Inside Politics: Boris Johnson decides coronavirus crisis merits his attention

Three is the magic number. Manchester City, the only team in history to win a domestic treble, have won their third League Cup in a row. A nice distraction from the huge legal battles which lie ahead for the club. Boris Johnson will be the first prime minister in history to score a domestic treble – a divorce, a wedding and a baby, all while living in Downing Street. A nice distraction from the huge legal battles which lie ahead for the PM, as the UK government officially kicks off trade negotiations with the EU today. I’m Adam Forrest, and welcome to The Independent’s daily Inside Politics briefing.

Our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn on what to look out for today:

After several weeks of sabre-rattling and red-lines being constructed, British and EU officials will hold their first face-to-face talks since the UK quit the bloc. This will be the first of five rounds of trade negotiations – each lasting four days – to be held in Brussels and London every three weeks or so before May. Meanwhile Boris Johnson will convene a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee, with Labour claiming he should have “got a grip” of the situation much earlier.

BELATED BLITZ SPIRIT: Having enjoyed a bit of time off in February, Boris Johnson is finally ready to throw himself into this coronavirus thing. It’s a crisis, he thinks. So it suddenly now merits military metaphors. According to No 10, Johnson will draw up a “battle plan” and create a cross-government “war room” of experts – before launching a “public information blitz”. How bad could things get? Health secretary Matt Hancock said the government was preparing for an 80 per cent infection rate and 500,000 deaths as the “reasonable worst case scenario”. Hancock refused to rule out putting entire cities in lockdown, admitting it could not be taken “off the table”. It looks like Rishi Sunak will have to get the Tipp-Ex out. There’s a lot of revising for the chancellor to do before next week’s budget. The Office for Budget Responsibility is set to change its forecasts to recognise falling stock markets around the world. The Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), meanwhile, said a Wuhan-style quarantine in London would mean a 6 per cent drop in the UK’s output.

HOWDY PARDNER: Yee haw! Forget the ultra-serious, future-of-the-economy negotiations starting with our biggest trading partner (by far) in Brussels today. Johnson wants to talk about cowboys instead. The PM said a trade deal with the US would mean “trading Scottish smoked salmon for Stetson hats”. As his government outlined objectives for talks with Washington expected to begin later this month, the TUC warned the PM he should be concentrating on getting a good deal with the EU – rather than “cosying up to Donald Trump”. French politicians remain focused. France’s Europe minister Amelie de Montchalin suggested trade talks could soon collapse if the UK refuses to grant adequate fishing rights to European boats. De Montchalin told The Andrew Marr Show that it may get ugly. She said the dramatizing Brits weren’t the only ones who know how to tell a story. “We play it with emotion, with drama, with passion, with symbols and we know how to make it a very nasty battle. A very nasty battle … and at the end we will both lose.” Wonderful. Thanks for the pep talk Amelie.

BRIEFING ENCOUNTERS: Johnson has offered Priti Patel his public backing, saying he “absolutely” has confidence in the “fantastic” home secretary. Is that the kind of “absolute” confidence football club owners have before sacking beleaguered managers? Despite the extraordinary resignation statement by Sir Philip Putnam – who accused Patel of orchestrating a “vicious” briefing campaign and claimed staff complained about her “shouting and swearing” – it appears No 10 is happy to keep her in the job. Downing Street continued to brief against Sir Phil over the weekend, branding him “Sir Calamity” and “a poster boy for failure”. Dominic Cummings has reportedly sent aide Michael Young to the Home Office to oversee immigration proposals. According to The Sunday Times Young was told: “You have one job: don’t let Priti f*** up the borders plan.” Patel is under pressure to answer questions in the Commons today, with both Labour and the FDA civil service union demanding an independent investigation into the briefing war mess.

LEUNIG TUNES: Cummings hates leaks. And he doesn’t like people making fun of “weirdo” big thinkers doing their best to shake up government. So he won’t have enjoyed leaked emails showing that Treasury adviser Tim Leunig had argued Britain’s food sector isn’t “critically important” to the economy. The former colleague of Cummings (the mavericks were at the education department together) also imagined a future for the UK like Singapore – “rich without having its own agricultural sector”, according to The Mail on Sunday. The idea of the nation depending on foreign countries for our food won’t have gone down well with Brexit voters. Minette Batters, head of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), said the idea was “completely out of touch with where the country is”. With all the negative headlines about Patel and Leunig, it was a convenient time for the PM’s partner Carrie Symonds to announce the big baby news and the couple’s engagement. No cynicism from Tory MP Siobhan Baillie, also pregnant, who welcomed Symonds to “the magical bump gang”.

CAN’T GET OVER IT: Labour are supposed to be looking to the future, but deputy leadership hopeful Richard Burgon is very keen to rake over past disputes. He claimed Jeremy Corbyn could have gotten away with winning the 2017 general election and creating a socialist paradise – if it wasn’t for those pesky Labour MPs who rebelled in 2016. Burgon accused those who resigned four years ago of “disgraceful behaviour”. As for the 2019 election, the British people would definitely have opted for socialism, Burgon told Andrew Marr – if it wasn’t for pesky old Brexit. The left is stepping up the rather desperate efforts to stop strong favourite Sir Keir Starmer. With the frontrunner the only leadership candidate not to have published his list of donors, Rebecca Long-Bailey called on MPs to “instantly” declare all donations to thwart “corrupting influence of corporate money in politics”. Jeremy Corbyn made similar noises attacking “big-ticket” donations in his latest interview with the Islington Gazette. The outgoing leader also suggested he wouldn’t mind the job of shadow foreign secretary. “I’m not disappearing,” he said. Sir Keir will be delighted, I’m sure.

“I think she’s a fantastic home secretary.”

Boris Johnson backs Priti Patel in her war with the civil service.

“Memo to PM: get a grip before the wheels come off. Sack your inadequate Home Secretary now rather than later. Come out of hiding. Offer leadership on floods, Coronavirus and now collapse of the markets as your hero Churchill would have done.”

Former No 10 chief of staff Jonathan Powell has a message for the PM…

“Shadow Heath Secretary @JonAshworth will be on @GMB – and we’ll have him on every day he wants to appear during the coronavirus crisis, as Fridge-Hider @BorisJohnson & his cowardly cabinet continue to snub our viewers.”

…while Piers Morgan has his own reasons for calling the PM a coward.

Andrew Grice, The Independent: Boris Johnson will likely get a baby bounce among voters – but they will expect him to do his job

Holly Baxter, The Independent: Pete Buttigieg has surprised everyone by dropping out – but was it because of a back-room deal?

Catherine Haddon, The Guardian: Why Philip Putnam’s row with Priti Patel shocked Whitehall

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight: What Joe Biden’s big South Carolina win might mean for Bernie Sanders