BEERS WITH KEIR: A relaxed Starmer in a navy suit and trainers joined traveling hacks for a beer and a pretzel on a bar terrace on the Gendarmenmarkt last night. Downing Street made sure reporting of the causal chat was verboten, Sam texts in to say.
Starm air: The PM flew in — again — on the jet used by the England team to attend the Euros. Like he did just before the election, Starmer sat in the same seat as Gareth Southgate … who has since quit as England manager. At least there’s no risk of him jinxing anyone else this time.
JOBWATCH: Among the U.K. officials on the trip is Tim Barrow, Sam notes. He’s still national security adviser after Starmer nixed the last government’s plans to replace him with general Gwyn Jenkins. A carefully worded story in today’s Times raises questions about what Jenkins knew about alleged summary executions by British special forces in Afghanistan.
Quite the coincidence: The barrister representing Afghan victims’ families was … Richard Hermer, now Starmer’s attorney general. No. 10 denied Hermer was consulted about Jenkins’ appointment, but one imagines more questions may arise about that one.
Jobwatch II: With Barrow’s hopes of becoming U.S. ambassador long dashed, the Telegraph has the most confident-sounding story yet about New Labour operator Peter Mandelson’s dream to take the job. As the mood grows that it’ll be a political appointee (see Tuesday’s Playbook), a “Whitehall source” tells the Telegraph that Mandelson “made a credible pitch for it … he knows power, he understands money, has no problem whatsoever rubbing shoulders with the 1 per cent.”
Jobwatch III: There’s plenty of space in the papers for Starmer trying to bat away cronyism claims around civil service jobs on Tuesday. And separately, a Labour press officer who worked for three months for (now health sec) Wes Streeting has jumped ship to be … a civil service press officer at the DHSC, Guido reports.
And the biggest job of all: Whitehall’s rumor mill will kick into overdrive in the coming weeks after ITV’s Robert Peston fired the starting gun on the search for the next Cabinet secretary. Like Peston, Playbook hears recently resigned Columbia University chief Minouche Shafik could be in the mix … though former Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins has long been said to be the favorite of Downing Street chief of staff Sue Gray.
The *real* biggest job: Speaking of Gray, a new day brings another piece on the internal strife in No. 10. SpAds tell the New Statesman’s George Eaton that briefings of a boys’ and girls’ team duking it out are wide of the mark: “It’s not Sue vs Morgan; it’s Sue vs everyone.” Your author has been told very similar recently.
LOOK BACK IN ANGER: Keir Starmer wants to talk about Germany, but his doom-laden pitch-rolling for the Oct. 30 budget cast a long shadow — and it’s naturally what splashes the Mirror, Mail, FT, Telegraph and Express. Most TV news lives from the Brandenburg Gate last night were still about the PM’s Tuesday morning speech in the No. 10 garden.
Day 2: Handily enough, Rachel Reeves is out and about today — visiting manufacturers in Glasgow and attending a CBI roundtable with Scottish businesses. The chancellor should record a pool clip just after 9.30 a.m. followed by a huddle with regional media.
Drumbeat of gloom: Also out at 9.30 a.m. are stats on workless households, and on inflation rates experienced by different types of families in the U.K. Remember, the phenomenon of cheaper items shooting up proportionally more — “cheapflation” — has been flagged as a problem for the poorest by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Don’t expect answers, though: It is nine weeks today until the budget, but the first Office for Budget Responsibility forecast won’t be handed to the Treasury until Sept. 19. And Reeves is, of course, allergic to talking about tax in advance anyway. That vacuum leaves a flurry of educated guesses about what exactly the “pain” Starmer spoke of will involve.
Such as this: Wealth managers tell the Telegraph Starmer’s speech triggered panicked calls from clients about capital gains tax … The Sun and Mail both reckon he was paving the way for hikes to CGT, inheritance tax and a possible raid on pensions … and the FT points out that Downing Street had to reconfirm Starmer’s vow not to hike corporation tax after he did not mention it in the speech.
Read these runes: On LBC in June, Starmer said “working people” who wouldn’t face tax rises were “people who earn their living, rely on our services, and don’t really have the ability to write a check when they get into trouble.” In his Q&A in the rose garden, when asked about “taxes on working people,” he referred specifically to no rises in income tax, VAT and national insurance. Hmm. No. 10 was denying there’d been any shift last night … though the Telegraph team reckons it’s being used as a basis for Treasury budget planning.
Speculation of the day: Fuel duty campaigner (and Reform UK politician) Howard Cox emailed hacks: “I have credible intelligence that the Treasury has virtually settled, through its internal economic modelling, on increasing Fuel Duty by 10p/litre.”
But nothing beats this: SNP-friendly paper the National has a horrifying facial mashup of Starmer and austerity Chancellor George Osborne. Not one to click on if you’re still having breakfast.
BLUE FLAG: It’s little surprise that the Mail devotes its entire leader column to the speech, fuming: “After concealing his true socialist intentions, the Labour leader has finally come clean … the speech was sanctimonious, mendacious and lacking any vision for mending Britain.”
Red flag: Perhaps more concerning for No. 10 is a big piece in the Mirror (not yet online) by columnist Kevin Maguire. He urges the PM to U-turn on plans to scrap all but the poorest pensioners’ winter fuel payments, warning ominously: “The Mirror postbag is bulging” with letters from “traditional loyal Labour voters feeling coldly betrayed and callously short-changed by a party they helped put into office.”
A way out? The i’s Jane Merrick and Arj Singh look at one alternative from the center-left Social Market Foundation — scrapping the winter fuel payment altogether and extending the separate warm home discount.
One to watch: Energy Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, one of the new crop of MPs elevated to the front bench, has invited energy supplier CEOs and Ofgem, Energy UK and Citizens Advice to a meeting today to discuss their plans for the coming winter.
Continuing to stick the boot in … are Tory spokespeople and leadership contenders — Robert Jenrick has a morning round. They will doubtless point back to Starmer’s claim on June 11: “Nothing in our plans requires us to raise any additional money beyond measures already announced.” (The Mail has a list of similar promises that are now “in tatters.”)
Repeat ad nauseam: Of course Labour says the OBR found a big black hole, while the IFS says we knew the general thrust of the problem (albeit not all of it) already.
MEANWHILE IN SPENDING: Hospitals and other NHS services face a deficit of at least £3.2 billion and need an immediate cash boost in the October budget, NHS Confederation chief Matthew Taylor has told the Times’ Chris Smyth. He adds there is a “genuine risk of a full-on winter crisis” unless patients can be moved out of hospitals faster.
Oh, and: Only 83 prison places were left in male jails on Tuesday, as the Telegraph’s Charles Hymas reported. Officials are hoping it’ll just be a post-bank-holiday low, because more people get banged up over the long weekend while none get released.
But at last it’s not all at Labour’s door: The Scottish government, not Westminster, is to blame for “much of the pressure” on its finances after agreeing higher than expected pay deals and a council tax freeze, a watchdog said. More from the Scotsman.
Not fitting the narrative: The pound is at its highest against the dollar for more than two years. Though Reuters suggests it may have more to do with the U.S. than us.
PARLIAMENT: Feet up. 
SCOOP — TRUSS VS. SELDON: She took on the OBR, the Bank of England and the “blob” — now Liz Truss is going toe to toe with veteran political biographer Anthony Seldon. A spokesperson for the ex-PM texts Playbook in the small hours to hit back at a claim in Seldon’s book, out Thursday, that one of her aides was told she was “looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS” to fill a funding black hole. “It is completely untrue that she ever considered it,” the spokesperson said. Playbook could not ascertain whether the idea was ever raised in front of her.
HATE CRIME LAWS RETURN: Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is looking at how to make police record hate incidents that fall short of criminality, to ensure incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia are flagged up, as the Telegraph’s Charles Hymas reports. Cooper first promised this “zero tolerance” approach — which reverses a position that Tory ministers introduced on free speech grounds — earlier this year.
O.O.O. LA LA: Labour will avoid going down the route of French-style legislation when it creates the “right to switch off” for workers outside office hours, Bloomberg’s Irina Anghel and Ailbhe Rea report. Instead the government favors an Irish-style system where there will be a code of practice that is negotiated with employers. One official insists to Playbook this was the plan all along.
HEDGING HIS BETS: Reform MP Rupert Lowe — who has decried a “cult of climate change” — owns a firm specializing in heat pumps, DeSmog’s Sam Bright reports. You know, the things promoted as a way to reach the U.K’s net zero goals. 
IN THE COURTS: Josh Greally, 28, who admitted threatening behavior after he threw what looked like takeaway coffee cups at Reform leader Nigel Farage, is due to be sentenced by Barnsley magistrates this afternoon. 
ICYMI: Nearly half (42 percent) of Tory members back merging with Reform UK into a single party, this eye-popping YouGov poll found. 
THE GOD COLLUSION: Former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell has been talking to counterparts in the U.S., France, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Ireland, Estonia, Finland, Nigeria, Indonesia and Barbados — and found friction with ministers is on the rise all round the world, with “weak leadership” on long-term issues like climate change. The FT writes up his report for the Global Government Forum.
STATS DROP: Results of the 2023 National Travel Survey including annual walking and cycling statistics are out at 9.30 a.m. Bound to get the culture war wheels moving. 
REPORTS OUT TODAY: The BMA reckons 7.6 percent of 11-to-17-year-olds are now vaping, up from 1.3 percent in 2014, and recommends vapes should be hidden behind shop counters like cigarettes.
SW1 EVENTS: Conservative peer and pollster Robert Hayward hosts a briefing for journalists on how opinion polls went wrong in the general election at 11 a.m. in Committee Room 2A.
THERE’S A PLAN: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday the war in Ukraine would end with dialogue, and he will present a plan of ways to get there to U.S. President Joe Biden — as well as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
GEORGIA ON MY MIND: Just nine months ago, Georgia was on the road to joining the EU. But its application is now suspended as its increasingly authoritarian ruling party weighs up whether to ban the entire parliamentary opposition, like Russia, Belarus and North Korea. EU foreign affairs spokesperson Peter Stano blasted the plans in a chat with my colleague Gabriel Gavin.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. reindicted Donald Trump on four charges related to his effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The Republican presidential candidate went on a lengthy rant about his “deranged” persecutor on his platform Truth Social.
Mute-iny: Trump also claimed he has “reached an agreement” to take part in a presidential debate against his Democratic rival Kamala Harris on Sept. 10. Yet the Harris campaign insists discussions are ongoing over whether microphones will remain on for the whole debate, CNN reports. Hmm.
HOSTAGE FOUND: Israeli forces rescued 52-year-old Israeli hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi from a tunnel in southern Gaza more than 10 months after he was abducted by Hamas. He is now in a stable condition in hospital.
Now read: My colleague Gabriel Gavin has this analysis of why energy is Israel’s weak spot.
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No government round. 
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons Chris Philp broadcast round: Times Radio (7.30 a.m.) … LBC News (8 a.m.) … GB News (9.10 a.m.). 
Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick broadcast round: Good Morning Britain (6.45 a.m.) … GB News (8 a.m.) … Sky News (8.35 a.m.). 
Also on Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: Economist Gerard Lyons (7.05 a.m.) … Tax Justice U.K. Head of Advocacy Rachael Henry (7.10 a.m.) … Chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon (7.40 a.m.). 
Also on Times Radio Breakfast: Former Supreme Court Justice Mark Saville (7 a.m.) … BMA Board of Science Chair David Strain (7.50 a.m.) … Former British Ambassador to Afghanistan William Patey (8.45 a.m.)
Also on Today: Chair of the Committee on Fuel Poverty Caroline Flint and Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of Energy UK (8.10 a.m.).
POLITICO UK: Keir Starmer learns how not to lead from Olaf Scholz.
Daily Express: Yes! It will be ‘painful’ for Britain’s elderly this winter. 
Daily Mail: Finally Starmer comes clean — he’ll soak middle class.
Daily Mirror: Starmer’s big ask.
Daily Star: ET invaders would wipe us all out.
Financial Times: Starmer sets the stage for tax rises by warning budget is ‘going to be painful.’
i: Starmer’s plan for a softer Brexit starts in Germany today.
Metro: Stars align … the wait is over!
The Daily Telegraph: Starmer’s tax alert for middle England.
The Guardian: Time for UK to turn corner on Brexit, says Starmer.
The Independent: We’ll turn corner on Brexit and fix relations with EU.
The Times: German deal to ‘turn the corner’ on Brexit.
WESTMINSTER WEATHER: Sunny intervals. The clouds are to get you emotionally ready for fall. High 28C, 15C. 
FILL YOUR SHELVES: Biteback will be publishing a story of the 2024 general election written by POLITICO’s own Tim Ross and freelance journalist Rachel Wearmouth. “Landslide” is due out in November and we’re promised pace, color, and an inside scoop on the six weeks that changed Britain (at least a bit).
JOB ADS: The Liberal Democrats are hiring for two broadcast officers. 
NEW GIG: Former No. 10 SpAd Andrew Gilligan has joined Policy Exchange as a senior fellow and head of Liveable London, transport and infrastructure. 
PLAYING THE LONG GAME: Wealthy philanthropist John Sainsbury left a note inside one of the fake columns in the National Gallery’s Sainsbury wing, announcing how much he hated them. Wonder if his cousin, Labour mega-donor David Sainsbury, has planted any notes about Labour’s economic policies? Only 34 years to find out.
DON’T MISS: This throwback to the days when political panel show Newsnight sent reporters on the doorstep. Jeremy Vine tracked down Liam Gallagher to try to answer why the star had dropped off Oasis’ U.S. tour. File under “not politics but.”
NOW READ: The i’s Kitty Donaldson on why the public won’t take long to notice the drip-drip of Downing Street cronyism claims — and why the lack of meaningful Conservative opposition means it’s more important than ever to have proper guardrails.
WRITING PLAYBOOK THURSDAY MORNING: Dan Bloom.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO: Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds … former Tunbridge Wells MP Greg Clark … Crossbench peer and former BBC Trust chief Rona Fairhead … former Stroud MP Siobhan Baillie  … former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale … Playbook’s own Sam Blewett.
PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editors Zoya Sheftalovich, Jack Blanchard and Alex Spence, diary reporter Bethany Dawson and producer Dean Southwell.
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