Several thousand people have been killed in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli war broke out, but the unsteady conflict is creating an additional humanitarian crisis: delays and shortages of medical supplies. Hospitals and health care clinics throughout the Middle East are reporting critical lapses in supplies, which experts fear could lead to a surge in deaths even as the United States agreed to a temporary ceasefire.

What did the commentators say?

With the war in a state of flux, humanitarian centers “across the Middle East, Asia and Africa are facing the risk of running out of basic medication and food” due to the “restriction of shipments in the Strait of Hormuz,” said NPR. Some of this food, especially dry and canned goods, can “be stored for a long time,” Bob Kitchen, the vice president of emergencies and humanitarian action with the International Rescue Committee, said to NPR. But health care supplies are a different story, as most of the “medicines or treatments for malnutrition will expire.”

Many of these countries rely almost entirely on foreign aid for medical supplies. Sudan, for example, has “no manufacturing capacity and is entirely dependent on imported medication,” Omer Sharfy of Save the Children in Sudan said to NPR. This means health care workers “won’t be able to find alternatives in the local market.” The war has also “disrupted the movement of medical supplies from WHO’s global logistics hub in Dubai,” said the World Health Organization. By March 11, just 12 days into the war, over “50 emergency supply requests, intended to benefit over 1.5 million people across 25 countries,” were “affected, resulting in significant backlogs.”

Even countries far away from the conflict are bearing the brunt of these scarcities. Fears of syringe and IV shortages in South Korea are “spreading through Korea’s health care sector, prompting authorities to urge medical providers to refrain from stockpiling,” said The Korea Times. The problem is not that the Persian Gulf countries are “major drug producers. They’re not,” said health care news nonprofit Healthbeat. But these nations do “form ‘a critical pharmaceutical transit hub,’ where drugs and their basic ingredients from India, Europe and China routinely pass before heading to Africa, Asia and the United States.”

What next?

Some are hopeful that the two-week ceasefire, announced by President Donald Trump and initially agreed to by Iran, will allow the flow of medicine to restart. But while the U.S. has backed a ceasefire, Israel has continued its assault on the region, carrying out a series of strikes in Lebanon. Iran reclosed the strait in “response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group,” said The Associated Press. Iran later accused the U.S. of also violating the deal, and claimed that a long-term ceasefire was “unreasonable.”

Even before the strait was closed again, experts say it is unlikely its opening would have made a huge difference in moving global medical supplies. The ceasefire deal would not lead to a “‘mass exodus’ of ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” said The Guardian. The deal also allows Iran and Oman to “charge a fee of up to $2 million a ship on vessels transiting through the strait,” which could further limit the amount of supplies that are able to pass.

With no end to the larger skirmish in sight, fears persist that the shipment of medical supplies could remain at risk. All of these events are happening in an industry that was “decimated by funding cuts from the United States and Europe last year,” said The Washington Post, and is “now straining to meet demand that grows with each additional day of war.”

After five weeks of war, Donald Trump has claimed “total and complete victory” over Iran. Tehran begs to differ. Agreeing to the conditional two-week ceasefire, Iranian officials said their country had dealt a “crushing historic defeat” to the US and Israel.

Meanwhile, commentators are pointing to real, quiet wins for both China and Pakistan, whose behind-the-scenes roles in pushing for the ceasefire have increased their global standing.

What did the commentators say?

Benjamin Netanyahu “looks set to be the biggest loser” of the conflict, said The Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Peter Beaumont. Pressuring Trump to agree to his decades-long goal of neutralising Iran has “turned out to be a bust”. The “political consensus” between Israel and the US is “visibly crumbling”, and there’s “domestic fallout” for Netanyahu in the run-up to an election.

Trump has also emerged as a “strategic loser”, said the South China Morning Post. Washington failed to achieve regime change in Tehran, and Iran retained control of the Strait of Hormuz, the conflict’s “most strategic asset”. Meanwhile, the US has used up “sophisticated air-defence missiles” intercepting “far cheaper Iranian drones and projectiles”. Iran’s nuclear programme has survived, along with the “stockpile of enriched uranium” from which it could “potentially produce a viable weapon”, said The Times’ Middle East correspondent, Samer Al-Atrush. That “will not be given up easily”.

Tehran’s blocking of the Strait of Hormuz was a “high-risk” strategy that “paid off”, said DW. It “secured a ceasefire without conceding defeat”, which it “can present as proof that it withstood the US and all its military might”. The Iranian regime “survived, and bought time to try to shape” the phase of negotiations “on more favourable terms”.

In the longer term, it is actually Beijing that most “stands to gain”. America has “moved many military assets to the Middle East to protect shipping”, which “leaves fewer resources for the Indo‑Pacific, where Washington and Beijing compete for influence”. China has also had the chance to present itself “as a responsible global actor”, with its power brokers widely credited with pushing Iran to agree to the ceasefire.

China is “shaping up to be the big winner”, said Roger Boyes, The Times’ diplomatic editor. Unlike the US, it expected Iran to seize the strait and “amassed large oil reserves”, making itself “more resilient” to an energy crisis. “As a significant exporter” of other goods, it was still initially “hit hard” by the strait’s closure but then the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ordered that China-bound vessels could pass through “toll-free”.

Pakistan’s credentials have been burnished, too. Its role in brokering the ceasefire was “unexpected” but the Islamabad Accord is the country’s “most consequential diplomatic moment in a decade”, said former UN peacekeeper Anil Raman on NDTV. Capitalising on its good relations with both the US and Iran, Islamabad will “press hard to consolidate” this “return to global relevance”.

What next?

J.D. Vance is due to lead a US delegation in negotiations with Tehran in Pakistan on Friday. The White House said the ceasefire between the US and Iran has created an “opening for a diplomatic solution and long-term peace”.

But the specifics of the terms to be discussed “remain murky”, said the BBC, “as is the current state of shipping traffic” through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces have warned that ships would be “destroyed” if they tried to sail through without permission.

“In the end, cooler heads prevailed – at least for now,” said North America Correspondent Anthony Zurcher on BBC News. After Donald Trump’s threats to launch attacks on Iran that would wipe out the “whole civilisation” in the country, both countries agreed a two-week ceasefire.

The President has since claimed that this could lead to a “Golden Age of the Middle East!!!”, while Vice-President J. D. Vance called the ceasefire a “fragile truce”.

As peace talks are expected to take place in Pakistan, both sides have claimed the ascendancy, though uncertainty surrounding key elements of the agreement, such as the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian nuclear capabilities, have left many sceptical of continued peace.

What did the commentators say?

This ceasefire move is “check, not checkmate”, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator. In fact, we shouldn’t even consider this a proper ceasefire; it is merely a “fragile” and “conditional” “pause” in the conflict, which is “already under strain”.

“Beneath the surface, fundamental disagreements persist” in a logistical sense. There has been “no clearly defined start time” and “key uncertainties” remain. The proposed 10-point plan issued by Iran contains “discrepancies” between its Farsi and English versions, “most notably” over the state of uranium enrichment, as well as ambiguity surrounding movement through the Strait of Hormuz. “If this is the Third World War, it is not over.”

“It’s TACO Tuesday!”, said David Charter in The Times, using the Trump Always Chickens Out acronym coined last year during Trump’s “on-off tariff threats”. Even if the ceasefire holds, the US has “left in place a cadre of battle-scarred leaders, no doubt harbouring thoughts of revenge”.

As “king of the ultimatum”, Trump has “played fast and loose in pursuit of his goals”, isolating himself from “shocked” allies, who are now “on their guard” more than ever before. The “reckless” flip-flopping could have “far-reaching consequences for America’s standing in the world”. On the world stage, countries may come to fear America’s “increasingly unpredictable behaviour” more than its “terrifying” military might.

“Both sides have good reason to hope the talks succeed, despite the obstacles,” said The Economist. For the US, the war is “deeply unpopular at home”, and Trump is “keen to have it finished” before his mid-May summit with Xi Jinping in China. “For Iran, renewed fighting would be catastrophic,” with America and Israel expected to continue striking key economic assets. The only outlier may be Israel, which maintained that the ceasefire does not include Lebanon.

“Diplomatic jujitsu” will be required to bridge the gap between the views of a final peace agreement held by Iran and the US, said David E. Sanger in The New York Times. It is hard to imagine that a settlement between the nations could be reached in “two years, much less two weeks”. Neither Trump’s “tactic of escalating his rhetoric to astronomical levels” or the “down-to-the-wire” negotiations have resolved the “fundamental issues that led to the war”. It took the Obama administration two-and-a-half years to negotiate the 2015 nuclear accord – which Trump tore up in 2018 – “and that was in peacetime”. Notwithstanding, “this negotiation will be held under the sword of a possible resumption of hostilities.”

The last-minute ceasefire is “in theory, a victory for real-estate geopolitics”, said Senior Foreign Correspondent Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. However, “as any real estate agent knows”, the devil is in the detail, and “closer inspection suggests Mr Trump’s triumph may not be quite as unalloyed as he claims”. Iran’s position is stronger than before the war, and has now “agreed to allow shipping through the chokepoint”, but “on its own terms and has not relinquished its claim to control it”. The country may have agreed to a ceasefire, but its negotiating position, “rhetorically at least, is now more hardline than before the war began”.

What next?

“What is certain is that the clock has been reset yet again,” said Sacerdoti in The Spectator. Providing the ceasefire holds, the “decisive moment” will come in two weeks’ time, when the “temporary pause” ends and the “question of whether it can be extended, or gives way to renewed fighting, will be answered”.

“The talks in Islamabad will be complicated, to say the least,” said The Economist. Significant work needs to be done, as the positions of both sides “could not be further apart”. “If both sides stick to their current positions, the talks could end up at the same impasse they reached just before the war in February.”

If talks were to fail, we would likely see an “uneasy return to the status quo”. Iran would face American sanctions and the continued “threat of further American strikes”, as well as remaining a “menace” in the Gulf region, and have “strong motivation to build a bomb”. “That would be a bad outcome for everyone: a weakened, hostile regime; an impoverished Iran; and a lingering threat to the global economy.”

High-street retailers are demanding more action to tackle the shoplifting epidemic in Britain, after more than 100 young people stormed a Marks & Spencer store in south London last week.

Shoplifters have become “more brazen, more organised and more aggressive”, said M&S retail director Thinus Keeve in The Telegraph. He called on London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to do more to address the problem, including providing “greater transparency” about its “true scale and impact”.

Shoplifting in England and Wales cost retailers £400 million last year, according to the British Retail Consortium. Iceland’s executive chair, Richard Walker, has likened it to a “daily low-level war”, and has called for supermarket staff to be given extra powers to deal with the most violent offenders – like in Spain, where “all the security guards have truncheons and pepper spray” and “don’t mess about”.

What did the commentators say?

“This is not just any intervention, this is a Marks & Spencer intervention,” said The Times’ editorial board. It is an “alarm bell from one of Britain’s most trusted and storied brands; its concerns are a cri de coeur from middle England”.

M&S has “articulated what small retailers, and what the voiceless and powerless ordinary people of this country” have been seeing in recent years, said Patrick West in The Spectator. Last week’s “scenes of mayhem” in Clapham are “distressingly familiar to the inhabitants of the towns and cities”, who are witnessing the “seemingly inexorable collapse in civic society and the breakdown of our formerly high-trust society”.

“This weakness percolates back to policing,” said former Met Police detective Dominic Adler in UnHerd; if criminals “know they’re unlikely to ever face imprisonment, they see little incentive to stop offending”, and, equally, overworked police officers “see little reason to arrest, either”. This government’s updates to the 2020 Sentencing Act abolished custodial sentences for a variety of petty offences, including most shoplifting, and “punches the bruise of the ‘broken Britain’ narrative”.

This is not “a matter for the retailers to solve on their own, as some have suggested”, said The Telegraph’s editorial board. “If criminals think they can get away with theft or even violence,” it will only get worse. “The police need the resources and the support to crack down.”

What next?

The government has made some “welcome efforts” to help retailers in its recent Crime and Policing Bill, said The Times. Chief among these is abolishing the “misguided” £200 threshold that made “low-value shoplifting” a lesser offence, “a measure that was designed to ease the burden on police, but that gave encouragement to opportunistic raiders”. But “there is clearly a need for more to be done”.

There is a surprising generational divide when it comes to people’s views on shoplifting. While 74% of all Britons consider it a fairly or very serious crime, this drops to 35% among 18- to 24-year-olds, according to a recent YouGov poll. Significant numbers of younger people polled say they think shoplifting is justifiable, given current cost-of-living challenges.

Oil prices jumped last night after Donald Trump said the Iran conflict was “nearing completion”. Despite the US president saying the attacks on Tehran would end in “two to three weeks” and America doesn’t “need their oil”, the markets were not soothed.

“A word – or social media post” – from Trump “used to spark big moves in prices”, said the BBC. Investors would leap on “signs” that things “could escalate or come to an end”. But now traders seem “to be growing more sceptical about the value of his comments”.

What did the commentators say?

At the outset of the conflict, oil prices were “sensitive to Trump’s comments” but his view of the war “seems to change hour by hour”, said Tom Saunders and Eir Nolsoe in The Telegraph. “His stream of often contradictory statements” have made many wonder “whether they can trust the messaging” coming from the US administration, and some traders have drawn back from the market, “leaving prices increasingly untethered from reality”.

However many solutions to the current global oil crisis Donald Trump comes up with, the oil market isn’t listening anymore – “and the price of oil keeps rising”, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. There’s simply no point in Trump “trying to talk the price of oil back down again. It just won’t work.”

His “Persian Taco” tactic “may have run its course”, said Eduardo Porter in The Guardian. “Making extreme threats” and then walking them back may “provide Trump with the illusion of agency” but he “no longer has control of events in Iran”. The markets are “figuring out” that it will probably be Tehran, not the US, that gets to decide when the conflict ends.

What’s next?

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is today chairing a virtual summit with almost three dozen nations, to explore measures to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his government is determined to find a solution to the energy challenges, although “it will not be easy”.

And yet, “after nearly three weeks of this conflict”, the global financial system is “functioning without panic or alarming signs of stress”, said Zachary Karabell in the The Washington Post. “It’s important to distinguish between price movements” and stability. “The smooth functioning” of the financial system, “in the face” of crises like the oil shock, “gets little attention, probably because stability is not news”. But central banks, financial institutions and governments have “improved at monitoring” risks, and that should “at least provide some relief in a world full enough of fears”.

The U.S. may soon put proverbial “boots on the ground” in Iran. President Donald Trump is considering an operation to seize Kharg Island, a key oil hub for the Islamic regime, as he tries to bring about the end of the war on terms favorable to the United States.

Kharg could prove an attractive target as Trump seeks to “hobble Iran’s oil industry for leverage in negotiations,” said The Associated Press. But experts say a U.S. attack “would risk American lives” and possibly “still fail to end the war.” Kharg is not far from Iran’s mainland, so the regime “can potentially rain a lot of destruction on the island, if they’re willing to inflict damage on their own infrastructure,” said Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. American forces will find the island “hard to take,” said Danny Citrinowicz of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. “It will be hard to hold.”

Iran will probably respond to a Kharg invasion with “escalating strikes on energy infrastructure across the Middle East,” said Bloomberg. That would create additional turmoil for global oil markets, “where prices have already topped $100 a barrel” because of the war.

What did the commentators say?

Seizing Kharg “could be militarily feasible,” former Gen. Mark Hertling said at The Bulwark. But to what end? The U.S. can “seize terrain, conduct raids” and conduct other military operations with “unmatched precision.” But military campaigns require “alignment between ends, ways and means,” and right now “that alignment is not evident.” If the United States attempts to seize Kharg without a clear understanding of the end goal — regime change, the end of Tehran’s nuclear program or something else — “success will be temporary.” U.S. leaders owe troops a “strategy worthy of the risk we ask of them.”

“There are grounds” to believe that taking Kharg could force Iran’s regime to “capitulate before it implodes,” Marcus Solarz Hendriks said at The Spectator. The country’s economy “cannot limp on without crude oil exports.” A political system should not deflect such economic pain on its people, but the “Islamic Republic is capable.” The regime does not appear amenable to compromise or surrender. Tehran will back down only if “America projects unwavering resolve.” Trump’s path to victory, then, is “through escalation, even if the stakes are immense.”

What next?

Kharg is not the only potential target for U.S. troops. They could also try to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or seize Iran’s nuclear material, said The New York Times. The risks of any of those options “are enormous.” If troops do take the island, they could “be there for a while,” Trump said to the Financial Times.

The Pentagon is preparing for “weeks of ground operations” in Iran, said The Washington Post. That does not mean a final decision has been made. The Defense Department is working to “give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality,” said White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.

With oil and gas prices soaring and supply severely disrupted by conflict in the Middle East, households fear a corresponding spike in their energy bills and calls are coming for the government to act.

Keir Starmer today outlined government measures to “bear down on costs”. The prime minister pointed to Ofgem’s new energy price cap, which amounts to a 7% decrease in energy bills, as well as increases to minimum wages. Starmer also pointed to the £1 billion-a-year Crisis and Resilience Fund that will help vulnerable households with heating oil prices. But the best way to bring down costs for families is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Starmer stressed. That means “pushing for de-escalation in the Middle East”.

The price cap resets at the end of June – and according to forecasts, the next is set to increase by 18%. The Conservatives have called on the government to remove VAT from household energy bills for the next three years, while the Green Party said ministers should increase the tax on energy firms’ profits. Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick accused Rachel Reeves of “acting like a bystander” and not the chancellor.

What did the commentators say?

“The prime minister seems to be suffering from a dangerous degree of complacency in the face of the mounting energy crisis,” said The Independent in an editorial. While other countries’ governments implement measures to conserve energy and support families, such as Australia making some public transport free and Ireland cutting fuel duty, Starmer “has merely urged the British people to ‘act as normal’”. The government is “silent” on any plans it might have to “ameliorate prospectively crippling gas and electricity bills later in the year”.

The soaring price of fuel oil and petrol is playing out against “stagnating living standards” and a “succession of tax rises on work and employment”, more of which kick in this month.

Charities say this month’s increases to council tax, water, broadband and mobile phone tariffs are also “threatening to stretch many households to breaking point”, said the Press Association.

Businesses aren’t protected by the price cap, either. They’re set for “painful increases in their gas and electricity tariffs” as the situation in the Middle East “sends wholesale prices soaring”. Electricity costs have already increased by between 10% and 30% since the conflict began, while gas prices have soared by between 25% and 80%, according to energy analyst Cornwall Insight.

This April 1st is “no joke” for millions of families and small businesses, said the Liberal Democrats in a statement. We need an “urgent cost-of-living plan”.

But we can’t afford more state aid in the form of energy bill subsidies, said The Times. Reeves talks of “targeted” help, but with millions of pensions and welfare claimants, “that could be a very big target”.

The “ruinous spending” of lockdown “crippled this country’s finances”, which Liz Truss ignored when she proposed a universal cap to blunt the impact of the Ukraine war. Gilts “went into freefall” and Truss “was toast”. Since then, the bond market has “consigned Britain to the naughty step”.

Our national debt is at a “crippling 96%” of GDP, the servicing of which will cost £112 billion this year. Inflation and interest rates are set to keep rising, and recession is a “distinct possibility” if the war continues. The government “dare not increase the debt with another universal handout”. The bond markets “will not wear it”.

What next?

Reeves told BBC Breakfast that any support for energy bills would be based on household income, targeted at those who need it most, unlike the universal support rolled out in 2022. “I want to learn the lessons of the past because when Russia invaded Ukraine, the richest, the best-off third of households got more than a third of the support,” the chancellor said. “That makes no sense at all.”

The chancellor said it was “too early” to say who would get help, as demand for energy is at its lowest in the summer. But she “hinted help might not come” until autumn, said the broadcaster.

The Bank of England published its financial stability report today, its first since the US-Israeli war broke out. Domestically, the “economic outlook has deteriorated”, but the UK banking system “has the capacity to support households and businesses”, it said, “even if economic and financial conditions were to be substantially worse than expected”.

As AI adoption across personal and professional vectors increases so do the risks the industry takes on in the name of commercial growth and financial dominance. Mere weeks into the Iran war, the conflict has laid bare many of the fault lines upon which the AI industry has built its foundations. The result is a potentially perfect storm of intersecting factors that could pop the artificial intelligence industry bubble.

What did the commentators say?

The sprawling artificial intelligence industry has “propped up global trade and investment” and “pushed stock markets from the U.S. to Asia to record highs” for the past three years, said the Financial Times. But as one of the most “power-hungry inventions ever,” with a “slick chip production line that can cross more than 70 borders before reaching the final consumer,” the “fragilities in the AI supply chain” are now at particular risk from the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. “Hidden behind the fury” of the war have been new insights into AI and its mass adoption that will be “felt by all of humanity,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, at Foreign Policy.

Admitting he’s been an “AI enthusiast since 1991,” Chakravoriti said that while research suggests AI “can be transformational in a breadth of areas,” he is now “placing a high probability on an AI doomsday.” Multiple distinct “horsemen” of possible disaster range from an “epistemic crisis” to “wars, hot and cold.” Industry observers have “fretted publicly about an AI bubble” for the “better part of the past year,” said The Atlantic. But where fears of an AI crash leading to a “chain reaction across the financial system” once “felt hypothetical,” they now seem “plausible and, to some, almost inevitable.”

The Iran war has particularly unveiled a “paradox” for AI, said Bloomberg. The war could “destabilize” significant monetary investment in AI from Gulf State allies, while “surging energy costs threaten to make data centers far more expensive to run.” The resulting “aftershocks of the conflict” seem “less likely to kill the AI boom entirely” than to “cleave the market in two,” leaving juggernauts like Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon the “most exposed to the shifting financial landscape.” High-profile startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, conversely, are poised to be “more insulated” from the fallout.

If the Iran war is what truly “brought conflict to Silicon Valley,” said Fox News, then the industry “was not ready” for what this conflict would expose. “Consider the threat receiving almost no attention,” which also carries perhaps the “greatest economic consequence for Americans at home”: helium production, a third of which takes place in Qatar. “No helium. No chips. No AI.” Without these elements, the “military edge carrying this war degrades.” The Middle East conflict “is proving, in real time” that the large-scale data centers used to power AI platforms can themselves be “wartime targets.”

What next?

The present day AI industry is “not made for the turbulence its leaders have helped usher in,” said The Atlantic. Even if AI manufacturers are “merely forced to slow down,” the “viability” of the enormous amounts of money leveraged to support the industry will “likely be called into question” in ways that could be “devastating for many.”

Although the war, as it currently stands, won’t see hyperscalers “walking away” from their existing infrastructure in the Middle East, it may “impact future investment in the case of drawn-out hostilities,” said CNBC. The war could “reduce the region’s appeal” as an AI data center hub, said the Financial Times, while national sovereign wealth funds might move to “redirect planned AI investments to local security needs.”

Iran’s success at throttling fuel shipments through the Persian Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz has forced President Donald Trump to reframe his war in petrochemical terms. Bolstered by its ability to regulate oil shipping lanes, Iran has moved to weaponize its growing Gulf dominance. Last week, the Islamic Republic began to facilitate the passage of approved tankers through the bottlenecked waterway, a process that includes a reported $2 million transit fee to pass what is increasingly referred to as the Tehran tollbooth.

What did the commentators say?

Charging selective fees on ships hoping to move through the Strait of Hormuz is “another sign” of Tehran’s dominance over the world’s “most important maritime energy channel,” said Bloomberg. Although the current payment system is happening on a “case-by-case basis,” Iran has “floated the idea of formalizing the charges as part of a broader postwar settlement.”

Tehran is experimenting with a “new vetting and registration system” as part of its pivot toward a “selective blockade of the strategic waterway,” said Al Jazeera. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s pledge earlier this month that the strait is “open, but closed to our enemies,” signals a “de-escalation from earlier remarks” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatening violent reprisals. Multiple nations, including India, Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia and China, are “understood to be discussing vessel transit plans directly with Tehran,” said Lloyd’s List. Iran has created a “de facto ‘safe’ shipping corridor through its territorial waters” in the Strait of Hormuz, providing passage for approved ships in exchange for, “in at least one case, a reported $2 million payment.”

Collecting selective tolls is a sign of Iran’s new “sovereign regime” in the straits, said Iranian MP Alaeddin Boroujerdi in an interview with state media, per The Cradle. Charging $2 million “transit fees” from certain vessels “reflects Iran’s strength.” But this emerging toll system is a “shakedown” for which “tankers are happy to pay,” said the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The dynamic is “only exacerbated” by the Trump regime’s decision to enact “effectively condition-free, monthlong authorization for the sale of sanctioned Iranian oil.”

Iran’s chokehold on the Gulf has forced the White House to explore previously unimaginable fuel futures, including what a “potential spike” of up to $200 per barrel in oil prices would “mean for the economy,” Bloomberg said. Domestically, the “most visible impact” to date of the growing fuel crisis is an estimated 30% increase in retail gasoline cost, which has wiped away declines that Trump had “touted as a key economic achievement.”

Even if crude shipping was at 50% of prewar rates in the Strait, rather than the near-zero it is at now, it would produce “strong global economic headwinds” that would hit the U.S. “in the form of high energy prices and a general ‘supply shock,’” said military historian Bret Devereaux on his website. “Historically at least,” these types of economic jolts have “not been politically survivable for the party in power.”

What next?

The White House has been “effective, so far, at jawboning” crude prices below the $120 to $150 per-barrel levels some analysts have predicted, said Fortune. This works “for now” because “physical shortage hasn’t actually reached most of the world yet,” resulting in a spread between actual barrel prices in the Gulf and, for instance, “Texas futures, which have hovered below $100.”

Opening the Strait of Hormuz has become a “clear objective for ending” the war, said NPR. Multiple oil executives who had “privately begun” to push for a permanent U.S. presence in the Strait of Hormuz that would “remove Iran’s ability to attack oil tankers in the strait” were “caught off-guard” by Trump’s sudden push for a negotiated ceasefire last week, said Politico. However much one might argue that “‘the world’ will not allow the Tehran tollbooth to persist,” and the U.S. military will ultimately intervene successfully, “current events in Iran have not followed the predicted course,” said Lloyd’s List. “So don’t be too sure.”

Pope Leo XIV has said God ignores the prayers of those who wage war and have “hands full of blood”. In what appears to be a clear rebuke of Donald Trump’s administration, the US-born pontiff, celebrating Palm Sunday mass in St Peter’s Square, called for an immediate ceasefire to the “atrocious” conflict between Israel, the US and Iran, and said Jesus cannot be used to justify war.

Leo is “known for choosing his words carefully”; he “did not specifically name any world leaders” but he has “been ramping up criticism of the Iran war in recent weeks”, said Joshua McElwee in The Independent.

What did the commentators say?

“The papacy has always been political,” said Pete Reynolds in The Wall Street Journal. And now “some of the biggest challenges to its vision of society are coming from the US”. As the first American leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo “brings a deeper understanding” of US society and politics than any previous pope, so “his critiques” can’t be as easily dismissed by US politicians. But he will also be well aware that “millions of American Catholics voted for Trump”.

In marked contrast to other senior Vatican figures – such as secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who said American strikes on Iran risked setting “the whole world ablaze” – the pope’s initial response to the war had been “a tempered call for peace”, said Anthony Faiola and Michelle Boorstein in The Washington Post. Until now, Leo was delicately “navigating a minefield” with the Trump administration. Pitched by the Vatican “as a unifier and bridge builder”, he was striving to remain “above the fray”, while his allies in the Holy See, and cardinals and bishops in the US, “more directly challenge the administration”.

The problem is, said George W. Bush’s former speechwriter, William McGurn, in The Wall Street Journal, that “the moral witness of the papacy” has been diminished by successive popes’ “blinkered position on war”. “The kind of rightly ordered world” Leo “desires can’t be built by armies alone – but can almost never be built without armies and without the threat of force.” Traditional Catholic teachings, “grounded in the reality of man’s fallen human nature”, have been traded for “functional pacificism” that “risks being dismissed even by sympathisers”.

What next?

The Vatican potentially has great sway over US policy: Catholics, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, hold senior positions in the US administration, and are well represented on the Supreme Court and among leading House Republicans.

But a “major rift” has opened up in the Christian coalition that elected Trump, said John Grosso in the National Catholic Reporter. “Traditionalist Catholics and evangelicals” are split over the Iran war and, more broadly, “over the role Israel plays in US foreign policy”. Leo’s most recent comments could be “a moment of reckoning for Catholics caught up in Maga”, Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Pope Francis, told the paper. How do they “reconcile obedience to church authority with support for Trump”?

This week saw what could prove to be an historic reckoning for Big Tech when a Californian court ruled that Meta and Google’s YouTube intentionally built addictive social media platforms. This came just a day after a jury in New Mexico found Meta liable for the way its platforms endanger children.

Critics are calling this “Big Tech’s Big Tobacco moment”, a reference to how cigarette makers in the 1990s had to overhaul their businesses after courts ruled that their products were addictive and harmful.

Meta and Google have invested heavily in safety tools for younger users and both companies dispute claims that their platforms are to blame for children’s mental health issues. But the verdicts this week are a “sombre moment for Silicon Valley and the implications are global”, said the BBC’s technology editor Zoe Kleinman.

What did the commentators say?

The cases this week are “the first of about 22 ‘bellwether’ trials”, said Stephen Armstrong in The Independent, brought by more than 350 families across 250 US school districts and are “expected to trigger thousands more”. It is like the “anti-tobacco legal actions on fast-forward”.

Judgments of responsibility “in cases like the one brought against Meta and YouTube are necessarily complex”, said academic and author Austin Sarat in The Guardian. And critics of the judgment in this case “will no doubt howl about greedy plaintiffs looking to make a haul from deep-pocketed defendants”. But it does seem “clear that companies knew of the addictive qualities of their sites and the potential damage to young people”.

For years, “technology giants successfully fought off efforts by regulators, lawmakers and others to put limits on their social media businesses”, said Andrew Ross Sorkin in The New York Times. The tide appears to be turning but so far “investors don’t seem to be fazed”, with Big Tech share prices only dipping slightly. The potential penalties too – $6 million for Meta and YouTube in California, and $375 million for Meta in New Mexico – “are a fraction of their immense profits”.

It’s for that reason that social media companies might not fret too much too soon. “The Big Tech firms are losing nearly every time,” Tom Smith, partner at legal firm Geradin, told The Independent. “But they have effectively unlimited legal budgets, and their calculation may be that as long as you can make sure these cases take a decade, then the extra profits will outweigh the damages.”

What next?

Meta and YouTube plan to appeal, but if unsuccessful “they could be forced to remove the features that make their platforms addictive, which would upend their business models and fundamentally alter the experience of users”, said Fred Harter in The Observer.

Regardless of whether Meta or Google appeal the decision, “this is going to redefine the landscape,” said the BBC’s Kleinman. “It could even be the beginning of the end of the social media era as we know it.”

If the price of oil continues to rise, it could trigger a “steep and stark” global recession, said Larry Fink, CEO of US financial giant BlackRock. There will be “profound implications” for the world economy if Iran “remains a threat” and oil prices hit $150 a barrel.

The BlackRock boss has a “unique insight into the health of the global economy”, said the BBC’s business editor Simon Jack, because of his investment management company’s colossal “size and spread”, controlling assets worth £11 billion across the world.

What did the commentators say?

“The Iran war is metastasising into a global economic calamity,” said the Financial Times’ editorial board. Until now, financial markets have been “lulled by the belief that the conflict would not last long” but, as hostilities enter a fourth week, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, “lasting damage” has been inflicted on critical energy infrastructure in the region, and “the worst-case scenarios for investors and policymakers are coming into view”.

If this crisis continues, “no country will be immune to the effects”, said Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency on Monday. The global economy faces a “major, major threat” as the Iran war has a worse impact on energy prices than the twin oil shocks of the 1970s and the Russia-Ukraine war.

“Prepare for the price of oil to reach $200 a barrel,” said Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesman for Iranian militias last week. And what seemed then “like bravado” is now “closer to becoming reality”, said Jesus Servulo Gonzales in El Pais. Were prices to rise above $150, let alone near $200, there would be “an inflationary crisis”: “the world would become poorer, and economic activity would grind to a halt until the situation recovered”.

The current oil-price “ructions” would have “to get much worse” to trigger a global recession but “less happily, they will almost certainly further stoke popular anger over the cost of living”, said The Economist. The price of Brent Crude is currently around $100 a barrel (it was $60 at the start of the year); two months at $140 “would push parts of the global economy” into a slump. Consumer confidence is already “close to an all-time low in America and scarcely higher elsewhere”, given many countries “seemed primed” for an economic downturn “even before the Middle Eastern chaos began”.

In the US, “many economists believe” the country “will scrape through this year without a recession”, said John Cassidy in The New Yorker. “But this is simply guesswork.” Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has said the surge in oil prices is “an energy shock” that has created so much uncertainty, “we just don’t know” what will happen.

What next?

We urgently need to get the Strait of Hormuz opened, oil market expert Rory Johnston told The New Statesman. It’s “too important” to the global economy to remain closed. The most likely path “is that the Trump administration and Israel pull back on their attacks in Iran, and Iran says, OK, we’ll re-allow” tankers down the waterway. But even if the strait “reopened to 100% of its prior flow” today, it would take two to three months “to renormalise the global system”.

Under the “doomsday scenario”, in which the strait stays closed indefinitely, “we’re not talking recession; we are talking depression”.

President Donald Trump has worked to steer U.S. energy policy away from wind and solar and back to fossil fuels. But the economic aftershocks from the war against Iran are revealing the limits of his oil-driven energy agenda.

Trump’s efforts at “blocking clean energy” have left Americans “more vulnerable to supply shocks caused by the war,” said The Associated Press. The president has gone “all in on fossil fuels” in his second term, expanding tax breaks for drilling and fast-tracking federal permits while repealing a government finding that climate change “endangers public health and the environment.” He even ended the tax break that subsidized electric vehicle sales. Those decisions are leaving consumers in a lurch as gasoline and oil prices rise. Fossil fuels “have their own supply risks, and the administration has no answers,” said Tyson Slocum, the energy director at consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, to the outlet.

One result of the war will be the “acceleration of the global shift to low-carbon energy,” said the Financial Times. The Middle East crisis is an “opportunity to transition to renewable energy more quickly and at a large scale,” South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said at a cabinet meeting. Environmental advocates have made such arguments “for years,” said the Financial Times, but this time “they have an unusually strong chance of breaking through.”

What did the commentators say?

Americans are looking for ways to save money by “asking for quotes on home solar systems and looking up electric vehicles online,” Bill McKibben said at The New Yorker. The “good news” is that clean energy technologies like solar and wind can be purchased “more cheaply than we can buy oil.” And once in place, Americans who use those technologies will no longer have to depend on the flow of oil through the “indefensible, roughly twenty-one-mile-wide ditch” that is the Strait of Hormuz. They can rely instead on the sun, an “energy source that will last another five billion years.”

The Iraq war cost about $2 trillion. That is about the same amount of money it would take to build enough clean energy capacity in the U.S. to “make fossil fuels and their price swings irrelevant,” Paul Greenberg said at The New Republic. That enormous sum of money would pay for a “truly vast array of turbines and panels” across the country. And it would be more productive than waging war, “which destroys capacity of all kinds.” The question is what taxpayers “truly want our tax dollars to do.”

What next?

Oil executives have warned the White House that the war-driven energy crisis is “likely to get worse,” said The Wall Street Journal. The crisis is “going to cause economic destruction,” said Steven Pruett, the chief executive of Texas-based Elevation Resources, to the Journal.

Trump continues to fight the shift to clean energy sources. His administration on Monday agreed to pay $1 billion to a French company to “abandon its plans to build wind farms off the East Coast,” said The New York Times. In return, TotalEnergies will invest the money in U.S.-based oil and gas projects.

The targeting of Iranian missiles at the Diego Garcia UK-US military base on Friday has sent alarm bells ringing in Europe. Diego Garcia is over 2,500 miles (4,000km) from Iran and, if a missile from Tehran can reach there, it could also reach Paris, Berlin or even London.

“Previously, we thought Iran’s missiles had a range of 2,000km (1,245 miles),” General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of Joint Forces Command, told BBC Radio 4 on Saturday.

One of the missiles fell well short of its target and the other was shot down, said Defence Secretary John Healey. But “the launch, however unsuccessful” has “fuelled fears” about the range of Iran’s ballistic missile programme, said the BBC’s defence correspondent Jonathan Beale.

What did the commentators say?

Israel has claimed Iran is developing weapons capable of travelling 2,500 miles (4,000km). “We have been saying it,” the Israel Defence Forces posted on social media. “The Iranian terrorist regime poses a global threat. Now, with missiles that can reach London, Paris or Berlin.”

This could “put continental Europe and possibly even Britain under threat”, defence analysts told The Telegraph’s Paul Nuki. Every European capital “now lies within credible Iranian reach”, Ran Kochav, former commander of the Israeli air and missile force told the paper.

Yes, it’s “conceivable” that an Iranian rocket “could reach London”, Sidharth Kaushal, of the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told the BBC’s Beale. But “so what?” We’re talking about “a small number” of conventional missiles over “well-defended airspace”, and they are “quite inaccurate at very long ranges”. The risk to London is “pretty low”, research analyst Decker Eveleth of the CNA Corporation told Beale. A missile could travel the distance but it wouldn’t be “particularly aim-able”. It would also be spotted quickly. Using a network of satellites and powerful radars, the US Space Force can track the trajectory of “any missile fired across the globe”.

“Various sources” agreed that it was unlikely that missiles launched from Iran would be able to hit London, said Jamie Grierson in The Guardian. Britain is protected by Nato’s ballistic missile defence, a shield “designed to detect, track and intercept” weapons in flight, bolstered by two Aegis Ashore defence sites in Poland and Romania.

The UK government is “not aware of any assessment at all” that Iran is “even trying to target Europe, let alone that they could if they tried”, said Communities Secretary Steve Reed on the BBC’s “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg”. And “even if they did, we have the necessary military capability” to defend ourselves. “The UK is not going to be dragged into this war.”

What next?

Britain has “very little in the way of” independent “ballistic missile defences”, said the BBC’s Beale: “a glaring gap” acknowledged by the government’s recent Strategic Defence Review. But it’s “unlikely” that Iran has “large numbers of intermediate or even long-range ballistic missiles”. The fact that it only fired two towards Diego Garcia “suggests its long-range missile capability is limited”. For now, “the threat seems remote”.

Even if it were able, Iran is unlikely to single out the UK for a missile attack, according to a recent paper from the European Centre for Counterterrorism and Intelligence Studies. More likely would be “precision strikes on Nato logistics hubs, and economic disruption” through attacks on Mediterranean ports or liquefied natural gas terminals in Italy, Greece and Romania.

“Nato does have what it takes to defend alliance territory, to defend our one billion inhabitants,” said Colonel Martin O’Donnell, spokesperson for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Europeans “should rest easy at night”.

The Iran war is unlike any other conflict of the modern era, marked by shifting justifications, mysterious end goals and growing friction between the two primary aggressors, the U.S. and Israel. A new generation of large-scale artificial intelligence tools is further reshaping the way both countries approach and execute their military operations.

What did the commentators say?

The Pentagon is “leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools” in the war on Iran to help “sift through vast amounts of data in seconds,” said Admiral Brad Cooper, the chief of U.S. Central Command, in a video on social media. The tools allow military leadership to “cut through the noise” and make “smarter decisions faster than the enemy can react.”

Pentagon AI systems can offer targeting recommendations “much quicker in some ways than the speed of thought,” said Newcastle University lecturer Craig Jones to The Guardian. The “scale” and “speed” of AI military systems means the Pentagon can conduct “assassination-style strikes” while simultaneously “decapitating the regime’s ability to respond with all the aerial ballistic missiles” in a process that would have taken “days or weeks in historic wars.” Battlefield AI programs from the MAGA-aligned software company Palantir can “identify and prioritize targets, recommend weaponry” and account for “stockpiles and previous performance against similar targets,” said The Guardian. Palantir even has access to “automated reasoning to evaluate legal grounds for a strike.”

At the heart of the Pentagon’s shift to AI-animated warfare is Palantir’s Maven Smart System and its integrated use of Claude, the AI platform from software company — and occasional administration foil — Anthropic. While Claude had been used for “countering terror plots” and in the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the past several weeks mark the “first time it has been used in major war operations,” The Washington Post said. Over the past year, the government has allowed the Maven/Claude system to “mature into a tool that is in daily use across most parts of the military.” Ours is now officially an “age of AI warfare,” said Paul Scharre, the executive vice president at the Center for a New American Security, to CNN. Given the sheer volume and volatility of battlefield data needing to be assessed, “AI is incredibly valuable.”

State-level AI warfare isn’t “confined to physical territory” either, said The New Arab. Iran has deployed “AI-generated disinformation,” as well as “manipulated images and videos designed to create false impressions of events on the ground.” American and Israeli forces have meanwhile launched AI systems of their own to “detect and counter manipulation attempts in real time,” creating a “multi-dimensional battlefield” wherein information control is as “strategically important as control of airspace.”

What next?

We are currently in the “early stages” of what AI is “going to do to transform warfare over the next several decades,” said Scharre, particularly in terms of the “cognitive speed and scale” at which armies operate, which could “accelerate” the “tempo of operations” on the battlefield. But as AI use expands across the military, so has a commensurate effort to “focus on the protections that should govern its use,” said NBC News. Although none of the lawmakers contacted by the outlet said that AI should be “completely removed from military use,” many expressed a sense that “more oversight is needed.”

This is the “next era” of warfare, said Queen Mary University professor David Leslie to The Guardian. But overreliance on AI in the military might ultimately lead to “cognitive off-loading,” in which the human tasked with overseeing a particular operation feels “detached from its consequences” since the responsibility to “think it through” was made by a computer.

As an “inflection point” in demonstrating how “modern technology could work with existing military systems,” said The New York Times, the AI-fueled war in Iran is likely to “speed the adoption of more technologies” with “legacy and modern systems to be melded together, along with more powerful AI” in the coming decade.

Keir Starmer has condemned last night’s “horrific antisemitic attack” on four ambulances run by Jewish volunteers in north London. As police pursue three suspects for criminal damage and hate crime, the prime minster said Britons must “all stand together at a moment like this”.

This attack comes less than a week after two men were charged with spying on London’s Jewish community for Iran, and less than six months after the Yom Kippur attack on Manchester's Heaton Park synagogue – renewing fears that antisemitism in British society is on the rise.

What did the commentators say?

“The Jews of Britain are facing conditions not seen in my lifetime,” said Danny Cohen in The Telegraph. “There is a whiff of the 1930s in the air.” The antisemitism “is toxic and it is heart-breaking”. It has “come striding out of the shadows”, and “entered the mainstream” on a wave of social media and “age-old racist hate”. We’re facing constant harassment, “violent attacks on property” and “cold-blooded attempts to kill”. People in positions of power “must speak up consistently and unapologetically in support of Britain’s Jews”.

“Anti-Jewish hatred is now clear, present and mortally dangerous,” said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian. Incidents of antisemitism are “through the roof”. Of course, “every minority faces discrimination”, but “next to no other diaspora community goes through this”. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine does not mean Russian Orthodox churches require “round-the-clock protection”; people may “loathe” Donald Trump’s aggression in the Middle East, but “US-branded stores on UK high streets are not smashed and daubed”. Yet “Israel and Jews are the exception”.

At British universities, “campus antisemitism has been a problem for decades”, said Stephen Pollard in The Spectator, but now it is a “critical problem that is out of control”. The “sheer scale of the hate” is borne out by last week’s Union of Jewish Students report that one in five students wouldn’t share a house with a Jew, and that 47% see the 7 October attacks as “justified”. This is “yet more evidence of the normalisation of Jew hate” and a “signal” that “we are heading to a dark place”.

What next?

Counter-terror police are investigating a claim from an Iran-aligned group that it was responsible for the ambulance attacks. “This will raise concerns that Tehran is mounting a concerted campaign of attacks across Europe,” said The Telegraph.

Simply taking “measures to ensure the safety of Jewish people” is not enough, said Prospect. They must be “supplemented by a politics that promotes broad alliances against racism, of which antisemitism is one example, and by the practice of anti-racist solidarity”. This won’t be easy while the Iran War continues and while the politics of Israel/Palestine continues to feed “distance and suspicion”.

As the Iran war enters its third week, there is a divergence between how the United States and Israel conduct its operations against Tehran and what each nation hopes to accomplish. While President Donald Trump and his administration struggle to articulate an overarching goal for the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed ahead with expanding the front lines of his army’s assault not only on Iran but across Lebanon and Syria as well. With little end to the fighting in sight, is this still a single war of unified purpose, two separate conflicts being fought concurrently or a bit of both?

What did the commentators say?

The war on Iran may have been launched by Israel and the U.S. “at the same time,” said CNN, but it’s “becoming clear” the two nations have “some differences in how they see the war proceeding.” The pair enjoys a “number of overlapping objectives,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro to the outlet. But there remains “some divergence” between Israel and the U.S., which is only likely to increase “as time passes.”

The longer the conflict lasts, the more likely their “endgames and risk tolerance” may differ, said Axios. Trump, in particular, currently stands “more aligned” with the Israeli government’s “maximalist objectives” than many among his own staff. Israeli and American armed and intelligence services are “moving in concert,” although “their targets vary,” with the U.S. focused “almost exclusively” on military targets, while Israeli assassinations and other operations are “intended to lay the groundwork for regime change.”

Netanyahu may appear to be “flying high” after finding an American president “willing to go all the way” with his long-telegraphed war on Iran, but Israeli analysts are “increasingly aware of where the two countries’ strategies” may bifurcate, said The Economist. Netanyahu has been “blunt” about his nation’s wish for regime change in Tehran, even as Israeli leadership has come to feel that Trump’s goals rest “primarily on controlling the flow of oil from Iran.” Israel is “willing to use the war to inflict deeper damage” on Iranian state infrastructure, while Washington “shows little sign of a clear political endgame,” said Bloomberg. Netanyahu is thus “far more likely to favor a drawn-out campaign” than Trump, given the “growing economic and political pressure” the president faces domestically.

At the onset of this war, both Israel and the U.S. “stated their desire to lay the groundwork for regime change,” The New York Times said. But as the war goes on, Trump has acknowledged that a popular uprising “didn’t seem imminent.” Israel would “prefer” to extend their war “for as long as possible, potentially for weeks, to weaken the Iranians,” said Israeli policy analyst Ahron Bregman to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. Trump, meanwhile, will “seek a way to end this war, especially as oil prices continue to rise.” His goals “did not include regime change,” said CIA Director John Ratcliffe at a House Intelligence Committee meeting.

It is within this context that Israel’s “related but separate agenda” of concurrent attacks on Hezbollah is taking place, said Shapiro to CNN. Netanyahu is waging an “ulterior campaign to try to do significantly more damage to Hezbollah” in the hopes of spurring a “diplomatic process” with, or within, the Lebanese government. Trump generally supports dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure, yet Israel’s operations in Lebanon are “not of the same level of priority for U.S. interests.”

What next?

For the time being, the Trump administration seems publicly comfortable with the U.S. and Israel’s parallel-and-diverging strategies in Iran. The Trump regime “holds the cards” and has “clear” objectives, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday in a press conference. Israel is “pursuing objectives as well.”

Q: Why are we helping Israel prosecute this war if they're going to pursue their own objectives?HEGSETH: We hold the cards. We have objectives. Those objectives are clear. We have allies pursuing objectives as well.

— @atrupar.com (@atrupar.com.bsky.social) 2026-03-20T19:47:25.485Z

Netanyahu, for now, “appears to be operating on the assumption that Trump shares his goals,” said William Usher, a former CIA Middle East analyst, to Bloomberg. That may be true “regarding the total elimination of [Iran’s] nuclear program, but perhaps not much beyond that.”

As people up and down the country don red noses for Comic Relief, charities are warning that the culture of giving in the UK is starting to wane.

A new report from the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) found that just 55% of the UK population gave to charity last year, down from 69% a decade ago. So there are now around six million fewer donors supporting charities. Within the figures, there are starker declines in those supporting overseas aid and also among those most affected by the cost-of-living crisis.

The report comes as “consumer spending fell for the first time in five years, while inflation remained stubbornly above the Bank of England’s target”, said The Telegraph. Taken together, these shifts have led CAF to describe Britain’s culture of giving as “increasingly fragile”.

What did the commentators say?

Unquestionably the public “feel less financially secure than they did 10 years ago”, said CAF’s James Moore. But it is also true that “focusing solely on the finances is an overly simple interpretation of the issue”.

After affordability, the second most common reason for not giving is trust. Almost 20% of non-donors say they do not trust charities to use their money wisely and a further 9% say they have not found a cause that sufficiently interests them.

CAF “is right to highlight mounting scepticism and distrust as problems”, said The Guardian in an editorial. The finding that people who don’t trust charities are also less likely to be positive about their neighbourhoods “suggests an overlap with broader issues of low social engagement and morale”.

While stronger oversight would help tackle “the sector’s governance issues” that have contributed to the distrust, “there is no simple administrative fix for charities’ financial woes”. It is possible that “an economic upturn will deliver a boost”, but the sector “also needs to find new ways to appeal to people”.

Young people could show the way as charity shops have thrived, inspired by second-hand fashion websites such as Vinted and Depop. Save the Children’s retail sales rose 3% last year, helped by a surge in December when the charity took 11% more than the same month a year before.

“Platforms like eBay, Vinted and Depop have helped grow interest in second-hand shopping, which is positive for the whole reuse sector,” said Allison Swaine-Hughes, chief commercial officer at British Heart Foundation.

The public’s reluctance to donate to overseas aid causes – in 2016, about 19% of donors supported disaster relief or overseas aid charities; now that figure is 11% – is reflected in the government’s approach to overseas aid itself. Proportionately, the UK’s cuts to core international development spending are now deeper than those in the US, said Ian Mitchell and Sam Hughes on the Center for Global Development.

“The conclusion is uncomfortable: Britain is retreating further and cutting deeper than America,” said Adrian Lovett on Devex. “That matters for our standing in the world.” For two decades, the UK “prided itself on punching above its weight in global health, girls’ education, and humanitarian response”, but instead, today, “we look increasingly weak and isolated”.

What next?

Reviving a broad culture of generosity matters far beyond the future of charities, Mark Greer, chief executive of CAF, told The Guardian. “We need to revive that culture of giving and ensure it remains widespread” as it “matters for the fabric of British society”. “Civil society thriving makes the country a better place to live, to work, and to enjoy our culture.”

President Donald Trump wants to delay his upcoming summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, citing the demands of the Iran war. It’s a sign that the Middle East conflict could upend delicate relations with the United States’ most powerful rival.

The Iran war is “threatening a fragile détente” between the two superpowers, said The New York Times. Trump demanded China send ships to the region to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but Beijing has “reacted coolly.” Meeting Trump’s request would be “tantamount to entering the war,” said Ding Long of Shanghai International Studies University’s Middle East Studies Institute. But China’s reluctance to come to America’s aid “may jeopardize a trade truce” with the U.S., said the Times.

Trump’s call to delay the summit “casts a shadow” over what had been a stable relationship following last year’s trade war, said Reuters. The Iran war “makes U.S.-China interactions this year more difficult,” said Fudan University’s Zhao Minghao. Both sides are prioritizing “keeping relations on an even keel,” however, and China has signaled that it wants to reschedule the summit soon. Face-to-face diplomacy “plays an irreplaceable role in providing strategic guidance ​to China-U.S. relations,” said a Chinese government spokesperson.

What did the commentators say?

Beijing is “not going to bail Trump out” in Iran, Edward Luce said at Financial Times. His request that China send ships to the Strait of Hormuz is a “black swan moment,” when the world’s leading superpower is “inviting its main challenger to help extract it from the world’s most combustible region.” China gets half its imported oil through the strait, but helping the U.S. is a nonstarter. “Why interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake?”

The Iran war “really is about China,” Doug Stokes said at The Spectator. Teheran and Beijing have developed a partnership in recent years, with the bulk of Iranian oil exports flowing to Chinese refineries “operating beyond the reach of American sanctions enforcement.” China also supplied Iran with weapons “specifically designed to kill American sailors and constrain American freedom of maneuver” in a future conflict. Making war on Iran weakens the “infrastructure of Chinese power projection.”

Trump’s war “could play into China’s hands,” Lyle Goldstein said at the Chicago Tribune. Beijing will benefit from the U.S. shifting forces to the Middle East. China’s strategists will also “get yet another chance to closely study U.S. military technologies and doctrines” and adjust their war plans accordingly. Going forward, China may be able to present itself as a defender of the global status quo, contrasting itself against a U.S. government “increasingly viewed as having gone rogue.”

What next?

China sees the summit delay as “less a setback than an opportunity to regroup” and meet when the U.S. president isn’t distracted by Iran, said Bloomberg. But the delay does “underscore the fragility” of both countries’ efforts to maintain trade peace, said Wendy Cutler, the senior vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, to Bloomberg.

The Bank of England today held interest rates at 3.75% and warned of higher-than-expected inflation, as the US-Israel war with Iran delivers a “new shock” to the UK economy.

“War in the Middle East has pushed up global energy prices,” said Bank governor Andrew Bailey. “You can already see that at the petrol pump and, if it lasts, it will feed into higher household energy bills later in the year.”

The direct impact of rising energy prices is likely to add about 0.75% to inflation this autumn, instead of an expected fall. And, if businesses pass their higher costs on to consumers, that could add a further 0.25%. All the signals point to “households and homeowners” suffering “further financial hardship”, if the Iran war does not end soon, said The Times.

What did the commentators say?

Seventy years ago, we had petrol rationing, triggered by the Suez crisis, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. That’s “ancient history now – or it would be, if it weren’t for what looks increasingly like” America’s “version of Suez”. Yet again, a global superpower is “starting a war it seemingly doesn’t know how to finish, against an enemy it woefully underestimated”.

Oil experts have warned that Britain “could be only weeks away from needing to ration fuel”, if tankers don’t resume sailing through the Strait of Hormuz soon. Other countries are “already being forced into drastic steps”. In Pakistan, schools have been closed and government offices have been put into a four-day week, Vietnam is “urging people to work from home”, and Bangladesh has stationed soldiers at fuel depots.

“The financial impact on the UK from” this war is “yet to fully play out, but the outlook is bleak”, said Rosa Prince on Bloomberg. Donald Trump’s “folly” has “kiboshed” Keir Starmer’s “economic revival”. For a “brief moment”, green shoots emerged, and a path opened up for him “to salvage his beleaguered premiership”, only for “Trump’s addiction to foreign escapades” to crush it.

The Iran crisis could “easily accelerate the death of manufacturing” in Britain if “vicious” energy-price rises last longer than a few weeks, said Ben Marlow in The Telegraph. They could crush “the life out” of our heavy industry, shutting down production lines and mothballing “entire factory complexes”. There is a “real risk of widespread de-industrialisation”.

There is “deep energy-linked frustration” in Europe, too, said the BBC’s Katya Adler. “The knock-on effects” of this Middle East conflict is “awakening ghosts of crises past” when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rocked the EU’s energy market. Europe has since ended its reliance on Russian gas and oil but it now depends heavily on the US and Norway for energy provision – “which won’t solve its problem with energy security” and won’t shield it from the current price spikes.

What next?

I see a “similar financial anxiety” in the UK as when Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, said Albert Toth in The Independent. “And that had a long-standing impact on the cost of living.” Volatility in the oil market directly impacts household finances in various ways, some of them more “subtle” than others. People will expect energy bills and petrol prices to go up but “less obvious” will be the rising cost of food, pushed up by increasing transport costs and disrupted fertiliser supply chains.

For Starmer, dealing with Trump’s demands for military back-up may be difficult, but managing the “war’s economic blow is trickier”, said Bloomberg’s Prince. He may as well blame the US president for “sending Britain’s cost of living spiralling”. This week, he announced £53 million in support for low-income households who are most exposed to the sharp increase in heating-oil prices but his government “will need a much bigger package if the conflict drags on”. And “that won’t be easy, given existing strains on the public purse”.

President Donald Trump likes his military campaigns short and victorious. The quick overnight strike that removed Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro from power is his preferred model of warmaking. But the U.S. president may not be able to exit the war against Iran so easily.

Some of Trump’s supporters are concerned the president “no longer controls how, or when, the war ends,” said Politico. Iran’s Islamic regime still has a vote, and it’s voting to keep the conflict alive with its closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The resulting fallout for the global economy means Iran’s leaders “hold the cards now,” said a White House ally.

Trump’s advisers had hoped he could and would “declare victory whenever he saw fit” and end the war quickly, said Politico. But now the conflict appears stickier than they anticipated. The “off-ramps” to de-escalate things “don’t work anymore,” said a second Trump ally.

Trump “expects a quick, clear victory,” said Axios. But the war’s outcome is “beyond unilateral control and quick fixes.” The president could “pull out tomorrow.” Iranian officials, though, have made it clear they “could continue shooting missiles and rockets” unless they get a guarantee that the U.S. will not reengage at a future date. Iran wants more than “just a temporary ceasefire.”

What did the commentators say?

The president’s options to end the war “keep getting fewer and worse,” said Thomas Wright at The Atlantic. Trump is getting closer to a point where he can either pursue a “decisive tactical success” and “prepare the country for a prolonged conflict” or seek a settlement involving “real compromise” with Iran.

The regime has proven “more aggressive and more resilient” than he anticipated, and if the government does collapse, it could “take a long time,” said Wright. Most wars start with hopes of a quick victory. “Few end as expected.” Trump chose to start the war, but the decision to conclude it is “no longer entirely his to control.”

The strait’s closure is “giving the Iranians leverage,” said the National Review. If the strait remains closed for months “rather than a few more weeks,” the global economic damage may become “truly disastrous.” Iran could end the war with its regime still in place and in “de facto control” of the strait. If that happens, Trump’s war will end up “eroding American deterrent power rather than enhancing it.” His administration must have some “urgency about reopening the strait” to ensure that does not happen.

What next?

Military officials are routinely including “off-ramps” in their war plans if Trump wants to end the conflict quickly, said NBC News. “So far, he hasn’t” chosen to. Some administration allies are going public with their push to end the campaign. The U.S. “should try to find the off-ramp,” said David Sacks, Trump’s AI czar.

Trump himself is sending mixed signals. The war in Iran is “just a military operation to me,” he said to reporters on Tuesday. Iran is “something that was essentially largely over in two or three days."

As the US continues to attack Iran and Donald Trump continues to criticise Keir Starmer, calls are growing to delay or cancel King Charles’ state visit to America.

The visit hasn’t yet been formally announced but Buckingham Palace has been preparing for the King to visit Washington and New York in April, to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence. The hope was that the visit, the first by a British sovereign in nearly two decades, would help smooth fractured relations between the two nations.

But as violence in the Middle East intensifies, it may be “safer to delay it”, said Labour’s Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs committee. It would be going ahead “against a backdrop of a war and that, I think, is quite difficult”, she told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme. “The last thing that we want to do is to have their majesties embarrassed.”

What did the commentators say?

“While the war is continuing”, the visit is “problematic”, said Peter Westmacott, former British diplomat and former deputy private secretary to King Charles. The US is conducting a war that the UK “initially thought clearly was illegal”, he told The Times. The UK government has “a duty to protect the monarchy in a situation like this”, and “a duty to reflect public opinion in this country”. How will a state visit be perceived? Might the King appear to be “endorsing” what the US president is doing?

Nearly half (46%) of Britons think the visit should definitely be cancelled, according to a YouGov poll of 12,002 adults last week. Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, has said going ahead with it would hand a “huge diplomatic coup” to Trump. But postponing, rather than cancelling, is the way to avoid offending “thin-skinned” Trump and protect the “special relationship”, said Westmacott. That’s “a statesmanlike way of managing the issue”.

A state visit would “be nothing but a show of political appeasement” towards an administration that is “leaning more towards authoritarian instincts every day”, said Alex Hannaford in The Independent. It is “betraying the very values” of democracy that America’s 250th birthday is meant to celebrate. Plus, the timing “could not be more fraught” for the King. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest last month “reignited the Epstein scandal”, and the “spectre of awkward questions” from victims’ lawyers and advocacy groups “looms over the visit”.

The case for cancelling is indeed “powerful”, said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. Trump will certainly “exploit a royal visit” for personal gain. But if the King didn’t go, it might seem “prompted by domestic politics” and would be “a severe blow to Anglo-American relations”. It would be “better by far” to “elevate it well above the level of current events” and let it honour the tight links between Britons and Americans that have held since US independence. A state visit is “a bonding of nations”, not governments.

What next?

Trump said yesterday that Charles would be visiting “very shortly”. Hosting Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the White House, he told reporters: “I do look forward to seeing the King.”

Official travel by the King and Queen is subject to the approval and advice of the government. Downing Street’s current refusal to comment on the matter “suggests an understandable indecision”, said The Guardian’s Jenkins. All could depend on how long the war continues. “Leaving the question open might add to pressure on Trump for an early ceasefire.”

Downing Street won’t want to risk “subjecting the monarch to Trump’s frequent rants against Britain”, Westmacott told CNN. Nor will it want to risk “angering the president” by cancelling. Still, “there could be a moment when the government decides that the risks of going ahead are greater than the risk of causing offence”.

In the immediate aftermath of Poland’s Communist collapse, the country was considered one of the most economically dire in Europe — but the status quo has changed in a major way. Poland now has the 20th largest economy in the world, the country’s statistics agency announced last week, marking its highest-ever global ranking. Experts say there are a variety of factors that led to Poland becoming Europe’s new economic gem.

What did the commentators say?

Poland entered the top 20 economies by leapfrogging Switzerland; it reported more than $1 trillion in economic output for 2025, with its gross domestic product increasing 3.6% year-over-year, according to Poland’s statistics agency. This is a far cry from the early to mid-1990s, when Poland “rationed sugar and flour while its citizens were paid one-tenth what West Germans earned,” said The Associated Press.

But in “35 years — a little less than one person’s working lifetime — Poland’s per capita GDP rose to $55,340 in 2025, or 85% of the EU average,” said the AP. One of the most important factors in Poland’s economic growth was “rapidly building a strong institutional framework for business,” economist Marcin Piatkowski of Poland’s Kozminski University told the AP. This includes the creation of antimonopoly agencies and regulatory bodies, ensuring that Poland’s economy “wasn’t hijacked by corrupt practices and oligarchs, as happened elsewhere in the post-Communist world.”

Poland was also given significant help from the European Union both “before and after it joined the bloc in 2004,” said the AP. Once Poland became an EU state, it got additional funding as a result of its membership that “helped modernize Polish industry and expand an increasingly digitalized services sector,” said The Wall Street Journal. Above all, Polish business leaders “do not feel intimidated or constrained by any lingering sense of inferiority,” Dominik Kopiński, a senior adviser at the Polish Economic Institute, told Deutsche Welle. They “take opportunities when they see them and, more importantly, they are trailblazing for other companies.”

What next?

Even as Poland enjoys economic prosperity, not everyone is convinced that it will last. The country has a low birth rate and an aging society, meaning that “fewer workers will be able to support retirees,” said the AP. Wages in Poland are “lower than the EU average,” and “while small and medium enterprises flourish, few have become global brands.”

The country “must also contend with rising public debt,” said the Journal. Poland’s budget deficit of 6.8% is “significantly higher than the 3% benchmark for EU member states.” If Poland wants to continue climbing the economic ladder, its government will “need to rein in spending and raise taxes in order to ease debts over the coming years.” But there is also some good news, as Poland’s private-sector debt “remains low by EU standards.”

There is also the possibility of Poland leaving the EU, which could create further economic turmoil; dubbed ‘Polexit,’ Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused “right-wing opposition parties of steering the country toward leaving the bloc,” said Politico. “Polexit is a real threat today!” Tusk said on X. If his country left the EU, it “would be a disaster for Poland. I will do everything I can to stop them.”

Five key Western allies have “urged Israel not to pursue a ground offensive in Lebanon” after Tel Aviv launched a “significant military operation” in response to Hezbollah missiles, said Politico.

Israeli troops on the ground “could lead to a protracted conflict” with “devastating humanitarian consequences”, said the leaders of the UK, Canada, France, Germany and Italy in a statement. “The humanitarian situation in Lebanon, including ongoing mass displacement, is already deeply alarming.”

Despite a ceasefire agreed in November 2024, tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have reignited, with reports of up to a million Lebanese citizens already affected by the renewed conflict.

What did the commentators say?

“Just how far the Israeli military intends to push into Lebanese territory – and for how long – remains unclear,” said Tom Ball in The Times. Troops are heading to al-Khiyam, a “strategically valuable” town just over the border and the “apex of several major routes leading deeper into Lebanese territory”. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said the operation is designed to establish “forward defence, which includes destroying terrorist infrastructure and eliminating terrorists”.

Israel’s “extended campaign” against Hezbollah is “likely to continue beyond the end of the war against Iran”, said James Shotter in the Financial Times. Israeli officials had said they expect the joint offensive with the US against Iran to last “weeks”, and the expectation is that the operation in Lebanon “would last at least as long”.

We are going to see a “major impact on the population” of Lebanon, Michael Young, from the Carnegie Middle East Center, told Time. Between 850,000 and one million civilians have been displaced in the Hezbollah-controlled south since the latest conflict began. Israel wants to “ensure that that area becomes uninhabitable”.

The conflict in Lebanon is the “price” international communities must pay for their “silence”, said Laure Stephan in Le Monde. Ever since the signing of the “theoretical truce” in late 2024, world leaders have been “implicitly accepting the rule of force over international law”. This “lopsided ceasefire”, which “Israel never respected”, is the “root of today’s war”.

Despite the “unprecedented efforts” of the US-backed Lebanese government to uproot Hezbollah, it has not made any tangible progress. In fact, “Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm has also weakened the authorities”.

Two “terrible experiments” are playing out simultaneously on the streets of Lebanon: “Israel’s theory of total war and Hezbollah’s theory of nihilistic power”, said Thanassis Cambanis, director of think tank Century International, in Foreign Policy. Like Iran against the US, Hezbollah won’t “slink away” from an existential fight. Even if it can’t maintain control of Lebanon, it can still “act as a spoiler”. “No amount of Israeli warfare will be able to eliminate Hezbollah by force.”

What next?

The French government has drafted a proposal to end the war in Lebanon, said Barak Ravid on Axios. The framework could “de-escalate the war, prevent a prolonged Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon” and “increase international pressure to disarm Hezbollah and open the door to a historic peace deal”. The Lebanese government has reportedly “accepted the plan as a basis for peace talks”, which are expected to take place in Paris.

President Emmanuel Macron is “ready to mediate a truce”, said Al Jazeera. Lebanese officials’ offer for direct negotiations with Israel could be seen as a “major concession in a country where ties with Israel, a longtime enemy, are a divisive issue”.

Donald Trump’s call for an international coalition to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz has been met with a muted response. Japan and Australia have definitively ruled out sending support and escort vessels, and Keir Starmer has said the UK “will not be drawn into the wider war”.

With the US-Israeli war against Iran now entering its third week, Tehran has effectively closed the waterway through which a fifth of all the world’s oil and gas passes. Trump first demanded the help of China, France, Japan, South Korea and the UK but he then extended the invitation on Truth Social to all “the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait”. Yet, despite threatening to cancel a planned trip to China unless Beijing offers support, and warning Nato that it faces a “very bad future” if it fails to come to Washington’s aid, his demands seem “to have fallen on deaf ears”, said Reuters.

What did the commentators say?

European governments in particular “have reacted cautiously to Trump’s persistent pressure to help him reopen the strait”, said Milena Wälde on Politico. Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said he was “very sceptical” that widening the EU’s naval mission to the Strait of Hormuz “would provide greater security”.

Even if Trump is able to secure an international coalition, his “biggest hurdle” in any attempt to reopen the strait will be “interoperability”: “that’s the ability of crews to work together or with different units and different doctrine when basic communication would be an issue”, maritime security expert Alexandru Hudisteanu told Al Jazeera. There is also the challenging geography of the strait, which is only 31 miles wide at its entrance and exit, and narrows to 20 miles at one point. It is a “very unforgiving” environment to sail through, especially with “wartime threats”, such as mines or “unmanned systems that could damage or destroy ships”.

With growing unease in the US about the war and its economic impact on ordinary citizens, Trump has been forced to change tack in recent days. Having launched his campaign with Israel without consulting other allies, he clearly now needs other countries “to join a war that not only hasn’t been won, but is spreading and escalating out of control – and that the US is arguably losing”, said The Independent’s editorial board.

What next?

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that the strait is not open to vessels belonging to the US and its allies. But Tehran has “signalled it is considering allowing Chinese-linked ships through”, said The Telegraph – a move that would “spare Iran’s strategic ally the economic pain of the war, while doubling down on the impact felt by the West”.

EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today to discuss ways of keeping the strait open. But any military assistance provided by European nations, including the UK, must come with “a say in US decision-making”, and a “demand that Operation Epic Fury be de-escalated before it becomes Operation Epic Disaster”, said The Independent. “This is a rare moment when medium-sized powers such as Britain, France and Japan can exercise some leverage on the White House; they must make full use of it.”

The British public was “expecting to be surprised” by the first tranche of the Mandelson files, said Ailbhe Rea in The New Statesman. Yet despite hopes for “damning correspondence” to be in the 147-page document, “there was very little I didn’t already know”.

As it turned out “the first drop of the Mandelson files contained neither a smoking gun nor bombshell revelation”, said Beth Rigby on Sky News. Details about Peter Mandelson’s severance payment after being sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US, and the “rushed” vetting process for his appointment have made the headlines, but the number of documents withheld, redacted or yet to be released mean the picture remains incomplete.

What did the commentators say?

Keir Starmer “must release all the Mandelson files”, said The Telegraph in an editorial. It appears some of the files “may not see the light of day for years” due to ongoing police investigations. The police are “entitled to do their job and proceed with their investigation without undue interference”, but “questions about the prime minister’s judgment on this matter are not going away. The public deserve to know just how credulous Sir Keir really was.”

The comment in the files by Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser who was also Tony Blair’s chief of staff, that the appointment of Mandelson was “weirdly rushed”, is a “quietly damning analysis that will haunt Starmer forever”, said Rea. And the decision to give Mandelson a “£75,000 payoff” after his dismissal, when his contract, also included in the release, showed that “he was owed precisely £0”, raises questions, too.

But there is undoubtedly a “missing piece of the puzzle”, such as the correspondence between the former No. 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and Mandelson. Reportedly, McSweeney asked Mandelson “three questions”, which Mandelson claimed he answered truthfully, a comment the government disputes.

It was clear from the files we have seen so far that due process was not followed in the vetting of Mandelson for the US ambassador role, said The Times in an editorial. The documents show Mandelson was “offered classified briefings” by government officials before he was granted appropriate security clearance: “it is hard to imagine this being granted to other ambassadorial appointments”. The government refuted allegations that the vetting process was “fast-tracked”, yet now it is claiming this was allowed “because Mandelson was a privy councillor, which does suggest due process was not followed”.

The files released in this first tranche “failed to include any interventions, comments or guidance from Starmer himself”, said Anna Gross in the Financial Times. “The prime minister emerges from this admittedly partial picture less as the main character in his own drama than as an oddly disembodied presence,” said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. We are left to wonder whether Mandelson’s appointment was the result of the PM’s readiness to “delegate” high-level decisions to McSweeney, or belief that the risk of having “his own personal Machiavelli” close to Donald Trump “was worth it”. Either way, as he was forced to admit this week, it was “his mistake”.

What next?

It will be several weeks at least before more documents are released, as they must first be examined by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. Senior government figures told The Guardian that Starmer “could suffer further resignations when ministerial WhatsApp messages are published in the next tranche”.

These files will include informal messages between Mandelson and government figures “for six months before his appointment, and during his time as ambassador”. These “could prove a powder keg for already inflamed tensions between Washington and London”, said Rigby. Only documents that pose “significant security concerns” will be withheld.

Tehran said today it will “not allow even a single litre of oil” to pass through the Strait of Hormuz to reach its war enemies. “Any vessel or tanker bound to them will be a legitimate target.” Tellingly, three cargo ships in the strait were earlier damaged by “unknown projectiles”, said UK Maritime Trade Operations.

Donald Trump has already said that he “will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe’s oil supply”. And, overnight, US Central Command said it had destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying ships, in response to intelligence reports that Iran had begun laying explosives in the strait.

Since the conflict began, there have been 13 reports of ships being attacked in the strait. Global insurers are increasingly unwilling to allow oil tankers to pass through, and the world’s oil supply is now “at severe risk”, said Sarah Shamim on Al Jazeera. As prices per barrel spike, Trump has floated the idea of the US Navy escorting tankers through the shipping channel.

What did the commentators say?

Millions of barrels of oil “are now effectively stranded in the Gulf” because regional oil-producing countries, such as Iraq and Kuwait, have “no alternative” shipping channel. This is no small incentive for Trump’s naval escort plan, said Natasha Bertrand on CNN. But the risks are high, with the strait described as a “death valley” for vessels attempting to navigate it.

Escorting tanker convoys in the region has been “effective” in the past, said former Royal Naval officer Tom Sharpe in The Telegraph. Both the EU’s Operation Aspides and the US-UK Operation Prosperity Guardian – which “positioned warships in defensive missile boxes” – had success against Houthi engagements in the Red Sea. Given Iran’s “rapidly diminishing” missile threat, a “similar” approach to protecting tankers on their way through Hormuz “would work”. But the strait is shallow, “has a U-bend shape” and is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s “home turf”.

Right now, there probably “aren’t enough” US ships “for the task”. Japan, South Korea, Australia and Italy could “help out” with “serious air defence warships”, and France has an aircraft carrier “en route to the Mediterranean” and “a frigate standing off Cyprus”. Britain’s destroyer, HMS Dragon, should arrive in Cyprus next week. But even with these reinforcements, it’s not clear “how long” such an operation “could be kept up”. I think “a short-but-unsustainable effort” is more likely. “Never underestimate what the demand for quick wins can do to political decision makers.”

Despite initial reports to the contrary, even Chinese vessels aren’t getting through the strait, said Harrison Prétat on the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Commentary. China, an ally of Iran with an “outsized reliance on energy imports”, has “not yet received similar assurances” to those given to by Iran-backed Houthis in 2024. This not only underscores “China’s limited ability to shape the course of the conflict, even to protect its own strategic and commercial interests” but makes it clear how seriously Iran’s leaders are playing for the regime’s survival.

What next?

If the US naval escort plan goes ahead, it “may give Iran juicy American targets”, said The Economist. Despite being “pummelled from the air”, Iran still “enjoys layered defences and forbidding terrain” in the strait. It has “long prepared for such strife”, and its threat “comes in many forms”. In the air, it has missiles and drones; on the water, it has “fast-attack boats” armed with “missiles, explosives or rocket-propelled grenades”, and below the surface it can “deploy thousands of sea mines and unmanned vehicles” and “divers with limpet mines”. All that, and America’s “technological advantages are blunted” in such “confined waters”. Unlike modern oil tankers, “destroyers have single hulls, so are easier to sink”.

The Iranian regime seems “determined to set the terms for how the war ends” and, let’s not forget, “maritime chokepoints favour the defender”.

As the Iran war enters its second week, violence from the U.S. and Israel’s western assault and counterstrikes by Iranian forces and their allies threatens not only Iranian, Israeli and American targets but the broader region as a whole. While U.S. and Israeli forces have struggled with unclear and potentially conflicting orders, as well as questionable AI-influenced operations, Iranian forces have long been preparing for an attack of this sort in principle, if not in specific execution.

What did the commentators say?

With violence expanding across multiple fronts in the region, Iran is operating with a “complex strategy” designed to combine “military escalation, economic leverage, domestic mobilization and diplomatic signaling,” said Middle East Monitor. By resting on “several interconnected pillars,” Iran’s strategy is meant to address both military maneuvers and prevent the “broader objective” many officials believe animates this war: regime change.

Iran is “fighting for survival, and survival on its own terms,” said the BBC, with the nation’s leaders having been “preparing for this moment for years.” Although it would be “naive” to expect Iran to hope for a “straightforward battlefield victory,” the evidence instead suggests they have “built a strategy around deterrence and endurance.” Theirs is a calculus that “rests partly on the economics of war,” in which “prolonged conflict” forces the U.S. and Israeli militaries to expend “high-value assets” like missile defense systems to intercept “comparatively low-cost threats” like kamikaze drones.

During the Israel-Iran war of 2025, Tehran’s barrage against U.S. troops stationed at the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar was “prewarned and largely seen as a face-saving exercise,” said Al Jazeera. Now, Tehran has seemingly “revised its military strategy to a more aggressive one focused” on national survival.

The updates include repairing facilities damaged by previous air assaults and “fortifying” several nuclear facilities, using “concrete and large amounts of soil to bury key sites,” said CNN. Past conflicts have also highlighted “weaknesses in Iran’s command structures under pressure,” leading a “new authority, the Defense Council, to govern in times of war.”

Iran’s newly established Defense Council is led by Ali Larijani, the country’s “top national security official,” a “veteran politician” and a former commander in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, said The New York Times. Since the council’s creation in the wake of last year’s Israel-Iran war, Larijani, 67, has “effectively been running the country,” sidelining heart surgeon turned politician President Masoud Pezeshkian as someone who can’t be expected to “solve the multitude of problems in Iran.”

Iran is “definitely more powerful than before,” Larijani said in an interview in Doha before the Iran war began, according to the Times. Tehran has “prepared in the past seven, eight months” and “found our weaknesses and fixed them.”

In February, the Revolutionary Guard Corps moved to “revive its so-called mosaic defense strategy,” which gives field commanders the “autonomy to issue orders to their units,” making the country “more resilient to foreign attacks,” said The Wall Street Journal.

The RGC also established about “100 monitoring points” in Tehran to “block potential insurgents or foreign forces” in the days leading up to the U.S.-Israel assault to preemptively neuter any “disruptive antigovernment unrest,” said the Journal. While last year’s war with Israel highlighted Iran’s “military inferiority” and the “limits of regional militia allies” like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, it also gave Tehran an “opportunity to test and refine its war tactics.”

What next?

Iran’s military says it has amassed “enough supplies to continue their aerial drone and missile war” against U.S. and allied positions across the Middle East “for up to six months,” said the National Post. President Trump’s refusal to rule out a ground invasion has also pushed Iranian officials to address the prospect of foreign troops on Iranian soil. “We are waiting for them,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to NBC’s “Meet The Press” last week. Iranian forces are “confident that we can confront them, and that would be a big disaster for them.”

Ultimately, Iran’s planning and in-war actions rest on the belief that it can “absorb punishment longer than its adversaries are willing to sustain pain and costs,” said the BBC. Their “calculated escalation,” then, is to “endure, retaliate, avoid total collapse and wait for political fractures to emerge on the other side.”

“We’re winning this fight!” shouts the narrator, as the White House video cuts from clips of “Call of Duty” to footage of US fighter jets and slo-mo missile strikes on Iran. “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue” clocked up 58 million views in three days. A second video, “Justice the American Way”, soon followed, blending bombing footage with memes and references to “Top Gun”, the “Halo” series and “Dragon Ball Z”.

The US administration’s use of imagery from video games and pop culture is, to some, just a modern way to celebrate “the nation’s war-fighting power”, said Drew Harwell in The Washington Post. But, to others, it’s a “sick and callous joke from the nation’s highest public office”.

What did the commentators say?

Donald Trump’s second presidential campaign was “marked by a rage-baiting style of communications”, and his social media output has “not shifted tone since he took office”, said Emerald Maxwell on France24. When millions took to the streets last October for anti-Trump “No Kings” protests, the president posted a “fake AI video showing himself wearing a crown and flying a fighter jet” that “dumps excrement on crowds of protesters”.

Now ,“the White House is transforming the Iran war effort into a meme campaign”, said Harwell in The Washington Post. By “mixing unclassified missile footage” with the kind of “fictional and fantasy content young people share online for laughs”, Trump’s digital team is attempting to “win political points by running serious policy issues through the irreverent lens of internet culture”.

They are harnessing “some of the most renowned slivers of 21st-century American popular culture” to “promote the freshly launched war with Iran”, said David Bauder and Lou Kesten on The Associated Press. “It’s hard not to see the thinking here: the more cinematic the content, the more people might support the war.”

The “sober charts and briefings” of past conflicts have “largely been replaced by a public relations campaign” with a “video-game vibe”, said Helen Coster and Tim Reid on Reuters. Past administrations used PR campaigns to “explain why the US has gone to war” but, for a Trump White House that has “struggled to articulate a clear case” for its operations in Iran, “it’s about how the US has gone to war” instead.

The “online propaganda campaign” is not about “intimidating Iran or projecting US strength abroad”, said J Oliver Conroy in The Guardian, but about getting support in future elections from “young right-wing American men who spend a lot of time online”. It is, as yet, “unclear” if those Gen Z males “universally appreciate the Trump administration’s narrowly tailored jingoism”.

What next?

Trump’s “precedent-smashing style of politics” has helped him “build a passionate bond with his political base”, said Michael Birnbaum in The Washington Post. But his “lack of visible effort” to expand support for the war to the wider public “carries risks”. While 81% of Republicans “supported Trump’s initial decision to strike Iran”, according to flash polling, “even at that early stage” only 54% of them supported a prolonged engagement. Support among independents and Democrats is even lower and falling. Trump’s “muscular, meme-driven imaging around the war effort” may be building support “within a slice of his existing base” but “it is less clear that it is winning over sceptics on either side of the political aisle”.

There are only so many weapons to go around. The United States is waging war on Iran, and some observers are concerned the massive expenditure of munitions will make it more difficult to supply Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Conflict in the Middle East may deprive Ukraine of weapons to “defend itself from Russia’s bombardment,” said The Wall Street Journal. The intensity of the U.S. war on Iran “will affect the amount of air defense we receive,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the “sudden depletion” of air defense munitions will make it more challenging to “credibly project U.S. power against Russia in Ukraine,” said Time magazine. America’s “resources and supplies are limited,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). That has raised concerns in Kyiv, said Time. “Everyone understands that the right weapons are our lifeline,” Zelenskyy said.

The Iran war “could save Vladimir Putin’s failing Ukraine invasion,” said The Atlantic Council. Russia “stands to benefit more than most” from the surge in oil and gasoline prices caused by the war in Iran, which could also “distract the Trump administration” from its efforts to mediate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Putin “will now likely be able to breathe a little easier” while the U.S. is distracted.

What did the commentators say?

The “obvious truth” is that Ukraine’s struggle is “not a priority for the White House,” Bohdan Nahaylo said at the Kyiv Post. The Iran war also increases pressure on Europe, which now must “deal with instability in two important areas simultaneously.” European energy markets that “had just stabilized after cutting off Russian supplies” have been thrown into renewed turmoil. That will create new challenges for a continent already “stretched thin” by its backing of Ukraine. The newest crisis will be a “test of Europe’s ability to remain focused and united.”

War in the Middle East “offers Russia several opportunities,” Stefan Wolff said at The Conversation. The oil shock gives Moscow a “new lifeline for financing its ongoing war” while the diversion of U.S. arms to Iran gives Putin an advantage in his “relentless campaign of missile and drone strikes” on Ukraine. The war in Iran will not give Russia a victory in Ukraine, “but it has thrown the world into additional turmoil for no good reason.” That will delay a “much-needed restoration of peace” for a war-weary Europe.

What next?

President Donald Trump is “looking to Ukraine to help its operations against Iran,” said Politico. Zelenskyy’s government has extensive experience with the kind of drone warfare at the center of the Iran conflict, making Ukraine a “world leader” in the kind of “anti-drone defenses” that the U.S. needs right now. The Ukrainian leader said the country would help as long as that assistance “didn’t weaken its own defenses.” Doing so may give Ukraine leverage with Trump: Assistance to the U.S. “serves as an investment in our diplomatic capabilities,” Zelenskyy said.

Donald Trump ​has said the decision to end the war ​with Iran will ​be a “mutual” one between himself and Israel’s ​Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We’ve ​been ​talking. ⁠I’ll make a decision at ​the right ​time, ⁠but everything’s going to be taken ⁠into ​account,” Trump said.

The war in the Middle East has entered its second week, having “set new speed records for conflict and destruction”, said Nick Paton Walsh on CNN. Both sides have achieved some of their objectives, but “the question of where” and how “it all ends echoes the loudest”.

What did the commentators say?

A “new phase” of the US-Iran war has highlighted the “limits of their strategies”, said The Economist. In the opening exchanges, Trump would have hoped that rising oil prices from missile strikes would force Iran to “cut a deal”, whereas Iran aimed to cause enough “chaos” in “America’s soft underbelly of the Gulf states” that they would “beg Trump to stop the war”.

However, while both sides could claim to have achieved some of their military objectives, they have been “unable to deliver political ones”. The Iranian regime has “proved resilient thus far. So have America’s Gulf allies.” Investors in the Gulf region may have started “grumbling” at the costs involved, but further escalation from Iran is more “risky” for its regime. “After decades of economic mismanagement”, it “could turn out to be less resilient than it thinks”.

Trump himself is “on the horns of a dilemma” and has two fundamental options, said Robert A. Pape in Foreign Affairs. “One path is doubling down” on the campaign of air strikes, “extending aerial control over the skies and surveillance on the ground”. The other is “ending the military commitment” altogether.

Without a “golden off-ramp”, the president would have to judge whether to “deal with short but limited political costs now or more protracted and more uncertain political costs later”. With Iran intent on pursuing “horizontal escalation” – widening the “geographic and political scope of a conflict rather than intensifying it vertically” – perhaps the “wisest choice” would be for the US to “accept a limited loss now rather than risk compounding losses later”.

Significant changes to the economic landscape could be the deciding factor for both sides to find an “off-ramp”, said Frédéric Schneider on the Middle East Council on Global Affairs. We forget that the first strikes “came at a moment of global economic fragility”. Since missiles were first launched, there has been significant “volatility” in the market, driven by major disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, QatarEnergy’s liquid natural gas production, and flights through Dubai International Airport.

The “most likely scenario” is that “sustained attacks” over a four- to six-week period will cause economic costs to “escalate sharply”. If the situation were to deteriorate beyond that point, however, we could realistically see the removal of “roughly one-fifth of global oil supply”, which would “constitute a shock without modern precedent”.

The US may be motivated to de-escalate by the near-certain “inflationary impulse” of banks, but for the Gulf countries caught in between, prolonged conflict involving “infrastructure damage, collapsing investor confidence and emergency military spending would create genuine fiscal distress”.

What next?

Prolonged conflict could have one of three outcomes, said Roland Oliphant, David Blair and Maryam Mazrooei in The Telegraph. For many Iranians, the most favourable would be a “democratic revolution”. The country differs from others such as Libya and Syria in that it has a “deeply rooted sense of civic and national identity” that transcends divides, and, most significantly, a “vast, highly-educated and pragmatic middle class”.

Second, Trump may try to replicate the US intervention in Venezuela. However, the Iranian institution is “still functioning”, particularly with the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Supreme Leader, and has the “same entrenched, IRGC-aligned elite” in charge.

Finally, a “darker outcome”. The prospect of a “civil war seems very real”. Reports of a “possible US-backed ground incursion by Kurdish militant groups based in northern Iraq” have been dodged by the Trump administration, yet the consequences are “fraught with danger”.

The fog of war has settled thick over the United States and Israel’s ongoing assault on Iranian military targets and an expanding terrain of associated sites. With Washington’s strategic aims unclear and the disorder of the Trump regime confounding attempts to justify this latest bout of bellicosity, Iran’s strategy to end these attacks is coming into sharper relief.

Faced with superior military might and forced to scramble after last week’s surprise attack, Iran has turned to — and on — its Gulf State neighbors. Those countries are now a leverage point to reshape the contours of a war that thus far has had the Islamic Republic in a defensive crouch.

What did the commentators say?

Iran’s government has “for years” threatened to “blanket the Middle East with missile and drone fire” if it felt its existence was “threatened,” said PBS News. Now “the Islamic Republic is doing just that.”

Iran’s “basic strategy,” said PBS News, is to “instill fear about the dangers of a widening war,” prompting American allies to “apply enough pressure to halt their campaign.” Persian Gulf nations have long been a “bastion of calm in a deeply unstable region,” with “oil wealth and careful diplomacy” to keep “turmoil at arm’s length.” But with cities such as Dubai and Qatar’s Doha under bombardment, investors are recalibrating their “perception of the region’s stability,” said The Wall Street Journal.

The question facing Gulf leaders is essentially “how long do we keep sitting on our hands and absorb these relentless Iranian strikes?” said Middle East policy expert Hasan Alhasan to The New York Times. Do places like Qatar and Dubai “join a war that they did not start, whose goals are entirely unclear, and whose tempo and cadence they do not necessarily control?”

Gulf states may have hoped that the war would “remain confined to Israel and Iran,” leaving them and their oil shipping “relatively unaffected,” said Foreign Policy. But Iran “rejected that script,” bombarding the region in a way that suggests a “clear strategy.” The goal, in part, is to “quickly cause global economic pain” to build pressure for a cease-fire, evidenced by Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, Saudi oil and Qatari liquified natural gas production remains effectively “shut down even without direct Iranian attacks.”

Iranian assaults have “increasingly targeted energy infrastructure,” leading to a “jump in gas prices” and raising alarm around the world, said Al Jazeera. Much of the Gulf’s oil production might have to be temporarily shut down, causing “long-term, knock-on effects,” said Thijs Van de Graaf, an energy fellow at the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, to the outlet. “You do not turn on and off an oil well like flipping the switch of a light.”

Nor is Iran limiting its focus to energy production. Iranian drone strikes on Amazon Web Service facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signal a “new front for Iran’s retaliation against the U.S.” by “complicating Gulf ambitions to build multibillion-dollar AI facilities in the region,” said Financial Times. Data centers have emerged as “attractive targets to anyone seeking to disrupt a country,” said technology professor Vili Lehdonvirta to the BBC. Given the degree to which cloud and commercial AI software has become integrated into U.S. military operations, it’s “not entirely unexpected” that those “infrastructures” would be specifically targeted as “‘dual-use’ facilities.”

What next?

Although Iranian attacks may draw Gulf states into the widening regional conflagration, it “isn’t obvious” that those countries have much to add militarily compared to what Iran “already faces,” said Foreign Policy. Moreover, Iran sees pushing Gulf states into an “open alliance with a deeply unpopular Israel” — compared to “veiled tacit cooperation” — as a move with “significant regional and political benefits.”

Iran’s shift from missile-based assaults in the region to a combination of traditional munitions and drone bombardments suggests a “more lasting threat” than missiles alone, said the Times. Tehran has “proved it can produce drones quickly and cheaply,” suggesting a “healthy supply to target the Gulf for the foreseeable future.” The result, said PBS News, is a “grim math equation,” in which Iran has a “finite number of missiles and drones.” And American, Israeli and Gulf states have, in turn, a “limited number of interceptor missiles capable of downing the incoming fire.” As such, Gulf states are looking to both “acquire more weapons to intercept incoming fire,” plus “find ways to broker an end to the war.”

When State Rep. James Talarico took the microphone to deliver his victory speech after winning Texas’ Democratic Senate primary this week, he noted that his Republican rivals would likely call him a “radical leftist” and “fake Christian.” Indeed, Talarico’s faith has become a major feature of the 36-year-old’s political work, which the former seminarian has described in unapologetically religious terms.

Faith is “central in my life” and the reason “why I’m in public service,” Talarico said in a recent interview with Time. Speaking about religion is a way to “tell the people that I seek to represent why I’m doing this.” With him narrowly defeating Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the party’s nomination to unseat Sen. John Cornyn in November, is his faith-first brand the start of a new electoral movement for Democrats?

What did the commentators say?

Among Talarico’s many “powerful qualities,” it’s his “unapologetic embrace” of Christianity that not only “sets him apart from other rising Democratic stars” but could “even help reshape American politics,” said MS Now. During his time in politics, he has gained a national reputation for “rooting his opposition to Christian nationalism in his own Christian faith” and defending religious freedoms “without casting religion as the enemy.”

Delivering his campaign stump speech in both red and blue districts with the “cadence of a sermon” and including a “more-than-occasional mention of Scripture,” Talarico is betting that his “religious foundation opens a door to that broader coalition of voters,” said The Texas Tribune. At the same time, Talarico’s progressive religiosity has elicited a “backlash” from Christian conservatives who see his faith as “incongruous with their own despite a shared vocabulary.” Conservative Christian Texans are already “familiar with the kinds of teachings” one might hear at Talarico’s Austin-area church, said Mother Jones. But many of these Texans would “rather dance with the Devil than a church-going Democrat,” according to research, to say nothing of a “seminarian who says ‘God is nonbinary.’”

“Strip away” the “polish and the TikTok virality” and voters will see that Talarico is offering the “same program that has been on offer from the mainline left since at least the 1960s,” said First Things. Talarico’s is a Christianity “evacuated of its doctrinal substance and refilled with the priorities of the Democratic National Committee.”

In turn, Talarico sees his role as a bulwark against the rising Christian extremism of the Trump era. There’s an “inconsistency I’m trying to call out,” he said on a recent episode of The New York Times’ “The Ezra Klein Show.” The MAGA movement is “using my tradition” and “speaking for me,” said Talarico. He has a “special moral responsibility to combat Christian nationalism.”

Talarico’s message of “compassionate progressive Christianity” that’s “wedded to a populist economic message” has attracted the “most attention” both locally and nationally as a “core feature of his campaign,” said Vox. But complicating his personal rise, and the ascendency of Talarico’s style of Christianity in Democratic politics more broadly, is the fact that while there may be a “resurgence of the religious left” taking place, it’s happening as the party’s coalition and its voters “get less religious overall.” Party leaders may see it as “imperative to tap into” religious energy and “make inroads with a religious electorate that the right has seized.” But ultimately their “share” of religious voters has “declined significantly.”

What next?

After Talarico secured his party’s Senate nomination this week, Republicans have begun “previewing the attacks they will wage against” the now-nominee, said the Tribune. This may entail “highlighting comments he has made” about God being nonbinary, arguing that the Bible “sanctions abortion” and stating that Christianity “merely ‘points to the truth’ along with other religions.” Still, if elected, Talarico would hardly be alone in helping mainstream liberal Christianity by joining sitting Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock and divinity school graduate Sen. Chris Coons, both of whom have “urged Democrats to take religious engagement more seriously.”

Ultimately, votes for Talarico aren’t about “progressive versus moderate,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne, per The Hill. Talarico’s ability to “link his faith to his politics successfully” shows he can “attract a larger coalition” and “tell the story of progressivism in a way that’s more palatable to a larger population.” But in Texas, where “white evangelicals make up around a quarter of Texas’ electorate and went almost 90% for Trump in 2024,” said the Tribune, the question boils down to whether or not that faith-based palatability is enough to propel Talarico into the Senate.

“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”

That was Donald Trump’s assessment of Keir Starmer at an Oval Office press conference this week. The US president was “very disappointed” after the prime minister initially barred Washington from using the British-controlled Chagos Islands military base to launch the weekend’s strikes on Iran. It took the US “three or four days” to secure permission, Trump complained.

Starmer said he did approve a later, separate US request to use RAF bases for “specific and limited defensive” purposes, to target Iran’s missile facilities and rocket launchers to protect civilians from its retaliatory strikes. “We all remember the mistakes of Iraq,” he said. “And we have learned those lessons.”

But “is this a blip with Trump in a fit of pique”, said The Times’ Washington editor Katy Balls, or is it “the latest sign of a more permanent splintering in relations?”

What did the commentators say?

Officials in Washington and Westminster initially expressed surprise at how well Trump and Starmer “appeared to get on”. The pair don’t have much in common but still had “warm exchanges” – plus the UK “scored a trade deal before others”. But Starmer’s decision to deny the US request for UK help in Iranian strikes “marks a new, more fractious chapter in the so-called special relationship”. Trump “made clear that he sees relations as damaged”.

Clearly, Starmer is “no longer the Trump whisperer”, said The Independent’s political editor David Maddox. The “killer line” was Trump’s “almost wistful reflection that the relationship was ‘not what it was’”. Words like “disappointing” suggest “a certain regret”, rather than “his usual bombastic attack style”.

Trump’s tariffs on the UK and Starmer’s refusal to support his threats to Greenland had already “poisoned” the relationship. Then there’s the “collapse” of Starmer’s popularity. The administration is aware that Starmer’s days as PM “appear to be numbered”. The special relationship is over.

Rather than having broken down this week, the relationship was over the moment the US threatened its Nato allies for “resisting a land-grab” of Greenland, said James Schneider in The New Statesman. And good riddance: it was “never one of equals”; it was “a method by which Britain’s ruling class felt relevant by laundering US power with a clipped accent – and selling it to the public as shared values”.

What Trump does openly is what the US has long done in practice: “use access to its market, its currency, its intelligence networks and its military power to discipline friend and foe alike”.

Foreign policy is “the theatre in which the special relationship most reliably produces catastrophe”. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and now Iran: America's actions have “never commanded popular consent” in Britain.

Nevertheless, “reports of the death of the special relationship are greatly exaggerated”, said The i Paper’s chief political commentator Kitty Donaldson. Many times the two nations have “seemed on the brink of breaking off relations”, under Barack Obama and Joe Biden as well as Trump. Things might have gone “downhill” but the “underlying bedrock” of the “intertwined military and intelligence alliance” is unchanged.

Trump’s criticism is a “pattern of behaviour”, while his officials “crack on as usual behind the scenes”. Their British counterparts “eye-roll” at the claim that the special relationship is dead, said one source. The edifice is “far deeper than a spat”. We “partner more in defence and intelligence than ever before”. The UK and US are each other’s largest investors; each creates more than a million jobs in the other’s country, said Donaldson. As one British intelligence source put it: “It’s business as usual.”

What next?

Starmer is under pressure to “move leftwards” and many MPs and voters would “like a tougher line against Trump”, said Balls. In Trump’s camp, plenty of people would be “all too happy” to egg the president on in taking a “more aggressive approach with the UK”. Some are “already frustrated with the UK’s pivot closer to Europe”.

But there’s a personal aspect too. One insider describes an “ancestral yearning for the UK” in Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and the Maga movement more widely. Trump is invested partly because of his Scottish mother and “love of the monarchy”; he’s excited for the King’s visit to the US in April.

Starmer is “well aware of the scars Labour carries from Iraq, and the reluctance of voters to join another war in the Middle East”, said Donaldson. But there’s simply no “withdrawing from the special relationship, whatever temporary spat is taking place”.

Maybe it is a coincidence, but maybe not: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is accusing Ukraine of a plot to sabotage his country’s energy infrastructure just weeks ahead of an April parliamentary election that threatens his grip on power.

Orbán is “facing the prospect of defeat by his political rival, Péter Magyar,” said Politico. To make up a polling gap of eight points, Hungary’s leader has accused Magyar of being both pro-Ukraine and pro-European Union. And on Feb. 25, he ordered troops to protect “key sites” such as oil pipelines against the possibility of a Ukrainian attack. Such measures are necessary for the “protection of critical energy infrastructure,” Orbán said. That proclamation drew an “exasperated response” from European leaders trying to present a united pro-Ukraine front as that country fights a Russian invasion in its fourth year. It is wrong if Hungary “uses its own fight for freedom to betray European sovereignty,” said German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.

What did the commentators say?

Hungary’s leader is “widely seen as the Kremlin’s strongest ally” in Europe, said NBC News. Orbán has cast his relationship with Moscow as “pragmatic” to ensure his country’s “access to reliable supplies of Russian oil and gas.” But critics see his “crackdowns” on media and nongovernmental organizations as borrowing from “Putin’s authoritarian playbook.”

Orbán’s actions are “aiding and abetting Russia’s kinetic war against Ukraine,” said Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet at The Hill. He has long hidden behind “economic excuses” for his refusal to oppose Russia, claiming that Europe “cannot afford” to back Ukraine in its war, even as he “champions Putin’s interests in the West.” The prime minister would “gladly continue to crassly trade cheap Russian oil for Ukrainian lives.” Now Orbán is trying to convince his country that Ukrainians are the real threat even though “Ukraine is not at war with Hungary.”

This spring’s elections are “shaping up to be the most serious challenge” to Orbán’s power in the last two decades, Timothy Ash said at The Kyiv Post. It is no coincidence that the Hungarian leader’s campaign has been “shaped around picking fights with the European Union and Ukraine.” He appears to believe he can “play Hungary as the victim here” with Ukraine as the culprit for higher fuel prices thanks to energy disruptions caused by the war. The polling showing Magyar in the lead, however, suggests “this Orbán strategy is not really working.”

What next?

Hungary is “holding up about $105 billion in European funding for Ukraine,” said The Washington Post. The loan was “intended to reinforce Ukraine’s military and plug its budget gap,” but Orbán “used veto powers” to block the package that he had already agreed to. Back at home there are "growing fears" that Orbán may “cancel next month's election,” said The Bulwark. Hungary's constitution outlaws elections during a state of emergency, which makes the “manufactured” alarms over Ukraine look like a “deeply sinister” attempt to hold onto power.

Donald Trump said his greatest concern about the US-Israeli strikes on Iran would be the emergence of a new leader “as bad as the previous person”.

At an Oval Office news conference, he described that outcome as the “worst case” scenario, but acknowledged that it “could happen”. Many experts believe that, whoever replaces the assassinated Ayatollah, the tenor of the Iranian regime will change little, if at all.

What did the commentators say?

Iran’s regime is “built to handle shocks” like the Ayatollah’s assassination, said Ali Hashem, of Royal Holloway University of London’s Centre for Islamic and West Asian Studies, on Foreign Policy. The supreme leader sits at the top of “a dense network of institutions”, including the Guardian Council, the Assembly of Experts, the Expediency Council and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “When under pressure, its structure is designed to pull together rather than fall apart”. Iran’s constitution even “explicitly anticipates sudden leadership loss”, with a clear process for transfer of authority.

“So far, the coercive and administrative state apparatus” is standing solid and “can be expected to survive this crisis”, said Amin Saikal, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Australian National University, on The Conversation.

Trump has taken a gamble by claiming he’d be “able to topple a bloodthirsty regime, which is fighting an existential war, without putting troops on the ground”, said historian Justin Vaïsse, founder of the Paris Peace Forum, in Le Monde. The US president hopes that “simply by providing an external shock to make it fall”, internal opposition forces will “take over and stabilise power”.

But “this scenario would need not just thousands, but hundreds of thousands or millions on the streets” from “a cross section of Iranian society”, Urban Coningham of the Royal United Services Institute told Channel 4 News. The protests would have to happen at a scale that the regime couldn’t suppress, causing “senior government figures to flee, leaving a vacuum of power in the country”.

As for Israel, “there is a question of how invested” it is in “ensuring that regime change in Iran is smooth”, said Simon Speakman Cordall on Al Jazeera. Most of Israel’s leaders privately “regard that as a kind of fairy tale”, former Israeli government adviser Daniel Levy told the broadcaster. They are “more interested in regime, and state, collapse”.

What next?

Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ali Hosseinei Khamenei, has been widely tipped to be named his father’s successor. He’s “viewed within the regime as a capable and forceful leader”, and “is said to be close to” senior leaders in the Revolutionary Guard, according to a leaked US intelligence briefing quoted in the Daily Mail.

Should the regime fall, dissident-in-exile Reza Pahlavi, the oldest son of the country’s shah, has long been staking his claim to have the support of millions of Iranian people. His “pitch to the White House” is “MIGA: Make Iran Great Again”, said Gregory Svirnovskiy on Politico. He’s been telling US broadcasters that, as leader of Iran, he could bring “over a trillion dollars worth of impact and revenue to the American economy”.

As things stand now, Trump will probably “abandon his earlier calls for regime change” and try to strike a “Venezuela-scenario” deal with whomever replaces Khamenei, said Sharan Grewal on Brookings. “If so, then for Iran, all Trump’s attacks will really have done is to accelerate” their aged supreme leader’s “already looming death”.

The Gulf Cooperation Council – a six-member organisation including the UAE and Qatar – stressed on Sunday that the “option to respond to Iranian attacks” with force was very much “on the table”, said The Guardian.

Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, said the aggression from Iran “cannot go unanswered” and that a “price has to be paid for this attack on our people”.

The Gulf states “face a difficult choice”, said Samer Al-Atrush in The Times. Either they press Donald Trump to “end the war quickly” or encourage him to “double down and hit Iran even harder, possibly with their help. Neither is ideal for an energy-rich region that has been sucked into a war it had hoped to avoid.”

What did the commentators say?

Trump may have said he was “surprised” by the scale of Tehran’s retaliation, but regional escalation “was always Iran’s plan”, said Al-Atrush. The Islamic regime is banking on “inflicting as much pain on the region until it begs Trump to end the war”.

This could have the opposite effect, however. If the Gulf states abandon their current “defensive posture”, they could easily and suddenly “escalate” the conflict by allowing the US to use their airspace and bases for attacks on Iran, or “even conduct their own”.

The Gulf states “did not want this confrontation”, particularly the danger Iranian air strikes pose to their “vulnerable infrastructure”, said Urooba Jamal on Al Jazeera. If power grids and water desalination plants are hit and out of action, “the scorching hot and bone-dry Gulf countries are essentially uninhabitable”, said Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi. And without their energy industry, the region is “unprofitable”.

The current turmoil also risks “undoing years of work to de-risk the region” and develop its thriving economies, said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen of Rice University on The Conversation. The Gulf states are “critical hubs in the global economy” for oil, gas, international shipping and travel, and fallout from the “biggest disruption to global travel since the Covid-19 pandemic” leaves the region “uniquely vulnerable to further escalation by Iran”.

Tehran is gambling that upping the pressure will “encourage Gulf leaders to press Trump for an endgame” rather than “pushing them further back into Washington’s orbit”.

Gulf states have “long viewed the Islamic Republic as a menace”, but have made concerted efforts towards “rapprochement with their foe, hoping to avoid exactly this scenario”, said The Economist. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have “restored diplomatic ties” with Iran in recent years. Oman, hosting negotiations between the US and Iran just hours before the first strikes, believed that a solution was “within our reach” and could “be agreed tomorrow”. Those efforts are “almost certainly dead”.

What next?

States in the region “won’t just sit back” and take continued Iranian aggression, said Cathrin Schaer on Deutsche Welle. It is “possible” that Gulf states' forces “enter the war directly”, but it is more likely they will engage in “narrow self-defence” operations rather than widespread offensive strikes, said Andreas Krieg, from King’s College London. As well as trying to maintain diplomatic channels – most likely through Oman and Qatar – the Gulf states will also look to “improve their defensive posture” and protect their critical infrastructure.

Whether they are drawn into the conflict directly or not, “the Gulf that emerges from the Iran war will be very different”, said Allison Minor on the Atlantic Council. If Iran were to fall, so would its “military capabilities, network of proxies, and regional ambitions”, which have shaped the politics of the Middle East for decades.

Saudi Arabia, which has “long sought to become the dominant power” in the Middle East, “stands to benefit the most from a weakened Iran”. As the war continues, Riyadh’s “posture” will offer “valuable clues to what the coming era in the Middle East may bring”.

Donald Trump expects the conflict in Iran to continue for “four to five weeks” and says “it won’t be difficult” to maintain the US joint operation with Israel in the region.

But “what happens in Iran doesn’t stay in Iran”, said the Atlantic Council. The consequences of US and Israeli-led military campaigns “will radiate across the region and the world”.

What did the commentators say?

The lack of an obvious plan and failure of diplomatic talks could lead the US into a “long-lasting” and “open-ended” conflict, said Robert Tait in The Guardian. Trump has opened the door to more negotiations and said “I will be talking to them”, but Iranian representatives “waited too long” and “should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner”. However, considering recent attacks and Iran’s “retaliation” across the Middle East, “that might not be easy” now, said the paper.

The president has offered several “contradictory visions” of a new regime and the means of achieving it, said Zolan Kanno-Youngs, David E. Sanger and Tyler Pager in the The New York Times. Despite warnings from his advisers that there are “vast differences in cultures and history” between the two nations, Trump “appears enamoured of using a Venezuela-like model in Iran”. He told the NYT that “what we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario”.

Attacking Iran – which has three times the population of Venezuela – is considered “far more complex and risky” than the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. Unlike Venezuela, “Iran has sustained an active nuclear programme”. Trump’s comments “reflect the degree to which his administration remains uncertain about how the next few weeks will unfold, both on the battlefield and in the creation of a replacement government in Tehran”.

The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has “left the regime reeling” in Iran, said Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times, but it “does not answer the question of what comes next”.

Trump believes it would be “folly” to put US soldiers on the ground, as happened in both Afghanistan and Iraq. So the US and Israel is seeking to bring about regime change by “air power alone”: a decision without “real precedent”. The hope is that by removing the Iranian regime’s leader, the nation will spark into “organic and spontaneous transition to a new political system”, without “further US intervention. But there is little reason to believe that will work.”

Iran’s response to the attacks “may expand beyond the ballistic missiles it has used in the past to retaliate”, said Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic. Its navy has demonstrated in recent operations in the Strait of Hormuz that it could “shock global markets”, and its drones could “try to damage nearby US warships”. How long the war lasts is “not up to just Trump or Israel”: it is “in the hands of both the regime and the people inside Iran”.

Though there may be doubts over Iran’s “missile-launching capability” after the 12-day war with Israel last year, it is “not the only side with limitations that could dictate the length of the latest conflict”, said Joe Barnes in The Telegraph. The retaliation from Tehran has “raised questions” over the “fragility” of US and allied air defences in the region. Trump’s reluctance to put boots on the ground could also be a “limiting factor” as aerial campaigns alone “rarely achieve successes” in terms of regime change.

The president’s main constraints may lie at home, however, with a “largely isolationist” Maga base that “hates the idea of becoming entangled in foreign wars”. But his vanity dictates that Trump “must also deliver a moment he can sell as a win back home”.

What next?

The Foreign Office has “mounted an unprecedented operation to support British citizens in the Middle East”, said Sky News. It is considering plans for “mass evacuation” working on potential routes to transport tens of thousands of Britons “should airspace in the Gulf remain off-limits”.

In the Gulf, countries face an “impossible choice”, said Urooba Jamal in Al Jazeera. Either they “strike back” against Iran “and risk being seen as fighting alongside Israel, or remain passive while their cities burn”.

The Greens’ first ever Westminster by-election victory has prompted further soul-searching for a listless Labour Party less than two years on from their landslide election win.

“By-elections seldom matter much once the circus packs up, but this one is existential” for Labour, said Patrick Maguire in The Times. The rise of Reform UK has been much talked about and the “essay question of British electoral politics remains how the left might beat them”. But now “nowhere in the country does the answer appear to be a vote for the Labour Party”.

But the Gorton and Denton result is as much about the Greens’ emergence as an electoral force as it is about the love Labour’s lost.

What did the commentators say?

The result caps six months in which Zack Polanski “has presided over a leap in his party’s poll ratings and sought to retool its message”, said Politico. In her victory speech Hannah Spencer, the party’s fifth and newest MP, followed the way Polanski has “tried to foreground cost-of-living concerns, at the expense of the Greens’ traditional eco message”. But the party has also faced claims that it is stoking division.

“The extent to which the party has campaigned in an unashamedly sectarian manner is shocking,” said The Times in an editorial. The party released a video in Urdu, appealing directly to the constituency’s large Muslim population, featuring Keir Starmer shaking hands with Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister of India, while Spencer said voters should “punish Labour for Gaza”. The win does nothing for “those who believe elections should be fought on issues, not religious identity or about conflicts far away”.

Nigel Farage claimed that there were high levels of “family voting”, an illegal practice which can include husbands instructing their wives how to vote. “Whether the vote was genuinely corrupt,” said Jake Wallis Simons in The Telegraph, “there is little doubt that we are witnessing the manipulation of tribal voting as a decisive power-play in our political system.”

But “in reality the result was not a victory for sectarianism or ‘cheating’”, said Adam Bienkov in Byline Times. Instead it showed the ability of “most voters in the Greater Manchester seat to reject the politics of Reform”. In Matthew Goodwin, Reform chose “an extreme and divisive candidate, with a history of dabbling in racist comments and discredited race science”, and he has been rejected by voters. “For now at least, in a battle between hope and hate, hope has won.”

What next?

The Green Party is now a “large, viable, organised electoral vehicle, aiming to replace Labour at the polls”, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman.

The result in Gorton and Denton “says to the one in three current Labour voters also giving thought to switching that a Green vote is no longer a wasted vote”. With the upcoming local and devolved elections in May, Green “gains in London and urban northern England, as well as Wales and Scotland, would embed the feeling that the Labour Party is no longer the pre-eminent party of the left”.

The Greens can now “position themselves as the ‘anti-Farage’ party in swaths of working-class Britain”, said George Parker and Jennifer Williams in the Financial Times. In 2024, they won 6.7% of the national vote and four seats at Westminster, “but the party came second in 40 constituencies, 18 of which were in London. In all but one of those seats, the party was second to Labour.”

President Donald Trump is not the sort of old-fashioned Republican who believes businesses should operate unfettered from government interference. Instead, he is now telling Netflix to fire a prominent board member who once worked for the Obama administration.

The streaming giant will “pay the consequences” if it does not fire Susan Rice from its board “immediately,” Trump said on Sunday. But Democrats will not “forgive and forget” companies that bend to Trump, said Rice, the former ambassador to the U.N. under former President Barack Obama, in a recent podcast. This earned Trump’s ire. Rice has “no talent or skills — purely a political hack!” he said on Truth Social.

The controversy comes as Netflix is trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in an $83 billion deal while fending off a rival bid from Trump-friendly Paramount Skydance. Trump does not have “direct authority to kill media deals,” said Axios, but his comments “could still have an impact on investors and regulators” who must approve the Netflix deal.

Netflix leaders are shrugging off Trump’s demands, said Politico. The bid for WBD “is a business deal. It’s not a political deal,” said CEO Ted Sarandos. That is not entirely true. The Justice Department is already “probing Netflix’s proposed takeover” for antitrust concerns, said Politico.

What did the commentators say?

Trumpism “closely resembles state-run capitalism,” said Steve Benen at MS Now. The president wants a say in “what private companies charge, their profit margins, the salaries of their executives” and even personnel matters. Trump in August called on Intel to fire its CEO, then followed up in September by urging Microsoft to fire an executive who worked in the Biden administration. His new threat against Netflix is not “posturing or hollow rhetoric.” If Trump wants to derail the company’s bid for WBD, he is “in a position to do so.”

The president is demanding Rice be fired “because she exercised her First Amendment right to criticize him,” Marc Elias said at Democracy Docket. Netflix “now has a choice” to make. The company can “stand behind a distinguished board member,” or it can “fire her at the despotic demand of the president.” Netflix should stand with Rice because firing her “would represent a form of institutional surrender with no bottom and no end.” The question now is whether “Netflix has the courage” to make the right choice and demonstrate that “not every pillar of civil society is too weak and too lacking in self-respect to face Trump’s threats with resolve.”

What next?

Warner Bros. Discovery has deemed a sweetened bid from Paramount Skydance to be superior to Netflix's offer, said The Associated Press. Netflix has four business days to counter, and regulators could still step in. Sarandos is working to prevent that. He will attend meetings at the White House next Thursday to discuss the WBD bid.

The outcome of today’s by-election in Gorton and Denton, one of the most unpredictable in years, will be closely scrutinised as a political bellwether.

The southeast Manchester constituency was a Labour stronghold with a 13,400-vote majority until former MP Andrew Gwynne resigned. Now, polls have it as a three-way contest between Reform UK, Labour and the Green Party, whose candidate Hannah Spencer is a local councillor and plumber. Reform’s candidate, GB News presenter Matt Goodwin, has also painted the by-election as a referendum on Keir Starmer’s leadership. The prime minister blocked Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham from standing as Labour’s candidate, selecting city councillor Angeliki Stogia instead.

But in an era of multi-party politics, by-election results are decided by increasingly tight margins, making turn-out and tactical voting significant factors. Last year, a split vote on the left meant Reform won Runcorn and Helsby from Labour by six votes.

What did the commentators say?

It can be “unwise to extrapolate from by-election results”, said The Economist in 2023. Turnout is poor and half the seats gained at by-elections between 1992 and 2019 were lost at the next general election. Some parties, like the Liberal Democrats, can “outperform” in them.

They are “awkward beasts and don’t necessarily follow the usual rules”, said Louise Thompson, politics lecturer at the University of Manchester, on The Conversation. Gorton and Denton is a new constituency, formed from parts of three others in 2024. There are “huge socio-demographic differences” between its predominantly white, working-class wards and areas with a “much higher student and Muslim population”.

The “likeliest split outcome is straightforward”, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman: Denton votes Reform; Gorton and its neighbours go Green. Yet that would “reveal little about the overall winner”. Forecasting site Britain Predicts has it as a “strikingly tight” race: Green on 31%, Reform on 30% and Labour on 29%. Based on expected turn-out, only “a few hundred votes separate first from third”.

There might also be a “squeeze” effect. In such contests, smaller parties “often underperform” because voters gravitate towards “perceived frontrunners, where their vote seems more likely to make a difference”. If the Greens are seen as the tactical voting preference, “they should win the seat emphatically”. If Labour is seen as the way to beat Reform, “they should eke out a narrow win”.

It’s therefore the system, not the outcome, that should be “receiving more attention”, said Ian Simpson of the Electoral Reform Society. First past the post is “not designed with more than two candidates in mind”. Where three or more parties are contesting a seat, candidates are increasingly elected with “fewer than a third of voters in their area”. More than two-thirds of ballots cast are “simply ignored”.

In a multi-party contest, the debate becomes dominated by tactical voting, around “which party is best placed to stop another party from winning”. In this case, both Labour and the Green Party tried to persuade voters that they were the only option to “stop Reform”.

But these claims have been “unsubstantiated”, said The Independent’s John Rentoul. To vote tactically, “you need to know how other people are planning to vote”. That hasn’t been possible here; people have already been voting by post. Stronger Green wards may have also been “over-represented” in polls.

Normally, this wouldn’t matter. By-elections exist to “register protest against the government”. Their history is “littered with sensational upsets” that nevertheless “left the governing party untouched and were reversed at the subsequent general election”.

But “Gorton and Denton feels different”. The government is “fragile”; MPs are “panicky”. Parliamentary politics is split five ways. “Will Reform or the Conservatives lead the right at the next election? Will Labour, the Greens or the Lib Dems lead the left?” Any outcome will “shape politics for months”. It could influence tactical voting calculations in the May local elections and even the general election. “Most by-elections do not matter. This one does.”

What next?

The results are due at 4am tomorrow. A Labour win would “embolden Starmer and prompt a thousand think-pieces about a corner turned”, said Rentoul.

A victory for Reform’s “divisive, hyper-online” Goodwin would be “the biggest sign yet” that Reform’s poll lead “represents real voter intentions” rather than just “dissatisfaction with the government”, said The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot.

But a Green victory might be “the most catastrophic result for Starmer’s leadership”. It would show that the Greens are “a serious progressive force, not a protest vote”.

Whatever the result, there are “big implications” for Starmer ahead of what are widely expected to be “disastrous results” for Labour in the local elections. But if this by-election has barely 1,000 votes between the top three parties, “each would be wise not to overanalyse the results – but that won’t stop anyone”.

President Donald Trump appears to be on the cusp of ordering an attack on Iran, but some Pentagon insiders are warning of potential risks of a new war in the Middle East. Any escalation could bring significant long-term conflict.

The possible downsides of attacking Iran include “U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses and an overtaxed force,” said The Wall Street Journal. Trump is considering a range of options from a quick-hit strike to a longer aerial bombing campaign. While all the scenarios “carry risks,” an extended attack lasting multiple days “could incur significant costs to U.S. forces and munitions stockpiles” and has the “potential to pull the U.S. into a broader war in the Middle East.” Depleting American weaponry against Iran could also “impact preparations for a possible future conflict with China.”

What did the commentators say?

There is “no low-cost, easy, clean military option available in the case of Iran,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group to The New York Times. Iran’s government has command of “extensive military abilities” as well as a “network of regional proxy forces” that could attack U.S. forces in the region, said the Times. An Iranian counterattack could strike Israel, as well as American allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s goal would be to “quickly escalate and export instability” to spread the pain of a conflict, said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

“The risks of escalation are grave,” said Rosemary Kelanic, the director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, at The Hill. Iran is weak compared to the United States, but history offers numerous examples of “weak countries prevailing over stronger ones.” Weak countries “just need to not lose, to outlast their opponent” until the stronger country decides the costs are not worth it anymore. Iran’s leaders have incentives to take the retaliatory gloves off this time around. Trump’s “regime-toppling rhetoric” about Iran’s government makes this an “existential” crisis for Tehran. That gives the U.S. a “clear imperative” to avoid a “pointless war.”

Americans can “reasonably hope” for the downfall of the Iranian regime, said Thomas Wright at The Atlantic. And the United States could “defeat Iran quickly and decisively.” But an “open-ended regional conflict” is also possible. A “cornered” Iranian regime “could prove more resilient than expected,” leading to a drawn-out war that leaves Americans to “deal with the consequences for years to come.” The June 2025 attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities “bought time” for the U.S. to consider its options. Trump should use that time instead of attacking now.

What next?

The president is “increasingly frustrated” with his military options, said CBS News. Trump wants a “singular, decisive blow” that would force Iran’s leaders to make nuclear concessions at the bargaining table, but Pentagon planners have told him “such an outcome cannot be guaranteed.” What happens next will depend on “how much risk Washington is prepared to bear.”

In the face of geopolitical uncertainty and US hostility, “momentum for EU enlargement appears to be growing”, said Politico.

Iceland and Norway, founding members of Nato, have access to the EU’s single market via its European Economic Area, but are the only Nordic countries outside the bloc. Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to Nato ally Greenland have, however, significantly increased support for joining the EU in both countries.

Last year, Reykjavík’s new governing coalition promised a referendum by 2027 on whether to restart frozen membership talks. That’s “being sped up”. Reykjavík will announce the date of the ballot within the next few weeks, sources told Politico.

What did the commentators say?

Iceland applied to join the EU in 2009 after its financial crisis. But when the economy stabilised and flourished, an incoming centre-right government froze membership talks in 2013. But the EU “has changed a lot” since then, Iceland’s foreign minister told Bloomberg. The world is also a “different place now”, said Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir. In that context, she will submit a bill on the referendum “before the summer”.

Iceland would benefit from expanding its access to free trade agreements, said Bloomberg. Its economy, reliant on fishing and tourism, is “prone to booms and busts”.

But shockwaves caused by the US president’s threats to neighbouring Greenland are pushing Iceland “closer to the EU”, said Xenia Heiberg on Euractiv. Icelanders are being forced to evaluate bloc membership “not as an economic choice”, but as a “question of long-term defence and geopolitical alignment”.

“All of the arguments that the US is bringing forth as reasons for why they must acquire Greenland, would apply to Iceland as well,” said Eirikur Bergmann, politics professor at Iceland’s Bifrost University.

Iceland is the only Nato member without an army, relying on a defence agreement with the US for security. That, more than the economic benefits, is “warming public attitudes” about joining the bloc, said Politico. Trump mentioned Iceland four times in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which “focused minds”, as one anonymous EU official told Politico. His nominee for ambassador to Iceland also joked that the strategically important Arctic country would “become the 52nd US state”. That “increased the urgency”.

There has since been a “flurry of visits” from EU politicians to Iceland and vice versa. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hosted Iceland’s Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir in Brussels last month, saying their partnership “offers stability and predictability in a volatile world”.

Norway, the “closest non-member country to the EU”, has voted no in two referendums on joining the bloc, said the Financial Times. But Trump’s tariffs and the war in Ukraine mean Norway is suffering by staying out of the EU, according to its foreign minister. “We are acutely aware that the delta between EU membership and EEA membership is increasing,” said Espen Barth Eide last year.

Its security had long been “based on the assumption” that the US would “guarantee its safety”, said Minna Ålander, associate fellow of Chatham House’s Europe Programme. But Trump’s threats to the territory of neighbouring Denmark clarified that “previously close relations” guarantee nothing. Support for EU membership has since “risen considerably”. The majority of the public still opposes it, but now supports holding a new referendum on it. In a multipolar world order, EU membership is “crucial for any small European state, including Norway”.

The “common thread” between Iceland and Norway is a pivot away from “domestic considerations” toward the framing of the EU as an “existential geopolitical and security anchor, should Nato reliability erode”, said Daniel Hegedüs, Central Europe director for The German Marshall Fund of the United States (a Berlin-based think-tank). The EU should use the Greenland crisis to “go on the geopolitical offensive” and “reinvigorate the Nordic enlargement” of the bloc, he wrote on EUobserver.

What next?

Iceland’s path to EU membership “isn’t straightforward”, said Politico. Even if Icelanders vote yes in a referendum on restarting talks, there would be another on membership. That could be a “high bar to clear”.

Norway’s leadership has, for now, “ruled out a renewed EU debate”, said Ålander in Chatham House. But it is watching Iceland’s referendum closely. The eight Nordic-Baltic countries have emerged as a “new centre of gravity in northern Europe”; six are EU members. Adding Norway and Iceland would help “boost regional cohesion”.

A new European security architecture is “beginning to take shape”. Inclusion may no longer be “delineated by Nato membership, but rather along the borders of the EU”.

Mexican security forces struck a major blow against international drug traffickers when they killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes over the weekend. Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of Mexico’s most ruthless drug kingpins. But while his death leaves a power gap in the cartel, there could be even greater effects domestically and internationally.

What did the commentators say?

The most immediate effect of Cervantes’ death was a surge in violence, as “almost immediately, Guadalajara, Mexico’s third-largest city and the capital of Jalisco State, was plunged into chaos as the cartel retaliated,” said The New York Times. The carnage began “spreading to cities and beach resorts across Mexico as gunmen torched stores and banks and blockaded highways.” The U.S. Embassy ordered Americans to “take immediate shelter in their homes or lodgings” amid the “wave of high-intensity violence,” said The Arizona Republic. The blockades set up by the cartel became particularly troublesome as they “paralyzed different points of the state” of Jalisco.

Despite this violence, some across Mexico celebrated Cervantes’ death, as he had “built the Jalisco cartel into one of Mexico’s most feared criminal organizations,” said the Times. The cartel’s violence and brutality are notable “even among the country’s landscape of beheadings, dismemberments and bodies hanging off bridges.” Cervantes’ demise is the “most important blow that has been dealt to drug trafficking in Mexico since drug trafficking existed in Mexico,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a former Mexican security official, to the Times.

There is also likely to be an effect on Mexico’s drug trade, as the Jalisco cartel is “one of Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, with significant cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine distribution networks,” said Al Jazeera. There is additional evidence that the cartel played a “major role” in recent fentanyl trafficking into the United States. Many who follow the cartel’s doings say the group’s “growth has been driven as much by strategy as by brutality.”

What next?

Most experts say it is unlikely the Jalisco cartel will simply go away. U.S. officials “consider the cartel to be as powerful as the Sinaloa cartel, with a presence in all 50 U.S. states,” said The Guardian, referencing the infamous trafficking organization led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Given that the Jalisco cartel “earns billions from the production of fentanyl and methamphetamines,” production appears primed to continue.

The long-term effect in Mexico will largely “depend on what succession plans Jalisco New Generation had in the event of Oseguera Cervantes’ capture or killing,” said The Independent. Beyond the current carnage, there is usually “longer-term violence associated with any succession.” How bad things will get depends on the cartel itself, but typically, operations where a “cartel boss is removed lead to more violence and fragmentation of criminal groups.”

There could also be ongoing political ramifications, as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s move to target Cervantes “represented a hard policy turn following a year of intense pressure” from President Donald Trump, said CNN. But a “permanent cartel crackdown would create new dilemmas and political risks.” And while Sheinbaum has said she is focused on restoring peace and coordinating with security forces, historical killings of drug lords “don’t stop drugs flowing to Americans or temper cartels, which seed corruption throughout Mexican business, law enforcement and politics.”

“Vladimir Putin has not achieved his goals,” said a defiant Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a televised address marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The February 2022 invasion was meant to be a “short and successful military operation” that would “force Kyiv back into Moscow’s orbit” and “overturn the entire post-Cold War security architecture in Europe”, said the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. “It didn’t go to plan”, leaving Russia with an ever-mounting cost.

What did the commentators say?

As the conflict enters its fifth year, Russian victory seems as far away as ever and it has little to show for its estimated 1.2 million casualties, according to Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. The average pace of Russia’s progress has sometimes been as little as 15 metres per day, “slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century”.

Russia’s economy is finally starting to teeter. It faces a huge shortfall in oil revenues and has been forced to sell gold reserves to cover its budget deficit.

The West has always believed that domestic discontent as a result of the ongoing sanctions would “persuade Putin to abandon the war”, said Peter Rutland and Elizaveta Gaufman on The Conversation. This, in turn, was “based on the assumption that the legitimacy of Putinism rests on a social contract” that offers Russians stability and income in exchange for loyalty.

But this approach “tends to downplay the role of ideology”, which has been successfully exploited by the Kremlin to spin the war as an existential threat and maintain support for the president, according to data from Statista.

This narrative has also been deployed externally, towards Russia’s opponents. The idea emanating from the Kremlin that Ukraine’s front line faces “imminent collapse” is “an effort to coerce the West and Ukraine into capitulating to Russian demands that Russia cannot secure itself militarily”, said the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. This is a “false narrative”.

The West should “stop buying into Moscow’s bluff that Russia is invincible” and “use the Kremlin’s weaknesses and double down on its support for Ukraine to bring about real negotiations to end the war”, said Jana Kobzova and Leo Litra for the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“The notion that ‘time is on the Russian side’ betrays a lack of strategic patience and, even more importantly, squandered opportunities to exploit Moscow’s growing structural vulnerabilities.”

What next?

“Standard economic theory suggests that deteriorating conditions should push the Kremlin towards negotiations on ending the war,” said The Economist. “A rational actor facing mounting costs seeks an exit.”

Yet there is little sign that Putin has any intention of yielding on his push for the “capitulation” of Ukraine, Russian political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya told The I Paper. If no peace deal can be struck, the war could even “escalate further”, with the possible involvement of China a “growing factor”, as well as fears of a “new nuclear race”, said The i Paper.

Russia can “probably continue waging war for the foreseeable future”, said The Economist, but every additional year “raises systemic risk: of fiscal crisis, of institutional breakdown, of damage so severe that no post-war policy can repair it”.

So the question for Western allies is “what kind of Russia will emerge” when its appetite for war finally fades, “and whether anyone has a plan for what comes next”.

More work in less time with fewer workers — productivity gains are supposed to be one of the big benefits of artificial intelligence. But those promises have not yet come to fruition, according to a new survey of corporate executives around the world.

More than 80% of the 6,000 executives surveyed by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) “detect no discernible impact from AI on either employment or productivity,” said The Register. It’s not for lack of trying: 69% of businesses say they use AI in the workplace, three-quarters “expect to use it over the next three years,” and more than 90% say it has “no impact on employment” at their businesses. The new survey is the latest addition to a “growing body of evidence” that AI’s advocates are “just not living up to their promises — at least not yet.”

The link between AI and productivity is “murky at best,” said Marketplace. That is because any productivity improvements are “going to be really hard to measure,” said Erika McEntarfer of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research to the outlet. There are other factors increasing business productivity at the moment, including new investments in research and the “loosening labor market,” said Marketplace. Figuring out AI’s impact will involve measuring “hundreds of millions of people, doing at least that many, if not more, discrete tasks every day,” said George Pearkes of Bespoke Investment Group.

What did the commentators say?

The NBER survey is “damning,” said Frank Landymore at Futurism. While most firms are using AI in some fashion, the “vast majority” say the technology “hasn’t budged the needle for them yet.” Other surveys have found that AI can “slow down rather than speed up human programmers” and ends up “accelerating burn-out” among human workers. There is precedent for this: The adoption of computers decades ago was “obviously transformative,” but they “didn’t immediately translate to economic gains.” This is why executives will keep “clinging to the hope that the tech’s promises will be borne out in the long run.”

Businesses are experiencing the “pause before the gale,” said James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute. There is a growing consensus that AI will gradually seep into the workplaces via office software in “useful, but hardly revolutionary” fashion. The firms that see productivity gains will be willing to “thoroughly rethink how work is organized.” When the promised benefits of AI finally arrive, “no one will doubt its existence and import.”

What next?

AI’s economic impact is “just beginning,” said Columbia Business School. But the gap between the promises and the measurable outputs is creating a “growing tension in public discourse.” Artificial intelligence already “feels transformative” in many users’ daily lives, but the “effects are not fully visible in traditional macroeconomic statistics.” What seems certain is that work will evolve as the technology changes. Workers have adapted to new technologies throughout history, said Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji, OpenAI’s chief economist. “I’m bullish on humans,” he said.

Keir Starmer’s painstakingly thrashed out plan to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is facing renewed challenge.

Donald Trump originally backed the deal, under which the UK would relinquish sovereignty of the archipelago in return for a 99-year lease on the crucial US-UK Diego Garcia military base. But he began to waver after intense lobbying from US and UK politicians, including Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch. And now, perhaps irked by the UK’s refusal to allow him to use the British base there to launch potential attacks on Iran, he’s said the deal would be “a big mistake”.

UK opponents of the deal are now “increasingly optimistic they can block” Parliament from voting it into law and “force Starmer into a U-turn”, said The i Paper’s deputy political editor Arj Singh.

What did the commentators say?

The amount of time, effort and political capital Labour has spent over this deal may seem “odd”, said former Foreign Office special adviser Ben Judah in The Sunday Times but “it was not human rights waffle or some misguided fantasy about pleasing the global south that brought us to this point”. Following a 2019 International Court of Justice “advisory opinion” against continued British ownership of Chagos, both the UK and US risked losing access to the strategically vital military base or, worse, it falling into the hands of China.

The problem for Starmer is that the “three-step logic” driving the deal “cannot be expressed in a Tweet, or by a government spokesman, without causing diplomatic pain and embarrassment”. This means the deal is open to attack “from all sides for what it is not”: “woke” lawyer activism, “a misguided soft power exercise drawn up by brain-dead diplomats, even treason”. Actually, it is “a piece of Realpolitik firmly grounded in geopolitical trade-offs”.

Despite his latest salvo on Truth Social, Trump “hasn’t explicitly stated whether he will veto the Chagos agreement”, said Kamlesh Bhuckory and Ellen Milligan on Bloomberg. “The UK government is looking into whether he has the power to do so”, aware that former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, a vocal critic of the deal, has said it will fail without US support.

Mauritius, for its part, has accused a group of Chagossians, who have “settled” on a remote island in the archipelago, of staging a publicity stunt to scupper the deal. There are also reports that Mauritius “may launch legal action for compensation” if the treaty is cancelled, said The Telegraph’s editorial board. This only shows that “the financial aspect of this deal is far more important to Mauritius than the spurious claim to sovereignty under international law”. Trump’s “new-found antipathy” has offered Starmer “a way out of the hole he has dug for himself. He needs to take it.”

What next?

Starmer “has to get the treaty ratified before May or it fails”, said David Maddox in The Independent. The government has pulled plans for a vote in the House of Lords on Tuesday but there is still “some small hope” for the PM with signs that Liberal Democrat peers may abstain when the vote returns in early March. Even then, it still has to return to the House of Commons for final ratification.

Whatever brickbats have been thrown his way, Starmer has been praised for “his international statesmanship” but “now the Chagos nightmare suggests even that is unravelling for this ill-fated PM”.

The arrest on Thursday of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, “the fool formerly known as a prince, marks the definite end of public reverence toward the British monarchy”.

“I write that as an Englishman who is rather fond of it,” said Tim Stanley in The Washington Post.

The King has said that the authorities “have our full and wholehearted support and cooperation” in their investigation into his brother, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to Jeffrey Epstein. But the latest twist in the sorry tale has raised questions as to whether the royals have the full and wholehearted support and cooperation of the nation.

What did the commentators say?

While the arrest has prompted a “sliver of misty-eyed, ‘good on us Brits for actually clearing out the rot’ commentary” said Harry Cole in The Sun, “that’s far eclipsed by discussions about the very future of the Crown not heard since those dark days following the death of Princess Diana”.

Indeed, “how does this work out any way other than badly for the Palace, the Royal Family, and the monarchy?” asked the BBC’s royal correspondent Jonny Dymond. Some believe the royals have done enough to distance themselves from Andrew’s actions but while he “may not have been on the Buckingham Palace balcony for a while”, any distinction between him and the royals, “is entirely lost on most people” as “the Palace, the Royal Family, the monarchy, all seem as one”.

But where there might be a distinction is between the actions of the family and the future of the monarchy, said Jonathan Dimbleby, the King’s biographer and friend. “I don’t think that it damages the monarchy,” he said of the arrest to the BBC. “I think we have to separate the notion of a family from the institution of the monarchy.”

Republicans “hope that the scandal will lead to the collapse of the crown itself”, said The Economist. Graham Smith, chief executive of the campaign group Republic, said Andrew’s arrest “threatens the whole monarchy”. It’s a sentiment that is “ambitious, even if it is a chance to erode support for the institution”, said the magazine. But Andrew does embody a “monarchy that is reduced in stature in a country that is itself getting poorer and crasser”, said Stanley in The Washington Post. The Crown is just one of a number of institutions that the country has inherited, “the purpose of which it can’t recall”.

“If we’re not careful, if their reputation sinks any lower, we might finally join the US and wipe them away in a fit of revolutionary disgust.”

What next?

While it may not result in the end of the monarchy, a “change in culture is long overdue”, said The Times in an editorial. “Under cover of royal deference and secrecy, far too little was done for far too long to rein in Mountbatten-Windsor’s behaviour.” Transparency is the only way to change public opinion and “records should now be released, and staff encouraged to speak honestly about what they saw.”

The royals “will be holding crisis talks today with a mixture of sorrow and panic”, said The Spectator’s Alexander Larman. They had hoped that, when it came to this particular scandal, “the worst was past”. But “it is now clear that far worse is almost certainly yet to come, and the question is what anyone can do about it”.

Donald Trump’s controversial Board of Peace meets for the first time today to discuss the reconstruction of Gaza.

But as members prepared for the Washington summit, a “bitter dispute” between Europe and the US over the future of Gaza has “broken out into the open”, said The Guardian. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, has said that the board is a “personal vehicle for the US president”.

What did the commentators say?

European leaders initially “rushed to praise” Trump’s announcement of a peace deal, said Esther Webber on Politico, but “now they’re not so sure they want anything to do with it”. There was some “jockeying for position on the panel” at first, but the board’s charter has “triggered alarm” among some “key European allies”.

“Sceptics” noted that the charter “makes no direct reference to Gaza” and could “effectively create a shadow United Nations”. Countries seeking a permanent seat have been asked to contribute at least $1 billion, “creating another political obstacle”.

The EU shouldn’t join, said James Moran on the Centre for European Policy Studies, because the board currently includes Benjamin Netanyahu, an “ICC indicted war criminal”, and a second one, Vladimir Putin, has also been “invited”. Also, Trump’s “threats and pronouncements” very much suggest that he has “little intention of properly respecting the UN Charter”.

Although European countries are “sceptical”, Eric Alter, from the Atlantic Council, told The Times, Trump is the “only one to be able to gather these 20 to 30 countries right now”. Europeans, Alter said, are taking a risk by not participating in an organisation that “could help at least the Gaza situation”.

The Board of Peace is the “only game in town” for those interested in bettering the lives of Palestinians in Gaza, Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Israel-Palestine programme at the Arab Center Washington DC, told Al Jazeera. But it is “extremely and intimately tied to the persona of Donald Trump”.

For the EU the “issue” is “where and how to engage”, said Katarzyna Sidło for the European Union Institute for Security Studies. “To play a more active role in the next phase of the Gaza process, the EU does not need board membership so much as political will.” European governments and institutions can “work within the existing international framework anchored in UN Security Council Resolution 2803”.

Trump’s “recent retreat” from threats of military action against Greenland showed that a “united European front amplifies influence”. A “similarly unified EU-wide position” could “also help persuade” the US to reopen the Rafah crossing and reinforce an “internationally backed presence on the ground”.

What next?

“Despite concerns”, the EU was expected to send its commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Suica, as an observer to today’s meeting, said Al Jazeera. But two EU member nations – Bulgaria and Hungary – have “come on board” and joined Trump’s fledgling group.

Together with Kosovo and Albania, who have also joined as board members, they will attend today. Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Romania confirmed they would send representatives as “observers”, while Romania’s President Nicusor Dan will attend in person.

So how will today’s meeting go? “If Trump uses his authority under the charter to order everyone around, block any proposals he doesn’t like, and run this in a completely personalistic fashion,” Richard Gowan, from International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera, “I think even countries that want to make nice with Trump will wonder what they’re getting into.”

But if “Trump shows his mellower side. If he’s actually willing to listen, in particular to the Arab group and what they’re saying about what Gaza needs, if it looks like a genuine conversation in a genuine contact group”, then that “will at least suggest that it can be a serious sort of diplomatic framework”.

Ministers may delay plans to equalise the minimum wage for all ages, as promised in the Labour manifesto. Keir Starmer today insisted the government will stick to its pledge but he didn’t commit to a timeline for the change.

The government’s aim is to bridge the minimum-wage age gap, so that 18- to 20-year-olds are paid the same hourly rate as older people. But it’s facing strong pushback from business groups, who say this would make it too expensive to hire young people.

Rising youth unemployment has become an increasingly pressing issue: one in six 18- to 24-year-olds are without a job, the highest level in just over a decade, according to Office for National Statistics figures released yesterday. The national unemployment rate is 5.2%, higher than it’s been for five years.

What did the commentators say?

The government already announced an increase in the minimum wage for younger workers in last year’s Budget and there are fears that raising levels further would “result in businesses cutting the number of younger workers they employ”, said Oliver Wright in The Times.

“Labour has been its own worst enemy,” said the Financial Times’ editorial board. While global economic uncertainty, advances in AI and higher interest rates have all played a part in cooling the job market, “own goals” by the government, especially on national insurance contributions, are “adding insult to injury”. Britain’s latest jobs numbers, with “losses concentrated” in “sectors that disproportionately employ the young” look “grim” for a “party that prides itself on serving ‘working people’”.

Let’s not forget how AI is affecting the job market for young people, said City A.M.’s Saskia Koopman. “Hiring freezes” have now “overtaken mass layoffs”, making it difficult to get a foot on the employment ladder. If hiring – particularly in “AI-exposed areas” – continues to “stall”, the current “cyclical cooling could turn into something more persistent”.

It is particularly young men who are “bearing the brunt” of our “slumping job market”: “19% of men aged 16 to 24 are now unemployed, the highest rate since 2014”, said Tim Wallace in The Telegraph. For women of the same age, it's 13.1%. Hiring downturns, which always “fall hardest on the young”, also tend to affect the private sector, where men are more likely to work, more than the “female-dominated public sector”.

“The time has come for the brutal truth,” said Chloe Combi in The Independent. “Young people are being, and have been, failed.” Something has gone “profoundly wrong”, and it’s not young people’s fault: that lies “with the generations before them that created this no-hope landscape”. If changes aren’t made to give young people “a fighting chance”, they are in “serious danger” of being a lost generation.

What next?

In April, the minimum wage increases announced in the Budget will come into effect, raising the hourly rate for 18- to 20-year-olds from £10 to £10.85, and taking the National Living Wage for over-21s to £12.71.

Whether the government delays its promised age-band equalisation or not, it needs to act in other ways to help young people, said Combi in The Independent. We should be “pooling money into professional training and learning programmes”, which “would be an investment on so many levels”. Young people also desperately need a “sense of community” after the “catastrophic” Covid years: “affordable sports clubs” and “youth clubs” would help re-ignite “IRL socialising” and get the young “invested in the world around them”.