May’s on way to KO

CHESS ACE LEAVES ME IN PIECES TV debate will spoil our night and finish PM

LISTEN. We’ll put up with pretty much anything round here but not what they’re about to do to next Sunday night’s TV.

It was looking so good. The I’m A Celebrity final, the snooker, Strictly. A great night in.

But no. We interrupt your viewing to bring you the heavyweight clash nobody really wants to see – Corbyn vs May. Talking Brexit. For ages.

At the moment they’re still bickering over what channel it’s going to be on.

I suppose this is sort of like the weigh-in.

Baffling

The BBC already reckon they’ve got it and are planning accordingly. But ITV still think they’re in with a shout.

Whichever way it goes it’s not ideal. One hour of Brexit bickering, slap-bang in the middle of prime-time.

Corbyn says he wants it on ITV, which is probably the right way to go.

Because then we only miss out a special former jungle campmate edition of Catchphrase and the nation will forgo nothing more than the chance to watch Joe Pasquale guess what Mr Chips is doing.

Anyways. It’s on. At some point. It’s a strange decision, to be honest. It started as a rumour in No10: May wants to debate Corbyn. byn.

It gathered steam and here we are. And no one could ould – or still can – work out ut why. If it ends up on n BBC1 the format will l be in front of an audience. And, as the last general election THE World Chess Championship climaxed in London this week.

I did not see many people taking to the streets to celebrate Magnus Carlsen’s victory.

But it did have a few people dusting off their boards.

Chess is having a bit of a renaissance. The Chess in Schools proved, Mr Corbyn is a lot better with human beings than his opponent is.

So there is very little to be gained for the PM. She will try to frame the Brexit mess as a Labour problem but that is a blow that won’t be landed.

The last la couple of weeks have proved pretty pret baffling in politics. Everyone see seems to have a theory about what the PM is up to, particularly her cur current idea of a nationwide tour. They T r a nge f r om t he st straight forward – persuading grassroots Tories to put

pressure on MPS – to the

THIS cracker has just emerged from the Prime Minister’s recent negotiations with her party over the Brexit exit deal.

Mrs May summoned one backbencher for a private chat and decided to cash in on his love of football.

She said: “I need your help here. We are 2-0 down but it’s only half-time.” He replied: “No you’re not. You’re u’re 3-0 down, it’s the last minute of injury time and you u lot have just realised you are playing Barcelona.” and Communities charity plans to teach it in 50 prisons by 2020.

Dozens of schools are running classes. A fantastic idea I was on the wrong end of this week.

On the Tube to work there was a school trip and a little girl – a really little girl – saw I was playing chess on my phone. “We outlandish – she left her keys somewhere on the election trail.

I discussed one theory with a couple of sensible people, a rare breed in Westminster at the moment.

Their logic goes like this: The Brexit deal is dead. It can’t get through Parliament. If the deal goes down, so does Mrs May.

That would mean leaving a legacy worse than any recent PM.

She would be remembered only for the disaster of an election, the shoddy mess of forming a government, a crippled domestic agen agenda and failure play that at school,” she said, so I offered her a game.

Thirty seconds later I was two pawns down. Before the next stop both my knights were gone. By King’s Cross it was all over. I got off quickly before she could notice me crying. Or worse, suggest a rematch for cash. to get Brexit through. That is not, I’m afraid, a lot of good material for a leaving speech.

So all this frenzied activity is nothing more than a last desperate attempt to give people something nice to say about her. You will see the sheer panic during the debate. There is nothing worse than a desperate fighter.

All Mr Corbyn needs to do is avoid the haymakers and pick her off.

It will be brutal and it will mark the beginning of the end for Mrs May, the PM who could have been – but never was – a contender. THERE wewere two very moving moments in politics this week.

The firsfirst was the death at 95 of Harry Leslie Smith, who fought auausterity to the very end and leaves a proud legacy.

And the standing ovation for Lloyd Russell-moyle MP when he said he h was HIV positive showed a side of Parliament we

don’t don’ see enough of. Harry would have approved.