The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. absolutely free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher. Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse

Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Katie Balls and I'm delighted to be joined by

yes, James Versafe, but also the London editor of the Irish Times, Dennis Staunton, to try and make sense of

what is going on in the Brexit talks. We finally have a date. We know that this evening, Boris Johnson

will sit down with European Commission President Erster von der Leyen for dinner. But in terms of

what's at stake, it really depends who you ask. Dennis, you've been speaking two figures, both in terms of what's at stake, it really depends who you ask.

Dennis, you've been speaking two figures, both in terms of the Irish government,

but also the Brussels viewpoint.

In the best case scenario, what could this break in terms of the death book?

I think in the best case scenario, they will agree that their negotiators should go back,

carry on.

It looks like we've narrowed down from the three issues which were fisheries, the level

playing field and how to enforce the agreement.

They seem to be focusing now on a very specific part of the level playing field, which

is this, what they call the ratchet clause.

So in other words, both sides will start off at the same

standards in terms of employment rights, environmental law, all the rest of it. And then the idea is,

Britain has agreed that it won't regress from those. But the question is, what happens if one side

improves their standards? And so if they have better environmental standards or labour standards,

what does the other side do? Does the other side have to shadow all of that? Or if, for example,

say, let's say the Europeans make the employment law a little bit better for the workers,

and the UK doesn't decide to do that? What can Europe do if it feels that this is going to give

...