ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

Carney to become a British citizen

Mark Carney, the Canadian Governor of the Bank of England, is about to become a British citizen, five years after arriving in the UK in July 2013.

Although he is married to Diana Fox, who is English, and holds perhaps the most senior political appointment in the country, Carney had to fulfil Britain’s tortuous citizenship process, which includes an online test of 24 questions such as: “What are the responsibilities of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?”

This week Chancellor Philip Hammond confirmed that Carney would continue in his role as Governor until January 2020, an extension from his earlier departure date of 2019.

Carney came to Britain from Ottawa on an Irish passport, which he was entitled to because his grandparents were born in County Mayo. But he assured former Prime Minister David Cameron when he was appointed that he would begin his citizenship application as part of the deal.

“I made that commitment to the Prime Minister,” he told Channel 4’s Jon Snow in 2013. “The residency requirement actually extends to about the end of my term, as it turns out, despite the fact that I have been married to my British wife for 18 years.”

To fulfil the Home Office’s residency criteria to become a British citizen, foreign nationals must have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of five years.

Questions Carney would have had to have answered in the “Life in the UK” test include: “Are Northern Irish banknotes legal tender in mainland Britain?”

The citizenship ceremony requires Carney to pledge his allegiance to UK laws and freedoms.

Today Carney attended the Cabinet meeting to discuss the possibility of a no-deal Brexit. He was spotted being “smuggled into the back door” of Downing Street this morning.

As a British citizen Carney would be able to follow previous governors into the House of Lords.

Labour maths doesn't breed confidence...

Siobhain McDonagh MP has criticised alleged voting irregularities at the meeting at which her Labour colleague Joan Ryan lost a vote of confidence. Last Thursday Ryan’s local party voted against her. This morning McDonagh told us: “In the room there were 187 people entitled to vote. The vote was 94 in favour of the resolution of no confidence, 92 against and four spoilt ballots. That comes to 190.” When asked why that might have happened she said: “Who knows?” and added, “It’s the Wild West out there, they make the rules up as they go along.”

---

Howard Jacobson, the novelist and Jeremy Corbyn critic, told us last night at the launch of Fortnum’s X Frank art event: “I don’t want to stop criticism of Israel. Where I come from criticism of Israel is commonplace. You wanna hear criticism of Israel? Go to any Jew’s house on a Friday night. Go to bloody Israel.”

---

Michael Caine says he once smoked marijuana with Richard Harris. “I couldn’t stop laughing,” he told the BBC’s Front Row. “It was about one in the morning and I was trying to get a cab, roaring with laughter. No cab would stop for me,” he continued. “So I had to walk home.” Not a lot of people know that.

---

Celebrities come indoors to view street artist’s work

Actor Rose McGowan was in Waterloo attending a viewing of Richard Hambleton: Shadowman last night — a new exhibition showcasing the late street artist.

McGowan, a strong voice against disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, spoke of her experience in a new interview with GQ. She branded the “disgusting people” still working with Weinstein as “more guilty than he is”. “He’s got something wrong in his head; what’s their excuse?” she said.

Model Poppy Delevingne was also at the exhibition on Leake Street, as was ex-footballer-turned-TV-pundit Jamie Redknapp, actor Gala Gordon and Tigerlily Taylor, daughter of Queen drummer Roger Taylor.

Also in south London, Ronnie Wood was at Brontë musical Wasted at Southwark Playhouse. The Stones guitarist seemed relaxed after he was snapped running after his toddler twins this week. In Mayfair, eco-queen Livia Firth was dressed in fishscale print for a private dinner at Annabel’s.

SW1A

Diane Abbott’s shadow Home Office team sent a briefing to the Labour PLP apparently cut and pasted from a Tory document. Worse, they failed to delete points where the Tories attacked Abbott herself, including: “Is my RHF aware that the RHM for Hackney North thinks that some counterterrorism laws are ‘pointless’”? It was emailed at 5.22pm on Tuesday and swiftly recalled at 5.28pm.

---

Robbie Gibb, Theresa May’s director of comms, served up the third persuade-a-rebel Downing Street dinner last night. Monday’s guests got salmon, Tuesday’s steak, and yesterday’s chicken. “Make of that what you will,” said one MP.

---

Antoinette Sandbach MP said watching Channel 4’s First Dates Hotel last night made her feel lucky: “It’s about love and hope and we need more of that... Lots of frogs in my life but eventually found the right man.” No toads in Westminster, of course.

Quote of the day

'Even Jesus had disciples who were disgruntled with him'

Jacob Rees-Mogg compares Theresa May to Jesus. Does he think nobody else knows how things ended?

---

Ian Hislop was with his old schoolmate Chris Gunness at the premiere of Eastern Star at the Tara Theatre in Earlsfield last night. So who was the more rebellious pupil? “Chris was a proper dissenter.” And Hislop? “I was head boy.”