Getting Australia’s trade deal over the line with lamb, pavlova and a side of ‘soft diplomacy’ | Katharine Murphy

Scott Morrison's free trade agreement with the UK is a win for the Nationals, but the return of coal-loving Barnaby presents a new challenge for the PM

On Monday morning, we saw one of those organic redirections that sometimes happen in politics. If the Nationals hadn't lunged to take out their leader Michael McCormack, another story about Scott Morrison and an undeclared pilgrimage in Cornwall to engage with his convict ancestry would have dominated the day.

If you missed this story in the melee, a quick recap. On Monday, the London correspondent for Nine newspapers, Bevan Shields, reported that Morrison had last week embarked on an undeclared pilgrimage to St Keverne, a small village 45 minutes south of the G7 summit site in Cornwall, to explore his family's convict past. This ancestry dot com sortie was undertaken minus the travelling press.