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As the Labour leadership race hots up, the government seems to have spent most of its energies

trying to direct our attention away from the trade talks with the EU, not entirely successfully. We'll have more on

labors runners and riders in a moment with Jim Picard, our political

correspondent, and on Dominic Cummings, the man at the heart of the Downing Street

operation. But first I'm joined by

George Parker, our political editor, and by Sam Fleming, our man in Brussels, to pick

over the tea leaves and predict what these negotiations might bring.

So Sam, it's great to have you in London to tell us what's really going on in Brussels.

Clearly we're watching all the signs from here as to the changing personnel apart from anything else

as this really important trade negotiation begins to get underway.

The signs from Downing Street seem to be very firm, diverge, diverge. What is the line from Brussels so far?

I think Brussels was expecting at least early in the negotiations a very tough line from

Boris Johnson and his team and a willingness to stress divergence.

What the European Union is broadly asking for is if you want to try and do some sort of trade deal

within the 11 months or so that we have available before us this

...