Daily catch-up: disastrous split in the Tory party over Europe can be postponed no longer

As European Parliament tries to spike the deal, the Tory party prepares to split; plus Michael Gove, Blairite; and another Genuine Shop Name

Continuing my occasional series of Genuine Shop Names, Tom Greatrex, Labour former MP (Scotland, one of the lucky ones as it turned out), offers this cocktail bar in Putney.

• The self-regard of Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, in refusing yesterday to guarantee that MEPs would approve the deal to keep Britain in the EU, was unattractive. I have written for Politico about how everything is going to start going wrong for David Cameron at the Brussels summit tomorrow:

When Harold Wilson renegotiated the U.K.’s terms of membership in 1975, mainly by allowing more imports of New Zealand butter, the prime minister of Belgium complained that Europe’s heads of government had been “reduced to the level of auditors in a supermarket chain.”

Forty-one years later, jumped-up representatives elected on low turnouts by uninterested voters refuse even to be reduced to the level of promising to honor a deal to keep Britain in.

Back at home, the disastrous split in the Conservative Party that Cameron has postponed for 11 years is finally about to happen. Guido Fawkes has a running tally of where Tory MPs stand (updated 11am). In: 104. Out: 151. Not declared: 75. That looks as if it is going to end up being roughly down the middle, that is, the worst possible.

• I have written about Michael Gove, the leader of the Blairites in government, for The Independent today. I was struck by his appointment of Sir Michael Barber, head of Tony Blair's Delivery Unit, to the Ministry of Justice board, and by Sir Michael's comment at King's College, London, on Monday: “I am very glad that Michael Gove is now doing prison reform. New Labour could have done that.”

• Wonders. The "Stop the War" Coalition nearly, very nearly, condemned Russian bombing of Syrian hospitals. But didn't quite manage it:

It is unclear who was responsible, although it seems most likely it was Russian bombers or the Assad regime’s own air force. Whoever it was, Stop the War condemns the atrocity, just as we did the US bombing of an MSF hospital in Afghanistan last year.

You saw what Andrew Murray, Jeremy Corbyn's successor as chair of the organisation, did there.

• And finally, thanks to Glenny Rodge ‏for this:

"The first rule of Pop Music Club is you never talk about Pop Music, talk about, pop music, shoobie doobie do wop, pop pop shoo wop Club."