Views from Brussels, and Brighton

Labour says it could work with the government to solve the potentially “unmanageable” higher-education system, but still wants to abolish tuition fees, while the European Union has agreed to work with the British government on securing a Brexit transition deal, but still wants the Brexit bill solved first.

All eyes are on either Brussels—where Brexit talks resumed yesterday after Theresa May’s supposedly deadlock-breaking speech in Florence on Friday—and Brighton, where the Labour Party conference is attempting to marry radicalism with the possibility that it might soon actually be in power.

In Brussels, things are looking tricky as the bloc has refused to discuss May’s call for a two-year transition period until the divorce bill, citizens’ rights and Northern Ireland have been agreed, while Nobel-prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is reported in The Independent saying there is “zero chance” Brexit will be good for the British economy. And in Brighton, the announcement by the shadow chancellor John McDonnell that Labour wants to “bring back in-house” assets built and maintained under the private finance initiative has sparked warnings from employers’ group the CBI, that it will send investors “running for the hills”.