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    Donald Trump to meet the king as protesters gather in London and Windsor – UK politics live

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    Good morning. Official Britain is laying out the red carpet for Donald Trump today. It is the first full day of his unprecedented state visit, and he will spend it with King Charles at Windsor Castle enjoying the finest pageantry the nation can lay on. Keir Starmer, like other Western leaders, has concluded that the key to getting positive outcomes from Trump is flattery and shameless sucking up, and (not for the first time) the royal family is being deployed to this end.But civic Britain will also have its say on Trump today, and – perhaps mindful of his obsession with big crowds and his (supposed) love for free speech – there will be protests all over the country, with the main one in London. When Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president in the Trump’s first administration, was asked he felt about being booed one night when he attended the theatre, he said that was “the sound of freedom”. Trump’s response to protesters is much darker. But there is almost no chance of his hearing “the sound of freedom” today; his state visit is taking place entirely behind closed doors.I will be focusing largely on the state visit today, but I will be covering non-Trump UK politics too.Here is our overnight story about Trump arriving in the UK.Here is Rafael Behr’s Guardian about the potential flaws in Starmer’s obsequious approach to handling the US president.And here is an Rafael’s conclusion.
    Downing Street denies there is a choice to be made between restored relations with Brussels and Washington, but Trump is a jealous master. Fealty to the super-potentate across the Atlantic is an all-in gamble. There is an opportunity cost in terms of strengthening alliances closer to home, with countries that respect treaties and international rules.
    That tension may be avoided if Trump’s reign turns out to be an aberration. He is old. Maybe a successor, empowered by a moderate Congress, will reverse the US republic’s slide into tyranny. It is possible. But is it the likeliest scenario in a country where political violence is being normalised at an alarming rate? What is the probability of an orderly transfer of power away from a ruling party that unites religious fundamentalists, white supremacists, wild-eyed tech-utopian oligarchs and opportunist kleptocrats who cast all opposition in shades of treason?
    These are not people who humbly surrender power at the ballot box, or even run the risk of fair elections. They are not people on whose values and judgment Britain should be betting its future prosperity or national security.
    Here is the timetable for the day.11.55am: Donald Trump arrives at Windsor Castle by helicopter. His programme than includes a carriage procession through grounds (at 12.10pm), a ceremonial welcome (at 12.20pm), a visit to Royal Collection exhibition (at 2.15pm), a tour of St George’s Chapel (at 3pm) and a beating retreat ceremony and flypast (at 4.20pm).2pm: Anti-Trump speakers address a rally at Portland Place in London, before staging a march to Parliament Square.Evening: Fox News broadcasts an interview with Trump.8.30pm: Trump attends the state banquet at Windsor Castle.If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.As the Guardian reports, the long-coveted deal to slash US steel and aluminium tariffs to zero was shelved on the eve of Donald Trump’s state visit to BritainThe Liberal Democrats say this shows Trump is an unreliable partner. In a statement Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said:
    It looks like the government has thrown in the towel instead of fighting to stand up for the UK steel industry.
    We were told US tariffs on UK steel would be lifted completely, now that’s turned out to be yet another promise Trump has reneged on.
    It just shows Trump is an unreliable partner and that rewarding a bully only gets you so far.
    The best way to protect our economy is to stand with our allies in Europe and the Commonwealth and end Trump’s damaging trade war for good.
    A reader asks:
    Why no mention on the political blog of the bill to scrap the 2 child cap which successfully passed the first stage in the House of Commons yesterday?
    Because it was a 10-minute rule bill, from the SNP MP Kirsty Blackman, that won’t be further debated, won’t be voted on, won’t go anywhere, and won’t have any influence on government thinking.There was a vote yesterday under the 10-minute rule procedure, which allows a backbench MP every to propose a bill to the house. Yesterday Blackman proposed the bill, and the Tory MP Peter Bedford argued against it. There was then a vote on whether “leave be given to bring in” the bill and that passed by 89 votes to 79. And that is it. With no further time set aside for Blackman’s bill, it disappears into a parliamentary black hole.Sometimes I cover 10-minute rule proceedings because they can reveal something about how much parliamentary support there is for a particular propostion. But there was quite a lot else on yesterday. And it was Lib Dems, SNP MPs, independents and a few Labour leftwingers voting for the Blackman bill – all people whose supprt for removing the two-child benefit cap is well known.Lucy Powell has hit out at the “sexist” framing of her deputy Labour leadership campaign, with people claiming she and her rival, Bridget Phillipson, are standing as “proxies” for two men, Aletha Adu reports.Most of Donald Trump’s policies horrify progressives and leftwingers in Britain, including Labour party members and supporters, but Keir Starmer has said almost nothing critical about the Trump administration because he has taken a view that maintaining good relations with the White House is in the national interest.In an article in the Guardian today, Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, has urged Starmer to be more critical. He says:
    I understand the UK government’s position of being pragmatic on the international stage and wanting to maintain a good relationship with the leader of the most powerful country in the world. Faced with a revanchist Russia, Europe’s security feels less certain now than at any time since the second world war. And the threat of even higher US tariffs is ever present.
    But it’s also important to ensure our special relationship includes being open and honest with each other. At times, this means being a critical friend and speaking truth to power – and being clear that we reject the politics of fear and division. Showing President Trump why he must back Ukraine, not Putin. Making the case for taking the climate emergency seriously. Urging the president to stop the tariff wars that are tearing global trade apart. And putting pressure on him to do much more to end Israel’s horrific onslaught on Gaza, as only he has the power to bring Israel’s brazen and repeated violations of international law to an end.
    Khan also says he is in favour of Londoners protesting against Trump to “tell President Trump and his followers that we cannot be divided by those who seek to sow fear.”Khan and Trump have a long history of slagging each other off. (Khan is also a Muslim, who may or may not be relevant to why Trump singles him out for special criticism.)On the Today programme this morning Bryan Lanza, a Trump ally who worked for the president during his first campaign for the White House, was asked if Trump would be bothered by comments like those from Khan. No, was the answer. Lanza explained:
    [Trump] receives enthusiasm everywhere he goes. There’s obviously opposition, but at the end of the day, those who are opposed, they don’t matter.
    The American people are the ones who voted this president in. They validated his vision for the country. And if Europe has a problem with the American people’s vision, that’s Europe’s problem. That’s not President Trump’s problem.
    As for the mayor of London, who cares? I mean, he’s nowhere relevant in any conversation that’s effective to any foreign policy that President Trump’s involved in. He’s just a local mayor. I think he should focus more on traffic, on handling the trash, than trying to elevate himself to the diplomatic stage.
    Amnesty International UK is supporting the anti-Trump protest in London today. Explaining why, its communications director, Kerry Moscogiuri, said:
    As President Trump enjoys his state banquet, children are being starved in Gaza in a US backed genocide. Communities of colour in the US are terrorised by masked ICE agents, survivors of sexual violence, including children, face being criminalised for getting an abortion and polarisation emanates from the White House at every opportunity.
    We’ve watched in despair as rights and freedoms have been stripped away across the US. But here too our protest rights are eroded, millions go without adequate access to food or housing, safe routes for those seeking asylum are shut down and our government is doing nothing meaningful to prevent and punish Israel’s genocide in Gaza. With racist bullies feeling empowered to abuse people on our streets, the grim and nihilistic politics of Trump could be on its way here.
    [The march] is about sending a clear message that the UK does not welcome Trump’s policies with open arms. We reject his anti-human rights agenda. We say not in our name, not on our watch.
    The police may have stopped campaigners projecting the Trump/Epstein picture onto the walls of Windsor Castle (see 9.37am), but this morning it is being driven around the streets of Windsor on the side of an advertisting van.Britain and the US have struck a tech deal that could bring billions of pounds of investment to the UK as President Donald Trump arrived for his second state visit, PA Media reports. PA says:
    Keir Starmer said the agreement represented “a general step change” in Britain’s relationship with the US that would deliver “growth, security and opportunity up and down the country”.
    The “tech prosperity deal”, announced as Trump arrived in the UK last night will see the UK and US co-operate in areas including artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and nuclear power.
    It comes alongside £31bn of investment in Britain from America’s top technology companies, including £22bn from Microsoft.
    Microsoft’s investment, the largest ever made by the company in the UK, will fund an expansion of Britain’s AI infrastructure, which Labour sees as a key part of its efforts to secure economic growth, and the construction of the country’s largest AI supercomputer.
    Brad Smith, vice chairman and president of the firm, said it had “many conversations” with the UK government, including No 10, “every month”, adding that the investment would have been “inconceivable because of the regulatory climate” in previous years.
    “You don’t spend £22bn unless you have confidence in where the country, the government and the market are all going,” he said. “And this reflects that level of confidence.”
    Microsoft is backing tech firm Nscale to contribute towards developing a major data centre in the UK, which the company said would help build out Britain’s cloud and AI infrastructure.
    Asked how much electricity capacity would be required for the build-out and how this would be supplied, Smith said: “We already have the contracts in place for the power that will be needed for the investments that we’re announcing here.”
    Officials said the investment enabled by the tech partnership could speed up development of new medicines and see collaboration on research in areas such as space exploration and defence.
    Starmer said: “This tech prosperity deal marks a generational step change in our relationship with the US, shaping the futures of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic, and delivering growth, security and opportunity up and down the country.”
    Here is the government news release about the deal.In the Commons yesterday MPs debated the decision to sack Peter Mandelson as the UK ambassador to Washington last week because new emails revealed that his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the paedophile sex trafficker, was closer than he had previously disclosed. One MP said Donald Trump must think the UK government “complete plonkers” for their handling of this because, by sacking Mandelson, Keir Starmer has put Epstein back at the top of the UK news agenda just ahead of Trump’s arrival. And Trump, of course, is deeply embarrassed about his own past friendship with Epstein.British protesters are doing their best to ensure Trump can’t ignore the story. Four people have been arrested after images ofTrump alongside Epstein were projected on to Windsor Castle last night. Reuters has more here.Starmer is not the only leader Trump will be meeting who has “sacked” a close ally over his Epstein links. King Charles, continuing an approach adopted by his mother, the late Queen, has excluded his brother, Prince Andrew, from playing a role in public life follow the scandal about Andrew’s own links with Epstein.Good morning. Official Britain is laying out the red carpet for Donald Trump today. It is the first full day of his unprecedented state visit, and he will spend it with King Charles at Windsor Castle enjoying the finest pageantry the nation can lay on. Keir Starmer, like other Western leaders, has concluded that the key to getting positive outcomes from Trump is flattery and shameless sucking up, and (not for the first time) the royal family is being deployed to this end.But civic Britain will also have its say on Trump today, and – perhaps mindful of his obsession with big crowds and his (supposed) love for free speech – there will be protests all over the country, with the main one in London. When Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president in the Trump’s first administration, was asked he felt about being booed one night when he attended the theatre, he said that was “the sound of freedom”. Trump’s response to protesters is much darker. But there is almost no chance of his hearing “the sound of freedom” today; his state visit is taking place entirely behind closed doors.I will be focusing largely on the state visit today, but I will be covering non-Trump UK politics too.Here is our overnight story about Trump arriving in the UK.Here is Rafael Behr’s Guardian about the potential flaws in Starmer’s obsequious approach to handling the US president.And here is an Rafael’s conclusion.
    Downing Street denies there is a choice to be made between restored relations with Brussels and Washington, but Trump is a jealous master. Fealty to the super-potentate across the Atlantic is an all-in gamble. There is an opportunity cost in terms of strengthening alliances closer to home, with countries that respect treaties and international rules.
    That tension may be avoided if Trump’s reign turns out to be an aberration. He is old. Maybe a successor, empowered by a moderate Congress, will reverse the US republic’s slide into tyranny. It is possible. But is it the likeliest scenario in a country where political violence is being normalised at an alarming rate? What is the probability of an orderly transfer of power away from a ruling party that unites religious fundamentalists, white supremacists, wild-eyed tech-utopian oligarchs and opportunist kleptocrats who cast all opposition in shades of treason?
    These are not people who humbly surrender power at the ballot box, or even run the risk of fair elections. They are not people on whose values and judgment Britain should be betting its future prosperity or national security.
    Here is the timetable for the day.11.55am: Donald Trump arrives at Windsor Castle by helicopter. His programme than includes a carriage procession through grounds (at 12.10pm), a ceremonial welcome (at 12.20pm), a visit to Royal Collection exhibition (at 2.15pm), a tour of St George’s Chapel (at 3pm) and a beating retreat ceremony and flypast (at 4.20pm).2pm: Anti-Trump speakers address a rally at Portland Place in London, before staging a march to Parliament Square.Evening: Fox News broadcasts an interview with Trump.8.30pm: Trump attends the state banquet at Windsor Castle.If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog. More

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      Keir Starmer is betting everything on an America that doesn’t exist any more | Rafael Behr

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      Interpreters are not required for visiting US heads of state, but that doesn’t mean Donald Trump and Keir Starmer will speak the same language this week. The UK prime minister will practise the art of tactful diplomacy emphasising mutual advantage and historical alliance. Most of the words in that sentence mean nothing to a president who is fluent only in self-interest.Given the likelihood of miscommunication between two men from such different political cultures – the showbiz demagogue and the lawyer technocrat – relations have been remarkably friendly and, in Downing Street’s estimation, fruitful.The contrast in styles has been turned to an advantage. The prime minister’s quiet solicitousness makes no competitive claim on the president’s limelight.Trump has praised Starmer as a “good man” with a “beautiful accent”. He has agreed trade terms that are marginally less vindictive than the tariff regime applied to the rest of Europe. British lobbying has been instrumental in softening White House disdain for Nato and nudging the president towards scepticism about Vladimir Putin’s motives in Ukraine.Managing the transatlantic relationship is one of the few things Starmer’s shrinking band of loyalists confidently cite as an achievement. Privately, some of the prime minister’s Tory opponents concede the point. But in the restive ranks of the Labour party, and a broad swath of public opinion, Trump is seen as a monster whose flimsy favours are not worth the price in national self-abasement.Anyone hoping the state visit may include some hint of official rebuke for the honoured guest’s authoritarian character will be disappointed. Flattery and regal pomp to secure Britain’s status as Trump’s most esteemed tributary are the whole point.Pre-cooked deals on nuclear and tech cooperation will be unveiled. Awkward differences on foreign policy – Britain’s imminent recognition of a Palestinian state; the US’s continued indulgence of Russian aggression – will not be aired in public.Not by the prime minister, at least. No amount of Foreign Office contingency planning can insure against Trump’s capacity for unscripted sabotage. Even if the personal affection for Starmer is sincere, it is an outlier emotion in a man whose power base throbs with hostility to Labour Britain.The prime minister can only pray that those prejudices don’t surface in some spontaneous televised riff on popular Maga themes – repression of free speech via social-media content regulation; submersion of indigenous white folk in a rising migrant tide. Even if that doesn’t happen, the hazard reveals a flaw in the policy of uncritical intimacy with an inherently unreliable regime.The case for Starmer’s method is that Britain’s economic and security interests are inseparable from US power and will remain so for the foreseeable future. To attempt strategic decoupling out of distaste for an incumbent president would be myopic self-indulgence. Such influence as a junior ally might have over a prickly protector needs to be exercised sparingly in private. The more openly dissenting approach, sometimes showcased by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, doesn’t get results. Besides, France is part of the EU. Brexit puts Britain in a different category in Trump’s mind and, it is said, thereby affords unique opportunities.A version of this argument was set out in a speech by Peter Mandelson, shortly before his dismissal as ambassador to Washington last week. The thrust was that the 21st century will be shaped by superpower rivalry between the US and China. The winner will be the one that dominates in the fields of AI, quantum computing and other such innovations with awesome dual-use military applications. Britain is disproportionately competitive in this field, given its size.In short, the UK is bound by common interests and post-Brexit realpolitik to join Team USA when the only alternative is a world order dictated by the Chinese Communist party. “Like it or not, our US partnership has become indispensable to the functioning of our nation,” said Mandelson.That perspective will continue to shape the government’s foreign policy regardless of who is the ambassador to Washington. It contains some truth about the new technological arms race but, more importantly, it goes with the deep grain of Britain’s postwar Atlanticist bias. It also brushes aside any obligation to work harder at reintegration with the rest of Europe, which is a fiddly multilateral process. It has complex moving parts and a tendency to start awkward conversations about labour migration. Starmer is making incremental progress in his reset of EU relations. Negotiations on agricultural trade, defence and energy cooperation are ongoing. But the mechanics of cosying up to the White House are simpler and the reward in political gratification comes quicker.Trump does deals briskly, but he undoes them just as fast. His word is not a bond. His commitments are conditional. Preferential treatment for British business might be promised, but not delivered, or partly implemented, and one day reversed. The president signed agreements in his first term that count for nothing now. His modus operandi is extortion, the classic protection racket. He inflicts pain – tariffs for foreign governments; lawsuits or bureaucratic harassment for domestic companies – and offers to relieve the suffering in exchange for some commercial advantage. Paying up encourages the bully to come back for more.This is the economic corollary to Trump’s political assault on judicial independence, pluralism and the rule of law. British citizens might not be directly threatened by deployment of the national guard to US cities under the guise of law enforcement or a paramilitary immigration force that kidnaps people from the streets, but that doesn’t mean the corrosion of democracy in the US has no bearing on UK interests.For one thing, the Maga project provides a template that Nigel Farage is admiring, ready to implement something along the same lines if Reform UK ever form a government. Denying them that opportunity will be easier if arguments against authoritarian nationalism have been rehearsed in advance of the general election campaign.That case should be made in principle, but it applies also to pragmatic calculations of geopolitical influence. Downing Street denies there is a choice to be made between restored relations with Brussels and Washington, but Trump is a jealous master. Fealty to the super-potentate across the Atlantic is an all-in gamble. There is an opportunity cost in terms of strengthening alliances closer to home, with countries that respect treaties and international rules.That tension may be avoided if Trump’s reign turns out to be an aberration. He is old. Maybe a successor, empowered by a moderate Congress, will reverse the US republic’s slide into tyranny. It is possible. But is it the likeliest scenario in a country where political violence is being normalised at an alarming rate? What is the probability of an orderly transfer of power away from a ruling party that unites religious fundamentalists, white supremacists, wild-eyed tech-utopian oligarchs and opportunist kleptocrats who cast all opposition in shades of treason?These are not people who humbly surrender power at the ballot box, or even run the risk of fair elections. They are not people on whose values and judgment Britain should be betting its future prosperity or national security.

      Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist More

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      Just when Keir Starmer thought he’d got Jeffrey Epstein off his plate – look who’s coming to dinner | Marina Hyde

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      Quick update on Keir Starmer’s government of “national renewal”: having just lost his deputy and housing secretary over her failure to pay the required stamp duty, the prime minister has also lost his US ambassador over his known close association with a known paedophile sex trafficker. Hang on – he’s now also lost his director of political strategy for relating some dirty jokes about Diane Abbott.Meanwhile, an increasing number of people think the solution to all this is Andy Burnham taking over, suggesting the current Greater Manchester mayor could run in a parliamentary seat that has only notionally become free because the previous Labour MP was suspended from the party after being found to have sent messages hoping a couple of constituents would soon be dead/“mown down”, and is now apparently “off sick”. On top of which, we’re having the Americans round. US president Donald Trump touches down in the UK tonight on the eve of the most hideously ill-starred dinner party since the vomiting scene in Triangle of Sadness. I don’t think the nation could possibly feel any more renewed.It’s been a few days since Peter Mandelson’s emails to Jeffrey Epstein were held up in front of the public using the hazmat tongs, and the more I’ve thought about them, the more I come back to one of the more obscure lines. Writing in apparent anguish on the eve of Epstein’s incarceration in 2008, Mandelson opines to him: “It just could not happen in Britain.” Maybe he was right, unwittingly or otherwise. Britain is very, very good at a sort of institutionalised looking away. Maybe Mandelson was – unwittingly or otherwise – characterising something grim about this country that pious old Keir Starmer would no doubt be hugely affronted to be caught up in. Except, the prime minister is caught up in it – in fact, he’s at the very centre of it. He is the one who looked away.It’s hard not to feel there is something necrotic and beaten about a government whose leader would appoint someone he knew had been very close to Epstein, who the entire world by that point knew was – and forgive me for repeating the words – a paedophile sex trafficker. Association with him was already known to be such a horror show that the late Queen Elizabeth II had to sack her own son for it. And there is something worse about Starmer’s horrifying lack of curiosity even as the facts closed in, right till the bitter end, with No 10 dithering for staggeringly long last week over a set of quite the most disqualifying emails, while Starmer fannied about defending Mandelson at the dispatch box.This was, of course, the other dispatch box to the one at which Sir Keir plied his holier-than-thou trade in opposition. There’s an old online rule that declares that if you tell someone off for their spelling or grammar, you will always end up making your own howler while you’re doing it. Starmer spent his years in opposition telling off the Tories at every turn, instead of – for instance – coming up with a creative and coherent plan for growth. Inevitably, we now seem to be strapped in to watching him and his administration warrant a daily telling-off, as offences and immoralities mount up. Why does this keep happening to him, etc?As for Epstein, we know that at the time Mandelson was writing to him telling him to fight for early release, police in Palm Beach, Florida had identified 36 girls who the “financier” had sexually abused. Yet for all the many years of grim and grotesque revelations, it still feels as though we know remarkably little about him. Who was he, this mysterious paedo Gatsby, and where did all his money come from?Shortly after his death, New York magazine ran a fascinating story in which real hedge-funders expressed pointed bemusement over how Epstein made his money, since none of them had really had any dealings with him. As one big hedge-fund president, Doug Kass, put it: “I went to my institutional brokers, to their trading desks and asked if they ever traded with him. I did it a few times until the date when he was arrested. Not one institutional trading desk, primary or secondary, had ever traded with Epstein’s firm.” As Kass had said to a journalist: “There’s another guy who reminds me of Madoff that no one trades with.” Or as another hedgie remarked: “It’s hard to make a billion dollars quietly.” And yet Epstein had made no noise at all in the financial world. They could barely find one investor. Their general theory was that the “hedge fund” was simply a cover for a blackmail scheme.Perhaps most amazing, really, is the fact that Epstein will be a ghost at the feast tomorrow night for more than one attender, as Trump continues to butch out his long and close association with precisely the type of evildoer his Maga followers are convinced runs the world. Epstein is a guy who really does fit the very template of their darkest conspiracy theories – rich and powerful, involved in the trafficking of minors, connected in a network of some of the most powerful people in the world. This is all the sort of stuff they’ve been going on about for years – yet who should keep rearing his head in the story, but their own beloved president.Isn’t it intriguing how many of them (currently) just can’t bring themselves to believe it? Something to discuss over the starter tomorrow night at Windsor Castle, perhaps, as long as everyone can keep their food down.

      Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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      As Starmer’s popularity tanks, what can Labour learn from Zohran Mamdani’s success in New York?

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      Progressives in the UK and US are grappling with the same question. Why have rightwing populists become so much more successful at tapping into public concern? And why are so few politicians on the left connecting with ordinary people?Barely a year after taking power in Britain, Labour’s popularity has collapsed with unprecedented rapidity against surging support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.In the US, a year after Joe Biden’s defeat, the Democrats are still derided by swathes of voters and remain at a loss for how to take on Donald Trump’s unique brand of politics.But while Labour and the Democrats languish in nationwide polls, there are exceptions. In New York over the summer, Zohran Mamdani rose from little-known assembly member to social media sensation and heavily favoured Democratic nominee in November’s mayoral contest.His success in the Democratic primary comes on the back of a highly impactful people-powered campaign that looks likely to propel him to victory. A poll for the New York Times this week concluded that Mamdani held a commanding lead over his three rivals for the mayoralty, including the scandal-hit incumbent, Eric Adams, and the multimillionaire former governor Andrew Cuomo.What if anything, can Labour learn from his success?It’s the economy, stupidPolitical observers in the UK believe Labour has a communications problem. But for good comms, you need substance. For Mamdani, that has come in the form of a laser-sharp focus on the economy and affordability.According to the NYT/Siena poll this week, 49% of likely voters thought Mamdani would perform best on affordability issues, compared with 23% who said the same of Cuomo and 10% for Adams.“Elections are almost always about very, very fundamental things,” said Matthew McGregor, the chief executive of 38 Degrees who is a former digital adviser to Ed Miliband and worked as a digital campaign strategist in Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.“Mamdani has got an agenda that clicks with people’s real lived experience of a city that has become just farcically expensive, doesn’t work for working-class people, and where there is very stark inequality between people in the boroughs and the rich parts of Manhattan,” he said.Claire Ainsley, a former Labour policy chief who now runs the centre-left renewal project at the Progressive Policy Institute, a US thinktank, said: “He’s highlighted the cost of living and affordability, and that’s right – that is the major issue that’s bothering Americans. Even if inflation is under control, cost of living is a big problem.”By comparison, Labour’s first year in power has been characterised by constantly changing policy priorities. Before and after being elected, Starmer has variously talked about his six first steps, six “milestones”, five “missions” and three “foundations”.Most recently, the prime minister has sought to reset his government by announcing a “phase two” focused on delivery, including the economy – but for many Labour MPs these constantly shifting priorities betray a frustrating lack of vision that makes it difficult to connect with the public.Champion compelling, costed policiesWith his focus on affordability, Mamdani has identified the key problem for many New Yorkers. Crucially, he is also presenting clear and compelling solutions.His policies include free bus transport, a rent freeze on the city’s 2.3m regulated apartments, a crackdown on bad landlords and commercial rent control, free childcare for parents starting at six months, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030.“His answers aren’t ‘Have you read through my 12-page white paper on breaking down planning so we can get New York building again?’. It’s not ‘We’re going to make work pay by encouraging businesses to invest’. It’s ‘We’re going to make buses free, we’re going to fill in the grocery deserts’,” McGregor said. “Practical, meaningful things that people can grasp and understand.”Mamdani is seeing off criticism about the feasibility of his promises by setting out clearly how they will be paid for – imposing a 2% tax on the top 1% of residents earning more than $1m annually, and raising New York City’s top corporate tax rate from 7.25% to match neighbouring New Jersey’s at 11.5%.For its part, Labour is implementing a whole slate of progressive policies that are very popular with voters – strengthening renters’ and workers’ rights, including a ban on fire-and-rehire practices, increasing the minimum wage, cutting down hospital waiting lists and making it easier to see a GP.The trouble is, these are not being properly championed. Ministers seem reluctant to bang the drum for some of their most popular moves, sometimes for fear of angering business. Last year, Downing Street disowned a press statement that called P&O Ferries a “rogue operator” for past fire-and-rehire practices after the firm threatened to pull out of an investment summit.Craft an overarching story – and pick a sideDavid Axelrod, a former strategist to Obama who then advised Ed Miliband in 2015, memorably said Labour’s campaign that year failed because it could be summed up with: “Vote Labour, win a microwave.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHis point was that Labour in 2015 offered voters a set of loosely connected transactional promises but lacked any overarching narrative. Many believe this is a problem plaguing the current Labour government and a key to explaining the success of Trump in the US and Farage in the UK.Both Trump and Farage have clear narrative stories to tell about the problems of the country and their proposed solutions. So does Mamdani. McGregor said: “He wants to be a politician that says this whole system isn’t working, and we’re going to change things in a bigger way. Politics is a vibes-based business in the modern media environment, and everything you do is a demonstration of whose side are you on.”He added: “I think you can learn from Mamdani without saying we have to be more leftwing. Those policies need to connect to that bigger story that you’re telling. Farage is telling a story, and Trump is telling a story, and Mamdani is telling a story about the country, its challenges and problems and who’s to blame for them.”That final point – picking a side and identifying your adversaries – is key. Ed Owen, a former UK government special adviser during the New Labour years who is now a visiting fellow at the centre-left US thinktank Third Way, said: “We on the centre left are great at being rather po-faced, rational, logical, and establishing ourselves inadvertently as the defenders of the status quo that most people hate.“We are in a period of history where people’s faith in politics and politicians is at an all-time low. Insurgent political figures like Mamdani, and also on the right, are good at positioning themselves as agents of change.”Get social media-savvyEven when you tick all those boxes – a focus on people’s biggest concerns, popular policies and a compelling overarching narrative – you need a way to cut through to the public, including to voters who don’t follow politics closely.Mamdani is a hugely talented communicator who has built a huge presence on social media. His masterful campaign videos and direct, easy style are shared with 1.4 million followers on TikTok and 4 million on Instagram. Unlike most politicians, at 33 he is a social media native.“These TikTok videos, I think, are a really compelling and interesting manifestation of something,” McGregor said. “Understanding the modern media environment and the fact that huge swathes of people consume information in completely different ways to how they did five, 10, let alone 20 years ago.”The decline of traditional media means many voters consume news only through snippets on their social media feeds. The only UK politician with a major TikTok presence is Farage – he rivals Mamdani’s reach with 1.3 million followers.Despite the efforts of successive No 10 comms chiefs, the UK government has been slow at adapting to new forms of communication – though Starmer and other ministers are increasingly popping up on alternative platforms such as digital-only outlets and parenting podcasts.Owen said: “We’ve got to be able to communicate where people are – and that’s increasingly on social media channels – in the form they want. And we’ve been really bad at it.”Be an authentic local voiceMamdani is a very New York success story – and one that observers say can’t be simply copy-pasted to the UK or other parts of the US. “It isn’t as if this is some sort of template you can just transpose to any political environment,” Owen said.Ainsley said: “If there is a lesson to be drawn, it’s about the importance of authentic candidates that speak to the voters that you need. Clearly, his victory has energised parts of the left, but they are not representative of the mainstream of America, that is where the midterms and the next presidential election will be fought.“He’s played to the base that he needed, which is a narrow selectorate in New York City. He’s got conviction, and one of the things that the swing voters who’ve moved away from the Democrats over time have said to us is that they want politicians with conviction – but they also want candidates that have got the competence and credible policies that they think are going to meet their everyday needs.” More

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      UK needed ‘unconventional’ US ambassador when picking Mandelson, minister says

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      The UK government believed an “unconventional presidential administration” required an “unconventional ambassador” when it appointed Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, a cabinet minister has said.But the Scotland secretary, Douglas Alexander, told broadcasters Mandelson would not have been given the role had the prime minister known the depth of his association with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Keir Starmer is facing increasing questions over what he knew and when of Mandelson’s ties with Epstein. The prime minister sacked him on Thursday after emails showed he sent supportive messages even as Epstein faced jail for sex offences.Alexander told Sky News he had reacted with “incredulity and revulsion” to the publication of emails between Mandelson and Epstein, adding he was “not here to defend him”.“The reason he was appointed was a judgment, a judgment that given the depth of his experience as a former trade commissioner for the European Union, his long experience in politics, and his politics and doing politics at the highest international levels, he could do a job for the United Kingdom.“We knew this was an unconventional presidential administration and that was the basis on which there was a judgment that we needed an unconventional ambassador.”But speaking on BBC Breakfast, Alexander said “nothing justifies” Mandelson’s appointment in light of what had emerged in the past week.He was reported to have told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and told him “I think the world of you” the day before the disgraced financier began his sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in June 2008.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMandelson’s friendship with Epstein had been known about, but Bloomberg and the Sun published emails showing that the relationship continued after his crimes had emerged. More

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      The Democrats are in deep trouble in the US – and Labour is on the way to joining them | Nesrine Malik

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      The measure of a political party’s failure lies not in how many agnostics and opponents it fails to convert, but in how many loyalists it fails to preserve. The endorsement of new, unnatural voters – Latinos in the US for Donald Trump, or Tories voting for Labour for the first time – might deliver big electoral swings but is ultimately not sticky. And these votes are only meaningful if the bedrock is solid. That bedrock is the people who consistently show up, no matter what, from generation to generation, for a party. And the Democrats are losing them.In extensive research published last week tracking voter registration, the New York Times identified an alarming pattern. The Democratic party has been “haemorrhaging” voters since way before election day. In the states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost to Republicans in all of them in the years between 2020 and 2024. By the time Kamala Harris took over from Joe Biden, the party had already shed more than 2m votes in those states, and Republicans had gained 2.4m. This is part of a “four-year swing” that amounts to 4.5m votes. In a chilling conclusion, the report states that “few measurements reflect the luster of a political party’s brand more clearly than the choice by voters to identify with it”.The signs get worse the more closely you look. It’s not just a decline in new registered voters, but a hacking away of those natural voters who parties can easily rely on. Some of the sharpest declines were among young voters who came out emphatically for Joe Biden in 2020, then swung towards Trump in 2024. An assumption that voters who are young, Black or Latino would register mostly in the Democrats’ favour was no longer safe.The most striking thing about these revelations is how long and consistent the turn-off has been: “There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill,” said one voter registration analyst, “this is month after month, year after year.” They show how during the last election, when the Democrats were battling with the damage of a belated handover from Biden to Harris, and a swirl of other challenges, the party was already on the back foot, hostage to a years-long disillusionment. And if you look at some of the reasoning for Democrat abandonment from last year, the same conclusion heaves into view – the Democrats rested on their laurels, and Trump attacked. The vibe contest was between business as usual, and the promise of something different.The result is a cratering of Democrat support that cannot be filled in overnight, or even over the next three years, especially with the party seemingly in disarray, and with a lo-fi leadership in Chuck Schumer accused of being “unwilling and unable to meet the moment”. It’s not about the unique, mendacious bewitching of voters by Trump, but something broader. Centre-left parties seem trapped by their inability and unwillingness to articulate values in ways that go beyond just saying the other guys are bad for democracy, by identifying a vision of what and who they are for.They are operating in a world where traditional coalitions around class, labour and identity are dissolving, where high barriers to home ownership, social mobility and job stability have been erected, and the relationship between hard work and prosperity, or even viability, has been severed. Combine that with an online and media ecosystem that trades in attention and feeling, and you have a political climate that requires policy intervention and campaigning edge.Instead, as summed up by Gabriel Winant after Trump’s victory, Kamala Harris had “stretched her coalition into incoherence” in a “grab bag” of policies “sharing no clear thematic unity or coherence”. This is the result of both a lack of direction, and of a party that now houses both the powerful and those at the losing end of that power, which can only mean a lop-sided capture by the former. Or, as chillingly observed by Anton Jäger: “Bankers and warmongers predominate in Democrat ruling circles, the indebted and the marginalised among its rank-and-file.” This reminds me of Keir Starmer’s drive to cast Labour as “pro-business, pro-worker and pro-wealth creation”. You cannot have coherence when the interests you represent, or claim to represent, are by definition antagonistic.This brand tension has an analogue in a smaller but no less revealing way in the UK, where students are abandoning Labour. University Labour clubs are disaffiliating from the party, Labour’s youth membership has collapsed, the tail of a longer falling out with Labour leadership over Gaza. But this is a broader confrontation between young voters and a party that has failed to stand for any clear moral principles that appeal to the idealism so necessary to create not only future voters, but activists and campaigners. On Gaza, Labour is anti-starvation, but also anti-protest.And both the Democrats and Labour are positioning themselves antagonistically to those whose sharper expressions of political vision are hugely popular with those who are abandoning them. Senior Democrats might still not endorse New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is posting stunning polling leads. Labour disciplines MPs for rebelling against benefit cuts, even as hundreds of thousands of people register their support for a new party.But as new and future voters are lost, the lion’s share of the windfall goes to those on the right and extreme right who have already mastered the gamification of politics, and the ability to summon fever dreams of threats that must be dealt with and prosperity that is just around the corner. “Elections are won from the centre” goes the old adage, but increasingly the centre itself has changed as the world becomes not a place of wide-tent compromise, but of irreconcilable differences. And I would venture another formulation – elections are won in the past. By the time it becomes apparent that remote and complacent centrist politics is not even managing to convince its own tribes, it will be too late. Some would argue it already is.

      Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist More

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      Keir Starmer says good relationship with Donald Trump based on shared family values

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      Keir Starmer has spoken about his good relationship with the US president, Donald Trump, and their shared family values.To mark the first anniversary of the Labour government coming to power on Friday, the prime minister spoke to the BBC podcast Political Thinking and said it was “in the national interest” for the two men to connect.“We are different people and we’ve got different political backgrounds and leanings, but we do have a good relationship and that comes from a number of places,” he said.“I think I do understand what anchors the president, what he really cares about. For both of us, we really care about family and there’s a point of connection there.”In the interview, Starmer said he had a “good personal relationship” with Trump, and revealed that the first time they spoke was after the then-presidential candidate was shot at during a campaign rally in July last year.He said Trump had reciprocated with a personal phone call a few days after Starmer’s brother Nick died on Boxing Day.Addressing recent political turmoil, Starmer said he would always “carry the can” as leader after coming under fire over a climbdown on welfare reforms and that he would “always take responsibility” when asked questions.“When things go well … the leader gets the plaudits, but when things don’t go well, it is really important that the leader carries the can – and that’s what I will always do.”Starmer also backed Rachel Reeves and said she would be chancellor “for a very long time to come”, after she was visibly tearful in the House of Commons.The scenes came after the government U-turned on planned welfare changes that put an almost £5bn hole in the chancellor’s plans.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionReeves said she had been upset by a “personal matter” before prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.Appearing on broadcast media on Friday, one year to the day since the 2024 general election, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, was asked on BBC Breakfast to score the government out of 10. “I don’t think it is for cabinet ministers to mark themselves and mark their own homework,” she said. More

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      The Guardian view on UK military strategy: prepare for a US retreat – or be left gravely exposed | Editorial

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      With the prime minister’s Churchillian claims that “the front line is here”, the public might expect a military posture that meets the drama of the moment. Yet the promised rise in defence spending – from 2.3% to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027 – suggests something less than full-scale mobilisation. The strategic defence review is systematic and detailed, but it remains an exercise in tightly bounded ambition. It speaks of daily cyber-attacks and undersea sabotage, but proposes no systemic institutional overhaul or acute surge in resilience. Given the developing dangers, it is surprising not to spell out a robust home-front framework.Instead, it is a cautious budget hike in the costume of crisis – signalling emergency while deferring real commitment for military financing. The review suggests that the more ambitious spending target of 3% of GDP, still shy of Nato’s 3.5% goal, is delayed to the next parliament. The plan is not to revive Keynesianism in fatigues. It is a post-austerity military modernisation that is technocratic and geopolitically anxious. It borrows the urgency of the past without inheriting its economic boldness.The review marks a real shift: it warns of “multiple, direct threats” for the first time since the cold war and vows to reverse the “hollowing out” of Britain’s armed forces. But in an age of climate emergencies and democratic drift, UK leadership should rest on multilateralism, not pure militarism. Declaring Russian “nuclear coercion” the central challenge, and that the “future of strategic arms control … does not look promising”, while sinking £15bn into warheads, risks fuelling escalation instead of pursuing arms control.Given the war in Ukraine, there is an ominous warning about changing US “security priorities”. This calls into question the wisdom of being overly reliant on America, which is now internally unstable and dismantling global public goods – such as the atmospheric data that drones rely on for navigation. Left unsaid but clearly underlying the report is the idea that the old defence model is no longer sufficient – for example, when maritime adversaries can weaponise infrastructure by sabotaging undersea cables, or where critical data systems are in commercial hands. It cannot be right that Ukraine’s sovereignty depends on the goodwill of the world’s richest man. But the private satellite network Starlink keeps Ukrainian hospitals, bases and drones online, leaving Kyiv hostage to the whims of its volatile owner, Elon Musk.The menace of hybrid warfare – including disinformation, cyber-attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular armed groups and use of regular forces – intensified in the last decade. This should see Britain forge deeper institutional ties with European partners, not just military but in infrastructure and information technologies. This would allow for a sovereign digital strategy for European nations to free them from dependency on mercurial actors.Though the review gestures toward greater societal involvement, it stops short of articulating a whole-of-society doctrine like Norway’s. This, when some analysts say the third world war has already begun with a slow, global breakdown of the post-1945 institutional order. The defence review should be about more than missiles and missions. It must also be about whether the country can keep the lights on, the gas flowing, the internet up and the truth intact. This review sees the threats, but not yet the system needed to confront them. In that gap lies the peril. More

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      The Guardian view on Britain’s new aid vision: less cash, more spin. The cost will be counted in lives | Editorial

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      Last week, the government justified cutting the UK’s development budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income – the lowest level in more than 25 years – by claiming Britain’s role is now to “share expertise”, not hand out cash. With a straight face, the minister responsible, Jenny Chapman, told MPs on the international development committee that the age of the UK as “a global charity” was over. But this isn’t reinvention – it’s abdication, wrapped in spin. No wonder Sarah Champion, the Labour MP who is chair of the committee, called Lady Chapman’s remarks “naive” and “disrespectful”. Behind the slogans lies a brutal truth: lives will be lost, and Britain no longer cares. Dressing that up as the “new normal” doesn’t make it less callous.Kevin Watkins of the London School of Economics analysed the cuts and found no soft-landing options. He suggests charting a sensible course through this wreckage, noting that harm from the cuts is inevitable but not beyond mitigation. Dr Watkins’ proposals – prioritising multilateralism, funding the global vaccine alliance (Gavi) and replenishing international lending facilities – would prevent some needless deaths. Ministers should adopt such an approach. The decision to raid the aid budget to fund increased defence spending was a shameful attempt to cosy up to Washington. The cuts were announced just before Sir Keir Starmer’s White House meeting with Donald Trump, with no long-term strategy behind them. It’s a deplorable trend: globally, aid levels could fall by $40bn this year.The gutting of USAID, the world’s biggest spender on international development, by Elon Musk, was less fiscal policy than culture-war theatre. Foreign beneficiaries don’t vote, and liberal-leaning aid contractors lack clout, so dismantling USAID shrinks “globalism” while “owning the establishment”. But the real casualties lie elsewhere. Memorably, Bill Gates said the idea of Mr Musk, the world’s richest man, “killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one”. Countries that built health systems around USAID now face a reckoning. It wasn’t just cash – it sustained disease surveillance, logistics and delivery. Ironically, much of it never left American hands, absorbed by US private interests.In the UK, University of Portsmouth researchers say aid increasingly serves foreign policy, not development. It’s not just ineffective – it’s cynical. Aid should change lives, not wave flags. All this as poor nations’ debt crisis deepens. Without global reform, the Institute for Economic Justice warns, African nations face a cycle of distress blocking investment in basic needs. The UK recasts withdrawal as progress – holding up Ethiopia and Zimbabwe as model partners. But Georgetown University’s Ken Opalo makes a cutting point: in diplomacy, when the music stops, those who outsourced ambition get exposed. Aid dependency, he argues, has hollowed out local ownership. With little planning, many governments now face a choice: take over essential services or cling to a vanishing donor model.Politicians should choose their words carefully. The former Tory development secretary Andrew Mitchell rightly criticised Boris Johnson’s “giant cashpoint in the sky” remark for damaging public support for aid. Labour ministers are guilty, too. Britain has replaced moral leadership with metrics, and compassion with calculation. The policy’s defenders call it realism. But without vision, it’s just surrender – leaving the world’s poor to fend for themselves, forced to try to survive without the means to do so. More