Can Theresa May and her government survive? Our writers' verdicts

Sonia Sodha: It s hard to remember a government so racked by crisis Weak and stable is the joke about Theresa May s leadership apparently doing the rounds amongst Conservative MPs. It may not be very funny but it s an apt description of the paradox inherent in May s premiership. Lacking in all authority her government is making absolutely no progress on the key issues from Brexit talks to the impending NHS winter crisis. But there s also no way out for her: she remains in uncomfortable suspended animation held in place by a split Conservative party that won t let her go for fear of what comes next. You can see why European leaders looking on at what s unfolding here in Britain are reportedly undertaking contingency planning for what happens if May should topple. Britain has always been viewed in Europe as stable and predictable if a sometimes annoying thorn in the side. But it s hard to remember a time when a British government was so racked by crisis after crisis. There may yet be more government scalps claimed by the sexual harassment crisis enveloping Westminster. And there are a number of big hurdles ahead: the government is at real risk of defeat on rebel amendments to the EU withdrawal bill next week; and the week after will see the chancellor confirm that the state of the public finances is even worse than expected. May under pressure to replace Patel with Brexit enthusiast - Politics live Read more Yet I d be surprised if May didn t last until the end of Brexit talks. Yes she s a hostage to her own party. There s no better sign of this than the fact she s unlikely to use Priti Patel s forced resignation to do a full reshuffle to impose her authority but simply replace her with an appointment most likely to keep the peace. But Conservative MPs won t seek to unseat her for now. Who really wants to take over the poisoned chalice of getting Britain through the Brexit talks only to be blamed for an outcome that cannot keep all Conservatives happy? And at best the upheaval of a Tory leadership contest won t solve anything; at worst would trigger a general election that delivers Prime Minister Corbyn to No 10. Weak and stable it is. Sonia Sodha is a Guardian columnist Andrew Gimson: There s no replacement for May nor appetite for election Theresa May is in a stronger position than the press is willing to admit. Before the election her frailties were ignored. Since that time a narrative of extreme vulnerability has taken hold. Yet she remains in Downing Street and the loss of two ministers who were found in different ways to have misbehaved does not change the powerful reasons for keeping her there. This summer she offered the British people the chance to turn her into an elected dictator and they decided in their wisdom they would rather keep her as a prime minister who must operate with a degree of tact. There is no popular demand for another election the last one was an election too many and no popular call for some particular individual to replace her. Nor does the Conservative party have a replacement for her in mind. On the great issue of the day which is Brexit the party is split. It recognises that the referendum decision must be implemented but also that to implement it with gung-ho gusto of the kind that Boris Johnson could provide would be perilously divisive. The time may well come when in order to achieve Brexit a Gordian knot needs to be cut. But neither the country nor the party is ready for that. The clear preference is for May to continue with the difficult perhaps impossible task of disentangling the knot. Her duty is to carry on with this unenviable task. And since she is a dutiful woman that is probably what she will do. Andrew Gimson is a contributor to ConservativeHome and a biographer of Boris Johnson Steve Richards: Scandals alone do not bring down a prime minister Most modern prime ministers feel vulnerable a lot of the time sometimes with good cause. Yet most endure for much longer than the feverish speculation around them might suggest. May is unusually weak because she called an election earlier than necessary lost her party s overall majority and stayed on in No 10. This is the explanation for all current chaos. When Edward Heath lost his party s overall majority in the February 1974 election he ceased to be prime minister within days. The tumultuous frenzy of events that follows May s authority-shrinking election is inevitable. But scandals alone do not bring down a prime minister. May will continue to find replacements for ministers such as Priti Patel who were never especially powerful in the first place. However they do mean that leadership becomes a form of political hell. A prime minister cannot control the shape of scandals or their form and lives in fear of the next revelation. Only rarely is a prime minister strengthened by a cabinet reshuffle as May conducts her second within a week. Yet it is Brexit that is the bigger threat to her. She faces a negotiation of impossible complexity made more daunting by her misjudged statements early in her leadership. Before the election she was stronger than she realised. After the election she is weak. The wider instability means the Conservatives would be doomed if there were an election which means that in spite of the paralysis within a government of bewildered powerlessness there will not be an election. Steve Richards is a political columnist and broadcaster Ellie Mae O Hagan: May should go but the Tories won t want to risk losing power Let s put the dispatching of the BBC helicopter to follow Priti Patel s ministerial car down to a slow news day and forget the brouhaha for a second. The question of whether Theresa May should remain as prime minister is much more prosaic than that. If you had a boss who lacked the authority to fire anyone in the workplace regardless of how damaging their behaviour was would that be a sustainable situation? Obviously not and the same is true for May. On a purely functional level she cannot remain leader of the Conservative party because she can no longer fulfil the basic requirements of the job. But that s not the question the Tories will be asking. They ll be assessing May s future according to the effect her departure will have upon their ability to retain power. There s nothing the Tories love more than power and they cling to it like barnacles lining the bottom of a schooner. They certainly won t be letting go when the alternative is Jeremy Corbyn a man they view as having been directly beamed into Westminster from the October Revolution. And as long as there is no obvious successor in sight it seems doubtful that most Conservative MPs would risk a drawn-out publicly fought leadership challenge that could end up making their government appear illegitimate. Occasional public humiliations make very little difference to the Tories overall position: until their golden new leader emerges blinking into the sunlight they re stuck with Theresa May. And so are we. Ellie Mae O Hagan is a freelance journalist Even by her standards it s been a diabolical couple of weeks for PM Theresa May What s your new Prime Minister Theresa like? asked Donald Trump when I spoke to him after he won the US election this time last year. I like her I replied. She s a tough no-nonsense woman who spent six years in charge of our Home Office overseeing domestic security. She is a very safe pair of hands. Just the kind of person we need running Britain in these uncertain times. Yes I hear that too Trump said. That s good. I think we ll get along well. I thought of that conversation today as I surveyed the blazing wreckage of Mrs May s government after a second cabinet minister quit in just two weeks and the howling mainstream and social media mob bays for more scalps.Even by her standards it s been a diabolical couple of weeks for the beleaguered PM.First she lost her experienced defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon in a knee-touching sexual harassment scandal.By allowing him to be sacrificed at the current frenzied altar of personal conduct that some saints might fail May has set the bar for resignation so low the entire cabinet might find themselves struggling to attain the exulted new standards required for ministerial office.To compound this fiasco she then allowed her own chief whip Gavin Williamson to appoint himself to the job vacancy he just helped create despite having zero cabinet experience. When I spoke to Donald Trump after he won the US election this time last year he said he thought he would get along well with May (pictured together in January)Our military at a time of unprecedented terror threats is thus now in the hands of a duplicitous little toad who doesn t look or sound like he knows one end of a rifle from another notwithstanding his apparent expertise in shooting people in the back.Then Damian Green May s No2 and her oldest friend in politics was also accused of historic sex-pestery and of once possibly having extreme porn on his Westminster office computer.Green is now hanging on by the tiniest fragment of his blackened fingernails his authority as Deputy Prime Minister drained to the point of oblivion as the nation chortles at the thought of his X-rated shenanigans.Completing this unedifying trifecta of over-sexed married government clods was Mark Garnier International Trade Minister who called his assistant sugartits and asked her to buy sex toys from Soho. RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next PIERS MORGAN: Dear America I pray to God that you wake the... PIERS MORGAN: Scream all you like snowflakes but if you... PIERS MORGAN: You can t win a fight with a grieving war... PIERS MORGAN: Trump (as so often) started it but anyone who... Share this article Share 187 shares As all this was going on Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who bearing in mind his well documented track record of infidelity has so far somewhat miraculously survived the new puritanical purge - made a mistake so horrendous it may lead to a British woman spending years more in a hellhole Iranian jail then absurdly tried to pretend he d been misquoted when video evidence showed quite clearly that he hadn t.This double whammy of dangerous woeful incompetence and barefaced fibbing has reignited the fury of his many critics.New Statesman columnist Martin Fletcher called him a chaotic mendacious philandering egotistical disloyal and thoroughly untrustworthy charlatan . And they were some of the more complimentary words I heard about Boris this week.Now International Secretary Priti Patel has been forced to quit after sneaking off to secret meetings in Israel and then lying about them. May lost her experienced defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon in a knee-touching sexual harassment scandalJudging by the way she was caught smirking in her car yesterday I suspect Ms Patel is quite happy to be vacating a government teetering on the brink of collapse.This chillingly ambitious creature whose stupendous ego is I fear writing cheques her more limited ability can t cash - will have her beady ruthless eye on the main prize as she now exacts revenge on May from the backbenches.When confronted with such an obvious case of rank wilfully outrageous insubordination a leader has two choices: sack or don t sack the miscreant. Damian Green was also accused of historic sex-pestery and of once possibly having extreme porn on his office computerInstead May dithered as the furore grew predictably worse and then finally allowed Patel to resign rather than do what I would have done which is have her escorted out of Downing Street by armed guards with the word TRAITOR branded on her forehead.Just when I thought this fortnight of grotesque farce couldn t get any more risible Patel s fixer on the Israel trip Lord Polak fled a TV crew last night as a woman shouted: I m sorry but we have a massage here and we need it quiet please. You literally couldn t make this stuff up.It all adds up to a picture of complete and utter chaos; a rudderless clueless mutinous government raging out of control and surging inexorably towards disintegration.And it couldn t be happening at a worse time as we try to extricate ourselves from Europe without bankrupting ourselves.This ridiculously embarrassing situation is not lost on the rest of the world.Steven Erlanger the New York Times man in Britain wrote an excoriating piece about us this week. Many Britons see their country as a brave galleon banners waving cannons firing trumpets blaring he declared but Britain is now but a modest-sized ship on the global ocean. Having voted to leave the European Union it is unmoored heading to nowhere while on deck fire has broken out and the captain poor Theresa May is lashed to the mast without the authority to decide whether to turn to port or starboard let alone do what one imagines she knows would be best which is to turn around and head back to shore. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made a mistake so horrendous it may lead to a British woman spending years more in a hellhole Iranian jailHe described Britain as embracing an introverted irrelevance and a hollowed-out country engaged in controlled suicide .It was a brutally savage assessment and pretty rich coming from an American given their own political landscape but he s not entirely wrong is he?Theresa May promised us strong and stable .Instead we ve got weak and calamitous .After the election debacle last June I urged May to quit.She d thrown away a 21-point lead in the polls presided over one of the worst campaigns in living memory and come perilously close to losing to a man in Jeremy Corbyn whose own party thought was laughably unelectable.Only a dirty underhand deal to buy off the bigots of the DUP temporarily saved her.Everything I thought about May as a safe pair of hands was cruelly exposed during that election as the complete opposite: she bottled the TV debates presented preposterously bad policies like the dementia tax exuded the air of a stammering lacklustre vision-devoid robot and burst into tears when the shocking results came in.May should have fallen on her sword the next day but inexplicably chose to stumble on.There s nothing worse than watching a politically crippled Prime Minister pathetically try to cling onto power after a nation has delivered a resounding two fingers at the ballot box.It rarely ends as we are now seeing in anything other than ignominious failure. International Secretary Priti Patel (pictured last night) has been forced to quit after sneaking off to secret meetings in Israel and then lying about themTheresa May is not a bad person. She s a decent woman who I suspect is genuinely aghast at the behaviour of many of her colleagues.But she is a very bad leader.By chance I saw her at an event in London last night.In fact I arrived at the exact same time as she swept in with her motorcade and security detail.She had all the trappings of power but she looked haunted and hunted; someone desperately trying to stop the ship sinking on her watch but without the first idea how to do it.The ship will inevitably sink unless something is done very soon to fix the myriad gaping holes listing it towards the rocks.That can only happen with a new captain.Frankly I wouldn t trust Theresa May right now to run a jellied eels market stall let alone the country.She s lost her authority her power her reputation and her dignity.Every second she continues to remain in office will simply cause further damage to her her government and most importantly the country.Yes if she resigns it will force another Conservative leadership contest with the added risk of triggering another general election but this current debacle cannot continue.The Theresa May experiment has spectacularly flopped and the Tories all know it.The Prime Minister has to go and she has to go now. London: Running for election mere months ago British Prime Minister Theresa May s slogan was strong and stable government. The phrase sounds cruelly ironic now with several senior members of May s Cabinet under fire for missteps or under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct.Even before the latest troubles May was a beleaguered leader atop a fragile government. She faces the challenge of steering Britain out of the European Union at the helm of a government split between proponents and opponents of Brexit. And she is weakened after her gamble on a snap June election to increase the Conservative majority in Parliament backfired leaving her with a minority government. We have a prime minister who has lost her authority and her control of the classroom opposition Labour Party lawmaker Kate Osamor said on Tuesday summoning the image of the government as a bunch of unruly children.The lost lieutenantA week of mounting crisis for May began when Defense Secretary Michael Fallon resigned on Wednesday saying his past behaviour may have fallen below the high standards expected. A female journalist had accused him of repeatedly touching her knee at a function in 2002; another said he had given her an unexpected and unwelcome kiss.File image of British PM Theresa May. APFallon had been one of May s most stalwart lieutenants often deployed to speak for the government in broadcast interviews. His resignation was a blow to May made worse when she upset many Conservative lawmakers by replacing him with the widely mistrusted Gavin Williamson a disciplinarian chief party whip famous for keeping a pet tarantula on his desk.Sleaze scandalFallon may not be the last minister forced out by a growing scandal over sexual abuse and harassment in British politics.Since revelations emerged about Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein researchers political staff and journalists have begun to come forward with allegations. Several lawmakers have been suspended by their parties and two government ministers are under investigation.First Secretary of State Damian Green effectively the deputy prime minister is facing a civil service investigation after a young party activist accused him of unwanted touches and text messages. A former senior policeman also says extreme pornography was found on a computer in Green s office in 2008 a claim he strongly denies.International Trade Minister Mark Garnier is being investigated over claims he sent his secretary to buy vibrators from a sex shop. Garnier has called the episode hijinks but conceded he may have had dinosaur attitudes in the past.In a bid to stem the scandal May and other party leaders have agreed to set up new measures to help people working in Parliament report abuse.Blundering BorisBlustering Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has never been known for tact and many were surprised when May made him Britain s top diplomat.Now he stands accused of endangering a British-Iranian woman imprisoned in Iran with his loose talk.The husband and employer of Nazarin Zaghari-Ratcliffe serving a five-year sentence for plotting the soft toppling of Iran s government say she could face more prison time after Johnson told lawmakers last week that she had been training Iranian journalists before she was arrested last year.Husband Richard Ratcliffe and the charitable Thomson Reuters Foundation say Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on vacation visiting family. They say Johnson s statement was seized on by Iranian authorities as evidence she was engaged in propaganda against the regime.Johnson accepted Tuesday that my remarks could have been clearer. The UK government has no doubt that she was on holiday in Iran when she was arrested last year and that was the sole purpose of her visit he told lawmakers in a contrite statement to the House of Commons.Secret meetingsThe latest bad news came when it emerged this week that International Development Secretary Priti Patel held 12 meetings with Israeli groups and officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while she was on vacation in the country in August and that she hadn t told the prime minister or colleagues about it.When news broke about the trip Patel insisted that Boris (Johnson) knew about the visit. Her department was later forced to clarify the statement saying the foreign secretary did become aware of the visit but not in advance of it. Patel apologized saying the meetings did not accord with the usual procedures. Others went further saying Patel was in clear violation of the ministerial code of conduct.Steven Fielding professor of politics at the University of Nottingham said that in normal political times both Patel and Johnson would have been fired. But these are not normal times. It s a multi-level crisis Fielding said. We are left with a party that is divided over the biggest decision this country has to make with a prime minister who has no authority and a government that has no majority in the House of Commons. But he predicted the government will stagger on because it fears losing to Labour if it faces an election. They know that they are toast if they allow themselves to leave office before Brexit is finalized he said. Labour s deputy leader says the current political turmoil could topple Theresa May at any time as he suggested Priti Patel s secret meetings in Israel had been suppressed by No 10. Tom Watson has written to the Prime Minister demanding further details of the sacked cabinet minister s summer talks pointing to evidence the Foreign Office had known about them at the time. I was told that the Foreign Office deliberately asked Downing Street to remove details of the briefing she received from Foreign Office officials when she was in Israel Mr Watson claimed. Read more Theresa May told to replace Priti Patel with Brexiteer If true it shows that there was knowledge that Priti Patel was running a sort of independent foreign policy earlier and that she s not been sacked for breaching the ministerial code in doing that but she s been sacked because it became public that she was doing that. The allegation came as the deputy leader echoed a report that EU leaders now suspect the cabinet chaos in London could trigger the Government s downfall. It does seem to me that we are in a very unstable situation at the heart of government and that random events could bring the Government down Mr Watson agreed. We are ready with our manifesto we would be prepared to go into a general election with a bold set of policies. Mr Watson said he had been told that the former International Development Secretary met officials from the British consulate general in Jerusalem while on holiday in August. UK news in pictures 43 show all UK news in pictures 1/43 8 November 2017 International Development Secretary Priti Patel leaves Heathrow Airport after she was ordered back to Britain following the disclosure that she held further unauthorised meetings with Israeli politicians PA 2/43 7 November 2017 School children and their teacher from Thomas Tallis School look at pictures on display at the Red Star Over Russia exhibition at the Tate Modern in London Philip Toscano/PA 3/43 6 November 2017 A cast of The Wrestlers two men taking part in the Greek sport pankration is lowered into place at Natural Trust s Stowe Landscape Garden near Buckingham PA 4/43 5 November 2017 Protesters in Trafalgar Square London during the Million Mask March bonfire night protest PA 5/43 4 November 2017 Protestors take part in the Justice Now: Make it Right for Palestine march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in central London PA 6/43 3 November 2017 People queue outside an Apple store in London to purchase the new iPhone X upon its release in the U.K. The iPhone X is positioned as a high-end model intended to showcase advanced technologies such as wireless charging OLED display dual cameras and a face recognition unlock system Getty 7/43 2 November 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside 10 Downing Street in London. The pair are today celebrating the centenary of a British declaration that ultimately led to the foundation of the state of Israel Getty 8/43 1 November 2017 Mammatus clouds over St Mary s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay Northumberland Owen Humphreys/PA 9/43 31 October 2017 Women protest outside Downing Street as they join a demonstration demanding rights for working mothers Getty Images 10/43 30 October 2017 England s under 17 s pose with the World Cup trophy as they arrive back to the UK PA 11/43 29 October 2017 Leicester City remembrance day fixture between between Leicester City and Everton at King Power Stadium Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images 12/43 27 October 2017 Spiderman steals a seat on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones at MCM London Comic Con s opening day Rex Features 13/43 26 October 2017 British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood holds up a paper against the governments policy on fracking outside Downing Street in London AFP/Getty 14/43 24 October 2017 Members of a delegation of indigenous and rural community leaders from 14 countries in Latin America and Indonesia The Guardians of the Forest campaign demonstrate against deforestation in London during a stop on their way to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties 23 (COP 23) in Bonn Germany Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty 15/43 23 October 2017 Gemma Davis 23 cleans the dolls house during it s annual clean at the National Trust s Calke Abbey property in Ticknall Derbyshire. The dolls house was used by the family s various generations of children between 1860 and the Second World War in their school room PA 16/43 18 October 2017 Prince William and Kate chat with West Ham player Mark Noble and manager Slaven Bilic during the Coach Core graduation ceremony Getty Images 17/43 17 October 2017 Jellyfish washed up on Sidmouth beach after storm Ophelia hit the UK Getty Images 18/43 16 October 2017 A red sun appears in Mid-Wales before storm Ophelia hits Paul Williams / Alamy Live News 19/43 15 October 2017 The Duchess of Cambridge dances with Paddington Bear as they attend a charities forum event at Paddington train station in London on October 16 2017. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry joined children from the charities they support on board Belmond British Pullman train at Paddington Station. The event was hosted by STUDIOCANAL with support from BAFTA through its BAFTA Kids programme and before embarking Their Royal Highnesses met the cast and crew from the forthcoming film Paddington 2 AFP/Getty Images 20/43 15 October 2017 Large waves crash along sea defences and the harbour as storm Ophelia approaches Porthleven in Cornwall south west Britain REUTERS 21/43 14 October 2017 Hillary Clinton gives a speech as she is presented with a Honorary Doctorate of Law at Swansea University in Swansea Wales. The former US secretary of state and 2016 American presidential candidate is also visiting the UK to promote her new book What Happened Matthew Horwood/Getty 22/43 13 October 2017 A lone protestor demonstrates outside Workmen Cuadrilla s shale gas fracking drilling rig near Westby in Blackpool. Engineers have begun to build the new rig at the site off Preston New Road in preparation for extracting gas. The site will be the first in the UK to extract shale gas since 2011 Getty 23/43 11 October 2017 Photographs of missing Syrians are displayed as people including a group of Syrian women stand atop a double-decker bus during a demonstration by Families for Freedom in Parliament Square in London Getty 24/43 9 October 2017 Workmen erect scaffolding around the Elizabeth Tower commonly known called Big Ben during ongoing renovations to the Tower and the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty 25/43 6 October 2017 An order of service is carried ahead of the funeral service for Coronation Street actress Liz Dawn real name Sylvia Ann Ibbetson outside Salford Cathedral. A former Woolworths shop girl from Leeds who first set foot on Weatherfield s famous cobbles in 1974 Dawn who had four children died peacefully last week at home with her family around her. PA 26/43 5 October 2017 Melanie Kramers of Oxfam poses while wearing a mask of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson with assorted props used in political campaigns in the store room at Oxfam s headquarters in London. The props have all been used in the charity s campaigns over the years to raise awareness of issues affecting people in poverty. Today marks 75 years since Oxfam s founding in the middle of the Second World War Getty 27/43 4 October 2017 A visitor poses in front of an art work by Czech Repblic artist Anna Hulacova entitled Ascension Mark I during a photocall for the Frieze Art Fair in London AFP/Getty 28/43 2 October 2017 Britain s Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond arrives to speak at the Conservative Party s conference in Manchester Reuters/Hannah McKay 29/43 1 October 2017 Protesters holding flags and placards demonstrate along Oxford Street during the annual Ashura march in London. Thousands of protesters march through London today to mark Ashura and celebrate the defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Ashura is a Muslim festival of remembrance that falls on the tenth day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar Jack Taylor/Getty 30/43 30 September 2017 Protesters hold up placards during the London March for Choice calling for the legalising of abortion in Ireland after the referendum announcement outside the Embassy of Ireland in central London Chris J Ratcliffe/AFP 31/43 29 September 2017 Former UKIP leader Paul Nuttall (C) speaks with delegates at the UKIP annual conference being held at the The Riviera International Centre in Torquay Matt Cardy/Getty 32/43 27 September 2017 England and West Indies fans enjoy themselves during the 4th Royal London One Day International between England and West Indies at The Kia Oval in London Mike Hewitt/Getty 33/43 26 September 2017 Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn takes photographs during Shadow Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy Rebecca Long-Bailey s speech in the main hall on day three of the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton Dan Kitwood/Getty Images 34/43 24 September 2017 Naked bathers enter the water as they take part in the North East Skinny Dip at Druridge bay in Druridge England. The popular annual event takes place around the autumn equinox at Druridge Bay as the sun rises. Participant registration fees have been pledged to the mental health charity MIND. Getty 35/43 23 September 2017 Rollo Maughfling Archdruid of Stonehenge and Britain (R) conducts a ceremony as druids pagans and revellers gather in the centre at Stonehenge hoping to see the sun rise as they take part in a autumn equinox celebrations at the ancient neolithic monument of Stonehenge near Amesbury in Wiltshire England. Several hundred people gathered at sunrise ar the famous historic stone circle a UNESCO listed ancient monument to celebrate the equinox which is a specific moment in time that occurs twice a year when the Earth tilts neither towards (summer) or away (winter) from the sun in either the northern or southern hemisphere. Although yesterday marked the actual meteorological calendar change from summer to autumn for druids the following dawn is when they celebrate the dawning of the new season following the day of equal night which it is named after. Getty 36/43 22 September 2017 Britain s Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her Brexit speech at the Complesso Santa Maria Novella in Florence Italy. British Prime Minister Theresa May will seek to unlock Brexit talks on September 22 after Brussels demanded more clarity on the crunch issues of budget payments and EU citizens rights AFP 37/43 21 September 2017 People protest against the actions of the Spanish government in front of the Spanish consulate in Edinburgh. Spanish police stormed ministries and buildings belonging to Catalonia s regional government yesterday in an attempt to try and put a stop to the region s independence referendum Pep Masip/Alamy 38/43 20 September 2017 One of the final 55m turbine blades is manoeuvred into position. The last of 116 wind turbines have been installed at the Rampion Offshore Wind Farm 13 kms off the Brighton Coast. It will provide enough electricity to supply the equivalent of half the homes in Sussex Mike Hewitt/Getty Images 39/43 16 September 2017 An armed police officer patrols in Horse Guards Parade in London. An 18-year-old man has been arrested in Dover in connection with yesterday s terror attack on Parsons Green station in which 30 people were injured. The UK terror threat level has been raised to critical Jack Taylor/Getty Images 40/43 13 September 2017 Demonstrators hold banners during a protest to lobby MPs to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit outside the Houses of Parliament Tolga Akmen/AFP 41/43 12 September 2017 Rupert van der Werff Summer Place Auctions Natural History specialist moves a one-year-old baby mammoth skeleton at Summers Place Auctions on September 12 2017 in Billingshurst. A family of four mammoths found together during building works near the Siberian city of Tomsk in 2002 will be on sale on November 21 2017 and are expected to sell in the region of 250 000 - 400 000 Rob Stothard/Getty Images 42/43 11 September 2017 Members of the Royal Navy carry supplies on board the amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean at the Naval Base in Gibraltar before leaving to provide humanitarian assistance and vital aid to British Overseas Territories and Commonwealth partners affected by Hurricane Irma. Britain has pledged 32 million (35 million euros 42 million) in aid and sent hundreds of troops supplies and rescue equipment on several flights to the British territories in the Caribbean since the disaster JORGE GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images 43/43 10 September 2017 His Holiness The Dalai Lama holds the hand of Richard Moore as he gives a public talk on the theme of Compassion in Action to celebrate 20 years of the Children in Crossfire initiative in Londonderry Northern Ireland. The Dalai Lama is the patron of the Children in Crossfire charity which was founded by Richard Moore. Mr Moore was blinded by a plastic bullet fired by a British Soldier during the Troubles in Derry. Getty Images That appeared to prove the Foreign Office had known all along posing the critical question of whether the Prime Minister had been informed. The letter posed nine questions including whether there were any minutes taken and whether Ms Patel was acting with your authorisation . Why was it not made public that Priti Patel had met British consular officials during her visit to Israel? Mr Watson demanded to know. Did you or did the FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office request that information about Priti Patel meeting British consular officials be suppressed? If so why? If not why was it not published? Speaking to BBC Radio 4 s Today programme he added: I would like to know the facts of this case because it is very unusual. Read more Who will replace Priti Patel in Theresa May s cabinet? May on borrowed time as Patel forced from office Read Theresa May s response to Priti Patel s resignation Read Priti Patel s resignation letter in full Meanwhile The Times reported one European leader saying Brussels is now considering all options from the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal to a decision to reverse Brexit. There is the great difficulty of the leadership in Great Britain which is more and more fragile. Britain is very weak and the weakness of Theresa May makes Brexit negotiations very difficult the leader said. If Ms May is ejected from office she would be replaced by another Conservative leader unless Tory MPs vote to overturn the Fixed Term Parliaments Act to stage another general election. Given the current Conservative weakness that is highly unlikely but Mr Watson added: If Theresa May collapses then the country is in a very bad place and would require a general election. The Prime Minister moved quickly to replace Ms Patel who resigned last night admitting her actions in Israel fell below the high standards expected with Brexiteer Penny Mordaunt. More about: Brexit Priti Patel Theresa May Tom Watson Israel General Election Reuse content In the end Theresa May did not force out Priti Patel because she wanted to. She did it because she had to. At the weekend the prime minister was presented with serious reasons to dismiss the international development secretary. Ms Patel s freelance but secret Middle East foreign policy notably the 12 private meetings this summer with senior Israeli politicians and officials without first informing the Foreign Office or No 10 was institutionalised insubordination. Yet in spite of these major breaches of trust and collective responsibility Mrs May bent over backwards not to fire Ms Patel. She preferred to have her colleague stay especially so soon after Michael Fallon s resignation. Ms Patel was given a ticking-off on Monday but she was cleared to fulfil a pre-arranged visit to Africa at the start of the week. Quick Guide Priti Patel s fall from grace Show Hide 13 August Priti Patel goes to Israel on what she claims was a family holiday which she paid for herself. 22 August Patel met the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting was not authorised in advance and no UK officials were present. She later claimed the Foreign Office was made aware of this meetings and others while her trip was under way. Meanwhile Patel s deputy Alistair Burt and David Quarrey the British ambassador to Israel were meeting Michael Oren a deputy minister at the Israeli prime minister s office according to the Jewish Chronicle. According to notes of the meeting cited by the paper Oren referred to Patel having had a successful meeting with Netanyahu earlier. 24 August Foreign Office officials became aware of Patel s first meetings according to a statement given to the Commons by Burt on 7 November. He did not mention his own visit to Israel. Hansard quotes Burt telling the Commons: The Secretary of State Patel told Foreign Office officials on 24 August that she was on the visit. It seems likely that the meetings took place beforehand. On the same day Patel met Yair Lapid the leader of Israel s Yesh Atid party who describes her as a true friend of Israel . August On an undisclosed date during her trip Patel visited an Israeli military field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. If confirmed this would be a breach of a protocol that British officials do not travel in the occupied Golan under the auspices of the Israeli government. 25 August Patel leaves Israel after 12 work meetings during two days of a 13-day holiday. As well as meeting Netanyahu she also held talks with the public security and strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan and an Israeli foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem. The meetings were organised by Lord Polak a leading member of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He accompanied Patel on all but one one of the meetings. On her return to the UK Patel inquires about using the UK aid budget to help fund the Israeli army s humanitarian work in the Golan Heights. The idea is rejected because the UK does not recognise Israel s permanent presence in the Golan Heights which were seized from Syria in the 1967 war. 7 September Patel meets Gilad Erdan the minister for public security and is photographed with him on the House of Commons terrace. 18 September While in New York for the UN general assembly Patel has another meeting with Yuval Rotem an official from the Israeli foreign ministry. 2 November Theresa May meets Netanyahu in Downing Street. 3 November Patel told the Guardian that the foreign secretary knew about her trip and suggested the Foreign Office had been briefing against her. Boris knew about the visit. The point is that the Foreign Office did know about this Boris knew about the trip she admitted telling the paper. The BBC s diplomatic correspondent James Landale reported that Patel had undisclosed meetings in Israel without telling the Foreign Office. He quoted one official as saying that Patel had been pushing to get her hands on the Palestinian Authority aid budget and we have been pushing back . 6 November Patel apologises after admitting she gave a misleading account to the Guardian of her trip to Israel. In a statement she admits holding 12 meetings including three with Israeli politicians Netanyahu among them. She said: This quote to the Guardian may have given the impression that the secretary of state had informed the foreign secretary about the visit in advance. The secretary of state would like to take this opportunity to clarify that this was not the case. The foreign secretary did become aware of the visit but not in advance of it. She does not mention visiting the occupied Golan Heights or the two subsequent meetings in September. A No 10 spokesman confirms that Patel was rebuked for breaching the ministerial code. 7 November Patel avoids answering an urgent Commons question about her meetings in Israel because of a longstanding commitment to visit Kenya Uganda and Ethiopia. The international development minister Alistair Burt is put up in her place. Burt points out that Patel apologised for the undisclosed meetings. He adds: The department s view is that aid to the IDF Israeli Defence Force in the Golan Heights is not appropriate. Downing Street initially backs Patel but later confirms that the prime minister was not informed about providing aid to Israel during her meeting the previous day. It is suggested Patel failed to disclose her two subsequent meetings in September with Israeli officials. A Whitehall source says: There was an expectation of full disclosure at the meeting on Monday. It is now clear Priti did not do that. It will now have to be looked at again. But according to the Jewish Chronicle it was No 10 who told Patel not to include her meeting with Rotem in New York in her list of undisclosed meetings for fear of embarrassing the Foreign Office. DfiD confirms previously undisclosed September meetings with Erhad and Rotem in September. 8 November Patel is summoned back to London at the request of the prime minister amid widespread speculation that she will be sacked or given the opportunity to resign. She flies back from the Kenyan capital Nairobi after her meetings in Uganda were cancelled. Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback. The initial failure to sack Ms Patel reflected the weakness of Mrs May s premiership which has deepened since June s humiliating general election. Paradoxically the same thing is true of Wednesday s reverse decision to push Ms Patel out. If nothing else the two contrasting responses illustrate Talleyrand s cynical dictum that in politics treachery is all a matter of dates. In between the decisions to let her stay and then to force her out it became clear that Ms Patel had again been economical with the facts when she told Mrs May about her recent meetings with senior Israelis. The decisive revelation concerned a meeting at the House of Commons in September with the Israeli public security minister which Ms Patel continued to conceal at the weekend. Although some of the facts concerning this meeting and another in New York with the head of Israel s foreign service were in dispute on Wednesday it added up to a deception too far for No 10. Mrs May would not have summoned Ms Patel back from Uganda less than 48 hours later if she could have avoided it. But a failure to act would have signalled the absolute collapse of her authority. With many Tories already angry over the failure to dismiss Boris Johnson Mrs May could not have survived such a high-profile display of weakness towards a minister to whom Conservative MPs had so conspicuously failed to rally during Commons exchanges on Tuesday. Mrs May may not long survive Wednesday s reluctant wielding of the knife either especially if the two sides in the Tory party s Brexit argument conclude that the ousting has upset the internal house of cards over which Mrs May presides so uneasily. Yet Ms Patel gave the prime minister no alternative. In the past Mrs May seemed a lucky politician. She coasted to the premiership in 2016 as all her rivals stumbled. A year ago she seemed unchallenged and unchallengeable. But she does not seem so lucky now. To lose two cabinet ministers in a week may seem a misfortune especially since one concerned private misconduct while the other involves political misjudgment. Yet the two departures are intertwined. Both reflect the fragility of a government paralysed by Brexit. That reality has not been changed by the resignation of Ms Patel. With thousands online following Ms Patel s plane s progress back from east Africa and the BBC extravagantly sending up a helicopter to track Ms Patel s return from Heathrow for all the world as if she was OJ Simpson Mrs May looked more than ever the victim of events not their master. It may even so be premature to write Mrs May off. In spite of her weakness she has cards still up her sleeve. One is the budget in two weeks time. Although Tory MPs are far from united behind the chancellor Philip Hammond they still recognise that the budget is their party s best hope of changing the political mood. This gives Mrs May some breathing space. Another is the importance of the EU summit decision on the Brexit process in mid-December. Although the party is split over Brexit both wings would probably just about prefer a deal to be struck in Brussels next month that keeps the talks on the rails. This also cuts Mrs May a little slack. A third card remains the continuing failure of the party to coalesce around a successor. Though many MPs are planning for the succession not least the shamelessly ambitious and reactionary Ms Patel who is now free to campaign from the backbenches without the distraction of ministerial duties few Tories are confident that a change of leader would transform their standing. If she can survive the next month Mrs May could then try to play her joker: the larger reshuffle that she should have made in the spring rather than calling the election. For a little while longer Mrs May could remain the least worst option for the Tories. No hard feelings... Priti Patel (@patel4witham) Congratulations to my dear friend @PennyMordaunt - the new International Development Secretary. November 9 2017 By: Reuters | London | Updated: November 9 2017 9:08 pm Penny Mordaunt was promoted Thursday from the work and pensions department to the job overseeing Britain s foreign aid.(Reuters photo) Top News General speaks too muchPradyuman Thakur murder case joins a list of several other botched-up investigationsDelhi battles smog: Odd-even returns schools shut; AAP asks Congress BJP to keep politics asideBritish Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a strong Brexit supporter as aid minister on Thursday following a resignation that left her struggling to ward off open conflict in a cabinet divided over leaving the EU. May is grappling with crises on several fronts. Her team is struggling to make headway in exit talks with the European Union several ministers are embroiled in a wider sexual harassment scandal and her ability to command a majority in parliament is facing its most serious test. Penny Mordaunt 44 who has previously held junior ministerial roles had a short meeting with May at Downing Street during which her appointment as the new International Development Secretary was confirmed. Fellow Brexit supporter Priti Patel resigned from the position on Wednesday over undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials that breached diplomatic protocol. Patel s resignation forced May into her second cabinet reshuffle in a week after former defence minister Michael Fallon resigned in the sexual harassment scandal that has also led to investigations of two other ministers including May s deputy. Mordaunt was elected in 2010 to represent the southern English coastal city of Portsmouth where she also serves as a volunteer reservist for the Royal Navy. She has argued the EU is a failing institution and that leaving would help make Britain safer. Until Thursday s appointment Mordaunt held a junior ministerial post with responsibilies for disabled people health and work within the Department of Work and Pensions. The instability in May s top team adds to what is already a difficult political situation. An ill-judged snap election in June cost her party its majority in parliament and has sapped her authority at a time when she is trying to heal deep divisions within her own party and negotiate Britain s departure from the EU. The European Parliament s Brexit negotiator doused hopes that those negotiations were nearing a breakthrough saying major issues must still be resolved on safeguarding citizens rights. A fresh round of negotiations between Britain and the European Commission began on Thursday. Progress in Brussels is vital to help May keep onside nervous businesses who say they urgently need to know what will happen when Britain leaves the bloc; otherwise they will be forced to start triggering contingency plans. On Wednesday EU envoys discussed delaying the launch of talks with London on a post-Brexit relationship to next year. DEEP DIVISIONS Sixteen months after Britain narrowly voted to leave the EU in a referendum opinions are still split over Brexit at every level from voter to minister. Although May and her cabinet are united in their intention to take Britain out of the EU her ministerial team is seen as a delicate balancing act between lawmakers who are still identified as remainers or leavers according to how they voted in the referendum. In replacing Patel an outspoken leaver with another Brexiteer May looked to maintain that balance. The promotion of a junior minister could also help placate younger members of the party many of whom are angry at her mishandling of the snap election campaign and feel they should be given a chance to regenerate the party s support. Failure to satisfy the party is seen as a risk to May s future as leader. She is reliant on uniting all her lawmakers to pass legislation including the laws needed to enact Brexit which will be up for debate in parliament next week. If she is unable to prove her ability to pass legislation and govern effectively the Conservative party historically intolerant of weakened leaders could seek to replace her although there are currently no clear candidates to do so. For all the latest World News download Indian Express App More Top News Bigg Boss 11 November 9 preview: Benafsha is sent to jail Hina-Mehjabi get into a major fight Abhishek Singhvi in tax soup: officials reject claim that termites ate vouchers slap Rs 56-cr penalty The fall of Priti Patel a rising Tory star came as no surprise in Whitehall. Since she moved to the Department for International Development (DFID) last year the word among officials has been that the only development she is really interested in is of her own career. Patel s overweening ambition was on display at last month s Tory conference with a look at me speech comparing herself to Margaret Thatcher. Her hopes of following in her heroine s footsteps have now been dealt a heavy blow by her slow-motion sacking from the Cabinet. The arch-Eurosceptic will be free to criticise Theresa May from the backbenches notably on Brexit. Dark warnings by Patel s allies that she could inflict hard damage failed to save her skin. Her lack of judgement in her first Cabinet post will dent her prospects in the Tory leadership race when May stands down. By technically resigning before she was sacked Patel will hope to bounce back one day. But the damage could be fatal. She tried to run before she could walk and was exposed as out of her depth one senior Tory told me. May s decision to send Patel to DFID a department she previously wanted to see abolished returned to haunt her as did her appointment of Boris Johnson to the Foreign Office. Both Johnson and Patel were leading lights in the Leave campaign. Both were patently unsuited to their Cabinet roles undermined May and ignored the rules on collective Cabinet responsibility by pursuing their own agendas on Brexit and Israel respectively. UK news in pictures 43 show all UK news in pictures 1/43 8 November 2017 International Development Secretary Priti Patel leaves Heathrow Airport after she was ordered back to Britain following the disclosure that she held further unauthorised meetings with Israeli politicians PA 2/43 7 November 2017 School children and their teacher from Thomas Tallis School look at pictures on display at the Red Star Over Russia exhibition at the Tate Modern in London Philip Toscano/PA 3/43 6 November 2017 A cast of The Wrestlers two men taking part in the Greek sport pankration is lowered into place at Natural Trust s Stowe Landscape Garden near Buckingham PA 4/43 5 November 2017 Protesters in Trafalgar Square London during the Million Mask March bonfire night protest PA 5/43 4 November 2017 Protestors take part in the Justice Now: Make it Right for Palestine march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in central London PA 6/43 3 November 2017 People queue outside an Apple store in London to purchase the new iPhone X upon its release in the U.K. The iPhone X is positioned as a high-end model intended to showcase advanced technologies such as wireless charging OLED display dual cameras and a face recognition unlock system Getty 7/43 2 November 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside 10 Downing Street in London. The pair are today celebrating the centenary of a British declaration that ultimately led to the foundation of the state of Israel Getty 8/43 1 November 2017 Mammatus clouds over St Mary s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay Northumberland Owen Humphreys/PA 9/43 31 October 2017 Women protest outside Downing Street as they join a demonstration demanding rights for working mothers Getty Images 10/43 30 October 2017 England s under 17 s pose with the World Cup trophy as they arrive back to the UK PA 11/43 29 October 2017 Leicester City remembrance day fixture between between Leicester City and Everton at King Power Stadium Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images 12/43 27 October 2017 Spiderman steals a seat on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones at MCM London Comic Con s opening day Rex Features 13/43 26 October 2017 British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood holds up a paper against the governments policy on fracking outside Downing Street in London AFP/Getty 14/43 24 October 2017 Members of a delegation of indigenous and rural community leaders from 14 countries in Latin America and Indonesia The Guardians of the Forest campaign demonstrate against deforestation in London during a stop on their way to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties 23 (COP 23) in Bonn Germany Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty 15/43 23 October 2017 Gemma Davis 23 cleans the dolls house during it s annual clean at the National Trust s Calke Abbey property in Ticknall Derbyshire. The dolls house was used by the family s various generations of children between 1860 and the Second World War in their school room PA 16/43 18 October 2017 Prince William and Kate chat with West Ham player Mark Noble and manager Slaven Bilic during the Coach Core graduation ceremony Getty Images 17/43 17 October 2017 Jellyfish washed up on Sidmouth beach after storm Ophelia hit the UK Getty Images 18/43 16 October 2017 A red sun appears in Mid-Wales before storm Ophelia hits Paul Williams / Alamy Live News 19/43 15 October 2017 The Duchess of Cambridge dances with Paddington Bear as they attend a charities forum event at Paddington train station in London on October 16 2017. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry joined children from the charities they support on board Belmond British Pullman train at Paddington Station. The event was hosted by STUDIOCANAL with support from BAFTA through its BAFTA Kids programme and before embarking Their Royal Highnesses met the cast and crew from the forthcoming film Paddington 2 AFP/Getty Images 20/43 15 October 2017 Large waves crash along sea defences and the harbour as storm Ophelia approaches Porthleven in Cornwall south west Britain REUTERS 21/43 14 October 2017 Hillary Clinton gives a speech as she is presented with a Honorary Doctorate of Law at Swansea University in Swansea Wales. The former US secretary of state and 2016 American presidential candidate is also visiting the UK to promote her new book What Happened Matthew Horwood/Getty 22/43 13 October 2017 A lone protestor demonstrates outside Workmen Cuadrilla s shale gas fracking drilling rig near Westby in Blackpool. Engineers have begun to build the new rig at the site off Preston New Road in preparation for extracting gas. The site will be the first in the UK to extract shale gas since 2011 Getty 23/43 11 October 2017 Photographs of missing Syrians are displayed as people including a group of Syrian women stand atop a double-decker bus during a demonstration by Families for Freedom in Parliament Square in London Getty 24/43 9 October 2017 Workmen erect scaffolding around the Elizabeth Tower commonly known called Big Ben during ongoing renovations to the Tower and the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty 25/43 6 October 2017 An order of service is carried ahead of the funeral service for Coronation Street actress Liz Dawn real name Sylvia Ann Ibbetson outside Salford Cathedral. A former Woolworths shop girl from Leeds who first set foot on Weatherfield s famous cobbles in 1974 Dawn who had four children died peacefully last week at home with her family around her. PA 26/43 5 October 2017 Melanie Kramers of Oxfam poses while wearing a mask of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson with assorted props used in political campaigns in the store room at Oxfam s headquarters in London. The props have all been used in the charity s campaigns over the years to raise awareness of issues affecting people in poverty. Today marks 75 years since Oxfam s founding in the middle of the Second World War Getty 27/43 4 October 2017 A visitor poses in front of an art work by Czech Repblic artist Anna Hulacova entitled Ascension Mark I during a photocall for the Frieze Art Fair in London AFP/Getty 28/43 2 October 2017 Britain s Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond arrives to speak at the Conservative Party s conference in Manchester Reuters/Hannah McKay 29/43 1 October 2017 Protesters holding flags and placards demonstrate along Oxford Street during the annual Ashura march in London. Thousands of protesters march through London today to mark Ashura and celebrate the defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Ashura is a Muslim festival of remembrance that falls on the tenth day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar Jack Taylor/Getty 30/43 30 September 2017 Protesters hold up placards during the London March for Choice calling for the legalising of abortion in Ireland after the referendum announcement outside the Embassy of Ireland in central London Chris J Ratcliffe/AFP 31/43 29 September 2017 Former UKIP leader Paul Nuttall (C) speaks with delegates at the UKIP annual conference being held at the The Riviera International Centre in Torquay Matt Cardy/Getty 32/43 27 September 2017 England and West Indies fans enjoy themselves during the 4th Royal London One Day International between England and West Indies at The Kia Oval in London Mike Hewitt/Getty 33/43 26 September 2017 Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn takes photographs during Shadow Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy Rebecca Long-Bailey s speech in the main hall on day three of the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton Dan Kitwood/Getty Images 34/43 24 September 2017 Naked bathers enter the water as they take part in the North East Skinny Dip at Druridge bay in Druridge England. The popular annual event takes place around the autumn equinox at Druridge Bay as the sun rises. Participant registration fees have been pledged to the mental health charity MIND. Getty 35/43 23 September 2017 Rollo Maughfling Archdruid of Stonehenge and Britain (R) conducts a ceremony as druids pagans and revellers gather in the centre at Stonehenge hoping to see the sun rise as they take part in a autumn equinox celebrations at the ancient neolithic monument of Stonehenge near Amesbury in Wiltshire England. Several hundred people gathered at sunrise ar the famous historic stone circle a UNESCO listed ancient monument to celebrate the equinox which is a specific moment in time that occurs twice a year when the Earth tilts neither towards (summer) or away (winter) from the sun in either the northern or southern hemisphere. Although yesterday marked the actual meteorological calendar change from summer to autumn for druids the following dawn is when they celebrate the dawning of the new season following the day of equal night which it is named after. Getty 36/43 22 September 2017 Britain s Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her Brexit speech at the Complesso Santa Maria Novella in Florence Italy. British Prime Minister Theresa May will seek to unlock Brexit talks on September 22 after Brussels demanded more clarity on the crunch issues of budget payments and EU citizens rights AFP 37/43 21 September 2017 People protest against the actions of the Spanish government in front of the Spanish consulate in Edinburgh. Spanish police stormed ministries and buildings belonging to Catalonia s regional government yesterday in an attempt to try and put a stop to the region s independence referendum Pep Masip/Alamy 38/43 20 September 2017 One of the final 55m turbine blades is manoeuvred into position. The last of 116 wind turbines have been installed at the Rampion Offshore Wind Farm 13 kms off the Brighton Coast. It will provide enough electricity to supply the equivalent of half the homes in Sussex Mike Hewitt/Getty Images 39/43 16 September 2017 An armed police officer patrols in Horse Guards Parade in London. An 18-year-old man has been arrested in Dover in connection with yesterday s terror attack on Parsons Green station in which 30 people were injured. The UK terror threat level has been raised to critical Jack Taylor/Getty Images 40/43 13 September 2017 Demonstrators hold banners during a protest to lobby MPs to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit outside the Houses of Parliament Tolga Akmen/AFP 41/43 12 September 2017 Rupert van der Werff Summer Place Auctions Natural History specialist moves a one-year-old baby mammoth skeleton at Summers Place Auctions on September 12 2017 in Billingshurst. A family of four mammoths found together during building works near the Siberian city of Tomsk in 2002 will be on sale on November 21 2017 and are expected to sell in the region of 250 000 - 400 000 Rob Stothard/Getty Images 42/43 11 September 2017 Members of the Royal Navy carry supplies on board the amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean at the Naval Base in Gibraltar before leaving to provide humanitarian assistance and vital aid to British Overseas Territories and Commonwealth partners affected by Hurricane Irma. Britain has pledged 32 million (35 million euros 42 million) in aid and sent hundreds of troops supplies and rescue equipment on several flights to the British territories in the Caribbean since the disaster JORGE GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images 43/43 10 September 2017 His Holiness The Dalai Lama holds the hand of Richard Moore as he gives a public talk on the theme of Compassion in Action to celebrate 20 years of the Children in Crossfire initiative in Londonderry Northern Ireland. The Dalai Lama is the patron of the Children in Crossfire charity which was founded by Richard Moore. Mr Moore was blinded by a plastic bullet fired by a British Soldier during the Troubles in Derry. Getty Images In normal times both would have been fired well before Patel was finally shown the door by May last night after being summoned back from a trip to Africa with the media monitoring her every mile of the way. Patel was accused of misleading May the Foreign Office and the media about her freelancing in 12 secret meetings with Israeli politicians including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during her family holiday in August. It appeared to be a naive but deliberate attempt to ignore the rules and change government policy by switching some aid money to Israel at a sensitive time in an always sensitive region. Just before Patel s fate was sealed the Jewish Chronicle claimed that Downing Street was aware of a further meeting between Patel and an Israeli foreign ministry official in New York in September and told Patel not to disclose it and was informed about her talks with Netanyahu soon after they happened. The claims were seen as a desperate last attempt to save Patel. But No 10 insisted that she did not tell it about the Netanyahu talks or another meeting with an Israeli minister at the Commons in September. Patel admitted the affair had been a distraction and offered May a fulsome apology. May knew she would not have a shred of credibility left if she left Patel in her job. But her departure will not buy the Prime Minister much credit. Allowing her to resign rather than formally dismissing her will smack of weakness to some Tory MPs. May s judgement when she named her first Cabinet in July last year looks pretty woeful. Johnson remains in place despite a catalogue of mistakes at the Foreign Office; his humour over-confidence and reluctance to master a brief do not suit the world of diplomacy. Putting noses out of joint around the globe is one thing but he has now made his worst error yet. He might have extended the jail sentence of the British woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe by suggesting she was simply teaching people journalism in Iran when she was actually on holiday. Johnson s grudging half-apology in the Commons on Tuesday has further damaged his standing among Tory MPs. Priti Patel set to be sacked after misleading Theresa May over more secret Israeli meetings Some Tories think May was clever to hand Johnson a senior post so he would crash and burn. I rather doubt that; in doing so he has damaged May and highlighted her weakness. The Prime Minister is back where she was before her Tory conference disaster when senior advisers urged her to restore her authority through a wide-ranging reshuffle that would prise Johnson out of the Foreign Office. Although there was a mini-reshuffle last week when Sir Michael Fallon was fired over allegations of sexual harassment May is unlikely to risk a big shake-up today when she fills the vacuum created by Patel s departure. The timing of the Patel saga is terrible for May. The sex scandal is likely to claim more ministerial victims. The Cabinet Office is investigating Damian Green the de facto Deputy Prime Minister. You cannot have a reshuffle every week. Johnson s fate is intertwined with Philip Hammond s as hardline Brexiteers warn that May cannot shift the Foreign Secretary without also moving the Chancellor the champion of a softer Brexit. But the Budget is only two weeks away and so she can t change her Chancellor now. Maintaining the balance between Remainers and Leavers in any shake-up would be difficult. But support for May is draining away among her ministers and backbenchers with many saying: We cannot go on like this. A full-scale reshuffle is May s last chance to create a functioning government that lasts into the new year rather than stumbles from one day to the next. She will have to take it. More about: Priti Patel Israel Boris Johnson Theresa May Cabinet reshuffle Reuse content