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      ‘Trump is like a juggernaut’: how the Gaza ceasefire deal was done

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      It is a well-known adage in politics that success has many parents, but failure is an orphan. Except when Donald Trump is involved, in which case there is only one parent.Nevertheless, many countries and individuals have a right to step forward to claim an authorial role in the deal that it is hoped will bring an end to the two-year war in Gaza.But it is a sign of the collective nature of the effort of the past few months that so many can credibly claim a role, including the US president, who after many false starts was finally persuaded to focus, end the fantasy of driving tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland and instead spell out to Benjamin Netanyahu the versions of victory the Israeli prime minister could and could not have.The turning point was a meeting in New York on the sidelines of the UN general assembly chaired by Trump, soon after his baroque speech to the gathering. Trump described the sidelines chat as his most important meeting at the UN. In the encounter organised by the United Arab Emirates, he set out for the first time his then 20-point plan for peace in front of a group of Arab and Muslim states that could form the backbone of any stabilisation force that entered Gaza in the event of a ceasefire.By then Trump, with the help of his son-in-law Jared Kushner and the former British prime minister Tony Blair, had been convinced to change his mind on two critical issues. First, Palestinians should not be driven from Gaza and Israel should not rule the territory. “Gaza should be for Gazans,” one said.That meant Trump dropping the displacement rhetoric he deployed earlier in the year, when he triggered widespread alarm by speaking of plans to develop a “Gaza Riviera”.View image in fullscreenSecondly, Trump was persuaded a “day after” plan for the future of Gaza would not complicate the negotiations on a ceasefire-hostage release agreement by adding new contested ingredients, but was the precondition for success. A UK diplomat explained Blair’s thinking: “Hamas was not going to give up unless it knew the Israelis were going to get out and the Israelis were not going to get out and stop occupying Gaza unless they knew Hamas were not going to be in government. Unless you resolved the question of who governs Gaza you cannot bring the thing to an end.”That in turn made it easier for the Arab states to put political pressure on Hamas to negotiate since they could point to a route towards Palestinian statehood, something that has always been their precondition for reconciliation with Israel. The Arab states had also put their names to demands that Hamas stand aside and disarm.One of those involved in persuading the US president said: “People don’t want to hear this but the advantage of Trump is that once he decides to do something he is like a juggernaut. And he really did put pressure on the Israelis.”Trump’s mood towards Israel was clouded by Netanyahu’s unilateral decision to bomb Doha on 9 September in the hope of wiping out Hamas negotiators. Trump had not been consulted, but the US assurances were met with scepticism. As a result Netanyahu, not a man prone to contrition, was ordered to apologise and say he would respect Qatar’s sovereignty in future.View image in fullscreenTo repair relations fully with Qatar, the host of main US airbase in the Middle East, Trump issued an extraordinary executive order saying any future attack on the emirate would be treated as an attack on the US. All this meant the US leader was better disposed to the Gulf states’ vision of a new Middle East. In a sign he was prepared to push the Israeli government hard, in a way Joe Biden had not, Trump told Israel there would be no further annexations in the West Bank.From the very start of the sidelines meeting at the UN in September, the aim of the Arab states was to bind Trump personally into the process. Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, said: “We count on you and your leadership … to end this war and to help the people of Gaza.” He said Israel’s real objective was “to destroy Gaza, to render housing, livelihoods, education, and medical care impossible, stripping away the very foundations of human life”.The concept that Trump personally was central to a solution – indeed its guarantor – flattered the US president who offered himself up as the chair of the peace board, the body that would oversee the reconstruction of Gaza.In one sense, he would be just a name plate, but to the extent he has a hinterland, it is construction. That means there is a possibility he will remain engaged, for the moment at least.Those observing him said Trump began to feel he had a serious opportunity to solve a conflict he variously said had lasted 3,000 or 600 years, in contrast to his failed attempt in Ukraine. The prospect of winning the Nobel peace prize, Trump’s obsession, hovered once more into view.View image in fullscreenThat meant that once his plan was published Trump did not let go, but kept the pressure up on Hamas, warning of the group’s annihilation if it did not release the hostages in return for 250 Palestinians. But neither did Trump let Israel backtrack. Speed and momentum became of the essence.It was the seniority of the negotiators who went to the talks in Egypt that revealed the stars were finally aligning and Hamas would be forced into releasing all the hostages it held, even though Israel would not immediately leave all of Gaza. The scenes were extraordinary enough in that the Hamas negotiators were – albeit through mediators – holding talks with a government that had tried to assassinate them a month earlier. By the time they started the participants sensed a deal was unavoidable.The arrival of Kushner, the head of the intelligence office of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, İbrahim Kalın, and the prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, confirmed a breakthrough was imminent.During the talks, Hamas negotiators led by its leader Khalil al-Hayya, Mohammad al-Hindi, the deputy secretary general of Islamic Jihad, and Jamil Mezher, the deputy secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, sought to clarify the names of the Palestinians to be released, the mechanism of the release of the Israeli hostages and the “day after” aspects of the agreement, poring over the maps showing a withdrawal of Israel’s forces.But Hamas was told while the critical “day after” principles stood, the details would have to wait for a second linked negotiation. The risk for Hamas now is that it loses its leverage upon handing over the hostages – and that fears Israel will then refuse to engage with the plans for Gaza’s future or find a pretext to restart the fighting will be realised. The domestic brake on Netanyahu resuming the fighting – the demand to save the hostages – would have gone.Here Trump’s continued willingness to keep up the pressure on Netanyahu was critical, and is acknowledged by Hamas in its statements referring to the US president as guarantor of the plan. On Fox News, Trump said he had told Netanyahu that “Israel cannot fight the world”, adding: “And he understands that very well.” He said: “You will see people coexisting and Gaza will be rebuilt.”By contrast Amit Segal, a journalist close to Netanyahu, said: “There’s no phase two. That’s clear to everyone, right? Phase two might happen someday, but it’s unrelated to what’s just been signed.”Many elements of Trump’s 20-point plan are being addressed by diplomats from the US, Europe and Arab states at a separate gathering in Paris on Wednesday.View image in fullscreenOn the agenda are issues such as the Hamas handover of weapons; its exclusion from future administrations; the mandate of an international peacekeeping force; the delivery of resumed aid flows; and the future relationship between Gaza and the West Bank as the nucleus of a future Palestinian state. On almost all these, there have been deep differences between Israel on the one hand, and Europe and the Arab states on the other.But in a promising sign, US officials will attend this meeting, suggesting Washington does not favour an armed status quo.At the centre of these discussions is Blair, who is to sit on the peace board or interim government that will oversee the Palestinian technocrats that help implement reconstruction plans. Blair will have to convince the Palestinian Authority that he is not offering a colonial-esque arrangement, as the former prime minister says it fears. But he is unlikely to do the job unless he has real powers, something he feels was not given when he was Middle East special envoy to the quartet.Arab leaders are seeking assurances that the international stabilisation force that eventually enters Gaza has a UN security council mandate, and that there is a clear plan to treat Gaza and the West Bank as one political entity.One of the most difficult issues unresolved in the rushed talks in Egypt is the timing of the Hamas weapons handover. The group may be willing to deliver its arms to an Arab-run authority, or a Palestinian civil police force, but not to Israel. Some diplomats even believe Hamas may feel the need to take a new political course, something it has been close to doing before. “Gazans are going to demand to know what the past two years were about,” one diplomat said.One diplomat involved in the talks said: “The tragedy is that this could have all been agreed 20 months ago, all the elements were there. The key Israeli objective – which is why it is a tragedy this war has gone on so long – was the removal of Hamas from future rule, and that was obtainable a long time ago.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: a note, a whisper and the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal

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      It started with a whisper. Marco Rubio interrupted Donald Trump’s roundtable event with conservative influencers discussing antifa, speaking quietly into Trump’s ear. Rubio handed the president a note, which read “Very close. We need you to approve a Truth Social post soon so you can announce deal first.”Soon afterwards Trump posted to Truth Social that the “first phase” of a peace plan to pause fighting and release some hostages and prisoners held in Gaza had been agreed by Israel and Hamas, bringing the best hope yet of a definitive end to a bloody two-year conflict.“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump wrote.Trump hails first step to peace Donald Trump hailed what he said was a “great day” for the Arab and Muslim world, Israel and all surrounding nations, as well as the US.“We thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!” he posted.Hamas said on Thursday it had reached the agreement after talks on the proposal, confirming the deal includes an Israeli withdrawal from the enclave and a hostage-prisoner exchange.Responding to the announcement, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “With God’s help, we will bring them all home.”Read the full storyRepublican lawmakers praise Trump for Gaza deal as Palestinian Americans remain wary: ‘So much remains unclear’While Republican lawmakers lined up to praise Donald Trump on Wednesday for brokering a tentative deal on the “first phase” of an agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the fighting in Gaza, and win the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, Palestinian American were more wary.Read the full storyKristi Noem compares antifa to MS-13, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic StateThe homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, on Wednesday compared antifa to MS-13, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic State, calling the loosely affiliated network of antifascist street activists “just as dangerous” as designated terrorist organizations during a White House roundtable discussion.“They are just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA [Tren de Aragua], as Isis, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them, they are just as dangerous,” Noem said. “They have an agenda to destroy us, just like the other terrorists we’ve dealt with for many, many years.”The roundtable featured rightwing social media journalists such as Andy Ngo, Nick Sortor, Katie Daviscourt and others who cover leftwing protests.Read the full storyUS shutdown deadlock deepens as senators reject competing billsThe deadlock over ending the US government shutdown deepened on Wednesday, with senators once again rejecting competing bills to restart funding as Democrats and Republicans remain dug in on their demands for reopening federal agencies.The funding lapse has forced offices, national parks and other federal government operations to close or curtail operations, while employees have been furloughed. Signs of strain have mounted in recent days in the parts of the federal government that remained operational, with staffing shortages reported at airports across the US as well as air traffic control centers.Read the full storyIRS to furlough nearly half its workforce due to government shutdownThe Internal Revenue Service will furlough nearly half of its employees – about 34,000 workers – due to the ongoing government shutdown.In a statement on Wednesday, the IRS said that “due to the lapse in appropriations”, it will begin its furlough on 8 October for “everyone except already-identified excepted and exempt employees”.Read the full storyTrump calls for jailing of Chicago mayor and Illinois governor as national guard arrives in cityDonald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers.“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. “Governor Pritzker also!” Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats.Read the full storyEx-FBI director James Comey pleads not guilty on lying to Congress chargeThe former FBI director James Comey pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday in connection with federal charges that he lied to Congress in 2020.Comey entered the federal courthouse shortly before 10am through a private entrance. He was joined in court by his legal team, as well as his wife and daughter, Maurene, who was fired last month as a federal prosecutor in the southern district of New York. Troy Edwards Jr, Comey’s son-in-law who resigned as a prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia immediately after Comey was indicted, was also seen at the courthouse.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Staffing shortages at US airports are anticipated to cause further disruption to air travelers on Wednesday as effects from the US government shutdown, now in its seventh day, ripple out across the country.

      The US supreme court appeared sympathetic on Wednesday to a challenge brought by a Republican congressman to an Illinois law governing how the state counts mail-in absentee ballots received after election day.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 7 October 2025. More

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      Senate Republicans vote against check on Trump using deadly force against cartels

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      Senate Republicans voted down legislation Wednesday that would have put a check on Donald Trump’s ability to use deadly military force against drug cartels after Democrats tried to counter the administration’s extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers to destroy vessels in the Caribbean.The vote fell mostly along party lines, 48-51, with two Republicans, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, voting in favor and the Democrat John Fetterman voting against.It was the first vote in Congress on Trump’s military campaign, which according to the White House has so far destroyed four vessels, killed at least 21 people and stopped narcotics from reaching the US. The war powers resolution would have required the president to seek authorization from Congress before further military strikes on the cartels.The Trump administration has asserted that drug traffickers are armed combatants threatening the United States, creating justification to use military force. But that assertion has been met with some unease on Capitol Hill.Some Republicans are asking the White House for more clarification on its legal justification and specifics on how the strikes are conducted, while Democrats insist they are violations of US and international law. It’s a clash that could redefine how the world’s most powerful military uses lethal force and set the tone for future global conflict.The White House had indicated Trump would veto the legislation, and even though the Senate vote failed, it gave lawmakers an opportunity to go on the record with their objections to Trump’s declaration that the US is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels.“It sends a message when a significant number of legislators say: ‘Hey, this is a bad idea,’” said the senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat who pushed the resolution alongside Adam Schiff, a Democrat of California.Wednesday’s vote was brought under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was intended to reassert congressional power over the declaration of war.“Congress must not allow the executive branch to become judge, jury and executioner,” Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has long pushed for greater congressional oversight of war powers, said during a floor speech.Paul was the only Republican to publicly speak in favor of the resolution before the vote, but a number of Republican senators have questioned the strikes on vessels and said they are not receiving enough information from the administration.The senator Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, acknowledged “there may be some concern” in the Republican conference about the strikes. However, Republican leaders stridently argued against the resolution on the Senate floor Wednesday, calling it a political ploy from Democrats.“People were attacking our country by bringing in poisonous substances to deposit into our country that would have killed Americans,” said the senator Jim Risch, the chair of the Senate foreign relations committee. “Fortunately most of those drugs are now at the bottom of the ocean.”Risch thanked Trump for his actions and added that he hoped the military strikes would continue.Members of the Senate armed services committee received a classified briefing last week on the strikes, and Cramer said he was “comfortable with at least the plausibility of their legal argument”. But, he added, no one representing intelligence agencies or the military command structure for Central and South America was present for the briefing.“I’d be more comfortable defending the administration if they shared the information,” he said.Kaine also said the briefing did not include any information on why the military chose to destroy the vessels rather than interdict them or get into the specifics of how the military was so confident the vessels were carrying drugs.“Maybe they were engaged in human trafficking, or maybe it was the wrong ship,” Schiff said. “We just have little or no information about who was onboard these ships or what intelligence was used or what the rationale was and how certain we could be that everyone on that ship deserved to die.”The Democrats also said the administration has told them it is adding cartels to a list of organizations deemed “narco-terrorists” that are targets for military strikes, but it has not shown the lawmakers a complete list.“The slow erosion of congressional oversight is not an abstract debate about process,” the senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate armed services committee, said in a floor speech. “It is a real and present threat to our democracy.”The secretary of state Marco Rubio visited the Republican conference for lunch Wednesday to emphasize to senators that they should vote against the legislation. He told the senators that the administration was treating cartels like governmental entities because they had seized control of large portions of some Caribbean nations, according to the senator John Hoeven of North Dakota.Rubio told reporters at the Capitol: “These drug-trafficking organizations are a direct threat to the safety and security of the United States to unleash violence and criminality on our streets, fueled by the drugs and the drug profits that they make. … And the president, as the commander in chief, has an obligation to keep our country safe.”Still, Democrats said the recent buildup of US maritime forces in the Caribbean was a sign of shifting US priorities and tactics that could have grave repercussions. They worried that further military strikes could set off a conflict with Venezuela and argued that Congress should be actively deliberating whenever American troops are sent to war.Schiff said, “This is the kind of thing that leads a country, unexpectedly and unintentionally, into war.” More

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      Kristi Noem compares antifa to MS-13, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic State

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      The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, on Wednesday compared antifa to MS-13, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic State, calling the loosely affiliated network of antifascist street activists “just as dangerous” as designated terrorist organizations during a White House roundtable discussion.“They are just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA [Tren de Aragua], as Isis, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them, they are just as dangerous,” Noem said. “They have an agenda to destroy us, just like the other terrorists we’ve dealt with for many, many years.”The roundtable featured rightwing social media journalists such as Andy Ngo, Nick Sortor, Katie Daviscourt and others who cover leftwing protests.Some of the groups Noem cited – Hamas, Hezbollah and Isis – are formally designated terrorist organizations that control territory, operate military wings, maintain command structures and have carried out mass casualty attacks including bombings, kidnappings and assassinations.Extremism experts have long described antifa, by contrast, as having no centralized leadership, formal membership or organizational structure, and it has generally been described by federal law enforcement as a decentralized movement of activists who engage in protest activity, some of which has included property destruction and street violence.The roundtable comes after Donald Trump signed an executive order in September designating antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization”.Days before the announcement, Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader who was convicted and then pardoned for his role on January 6, posted on X: “Who’s ready to go ANTIFA hunting? Because I know a few guys.”During Wednesday’s roundtable, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, sat beside Trump and repeated his condemnations of antifa. “This is not activism, it’s anarchy,” she said. “We can’t and we will not let masked terrorists burn our buildings, attack our law enforcement and intimidate our communities.”Trump also listed examples of attacks against federal agents which he has attributed to antifa, and suggested that the man charged with shooting Charlie Kirk was a member of the group. Law enforcement officials have not established a link between Tyler Robinson and any specific group.“The epidemic of leftwing violence and antifa-inspired terror has been escalating for nearly a decade,” Trump said.All of the witnesses who spoke during the roundtable were conservative influencers or partisan rightwing journalists, who all claimed that antifa was a terror organization without presenting any evidence. More

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      IRS to furlough nearly half its workforce due to government shutdown

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      The Internal Revenue Service said it will furlough nearly half of its employees – about 34,000 workers – due to the government shutdown, making it significantly harder for US taxpayers to receive assistance.In a statement on Wednesday, the IRS said that “due to the lapse in appropriations”, it would begin its furlough on 8 October for “everyone except already-identified excepted and exempt employees”.“Employee who are not exempt or excepted are furloughed and placed in a non-pay and non-duty status until further notice; however, all employees should plan to report to work for their next tour of duty,” the IRS said, adding that employees would be given up to four hours to close out work requirements and receive formal furlough notification.The furlough will leave only 53.6%, or 39,870 IRS employees, working as the government remains shut down.In the standard furlough letter provided to all affected employees, David Traynor, acting IRS human capital officer, confirmed that furloughed employees cannot work and will not be paid during the shutdown.The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS employees, condemned the decision, with its president, Doreen Greenwald, saying on Wednesday: “Due to the government shutdown the American people lost access to many vital services provided by the IRS.”The statement continued: “Expect increased wait times, backlogs and delays implementing tax law changes as the shutdown continues. Taxpayers around the country will now have a much harder time getting the assistance they need, just as they get ready to file their extension returns due next week.”The IRS’s decision to furlough its employees comes a day after a White House memo suggested that furloughed workers may not receive back pay, despite the 2019 law Trump signed during his first term, during the last government shutdown; the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 (Gefta) ensures government workers would be automatically paid after future shutdowns.In his letter, Traynor said that “employees must be compensated on the earliest date possible after the lapse ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates”. More

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      NHS could pay 25% more for medicines under plan to end row with drugmakers and Trump

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      Ministers are preparing to raise the amount the NHS pays pharmaceutical firms for medicines by up to 25% after weeks of intensive talks with the Donald Trump administration and drugmakers.Labour has drawn up fresh proposals to end a standoff with the industry over drug pricing, including changing the cost-effectiveness thresholds under which new medications are assessed for use on the NHS, according to industry sources.The row has been cited as one of the reasons why big companies in the sector, including MSD (known as Merck in the US) and AstraZeneca, have cancelled or paused investments in the UK in recent weeks, while ramping up investments in the US.The Department of Health and Social Care is in a standoff with the Treasury and No 10 on how to fund the deal, with Downing Street resisting pressure to commit new funds for medicines in next month’s budget.The Liberal Democrats immediately criticised the move, first reported by Politico, asking how much it would cost and whether it would lead to cuts elsewhere in the NHS.The science secretary, Patrick Vallance, has publicly acknowledged that the UK’s spending on new medicines needs to rise from 9% of overall NHS spend, which is below drug spending in the US and many other European countries.The main element of the plan is thought to include raising the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) cost-effectiveness threshold by 25%, which has been unchanged since 1999. Under current rules, Nice considers a medicine costing between £20,000 and £30,000 for every extra year of good-quality life it provides a patient to represent good value for money for the NHS.The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry on Tuesday reiterated its call for “urgent action” on drug pricing, saying the Nice threshold should be increased as soon as possible in line with inflation to between £40,000 and £50,000, and index-linked thereafter. Making this change would, over time, lead to a greater share of the NHS budget being allocated to medicines, and additional funding would be needed to support this.In talks over the summer, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, proposed a deal that would save the pharmaceutical industry £1bn over three years, with billions more promised over the coming decade.But the industry argued that it was forecast to make repayments totalling £13.5bn over the same period and has been demanding about £2.5bn a year extra.A government source said ministers were prepared to spend more on medicines as they increasingly became more ​innovative and preventive. They cited the example of weight loss injections – which are forecast to save the NHS billions of pounds in treating obesity and associated health problems – and trials for cancer-preventing vaccines.The patient-led campaign group Just Treatment called it “deeply troubling news for patients and the NHS”, adding: “We are at risk of importing America’s disastrous drug pricing crisis.” It called on the government to “take steps to establish a system for developing and manufacturing medicines that puts patients first”.The NHS spent £20.6bn on medicines and medical devices in 2023-24, up from £19.2bn the year before.Trump has put pressure on pharma companies to lower their drug prices in the US and increase them elsewhere, accusing other countries of “freeloading” on high US prices. Nearly two weeks ago, he threatened to impose 100% tariffs on pharmaceutical imports from 1 October to ramp up the pressure, although these did not materialise.In response to pressure from Trump, Pfizer and several other US and European companies, including the UK’s biggest drugmaker, AstraZeneca, have started to cut their prices in the US and to sell directly to patients to cut out costly middlemen.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn return for reducing its prices by up to 85%, Pfizer won a three-year reprieve from tariffs last week, which was seen as a bellwether for the rest of the sector.Last week, Varun Chandra, Starmer’s main business adviser, flew to Washington DC for talks with senior US officials and drug companies, the latest in a series of visits to try to hammer out a deal on pricing and tariffs.A UK government spokesperson said: “We’ve secured a landmark economic partnership with the US that includes working together on pharmaceutical exports from the UK whilst improving conditions for pharmaceutical companies here.“We’re now in advanced discussions with the US administration to secure the best outcome for the UK, reflecting our strong relationship and the opportunities from close partnership with our pharmaceutical industry.”However, the Lib Dem health and social care spokesperson, Helen Morgan, said: “It beggars belief that the government is bending to a bullying US president having told patients for years that life-saving new drugs are unaffordable.“Ministers must come clean about how much this move will cost and whether it will be funded by cuts elsewhere in the NHS. They should also lay their plans before parliament without delay so they can be properly scrutinised. It increasingly feels like this government puts the whims of Trump before everything else – even our precious NHS.”The pharma sector’s negotiations with the UK government over drug pricing under a voluntary scheme broke down without an agreement in late August. Since then, MSD has abandoned plans for a £1bn research centre in London and AstraZeneca and New York-based Eli Lilly have paused projects, taking total pharma investments that are on hold or cancelled to nearly £2bn since the start of this year.One industry source said: “We are relieved to see a recognisable change in sentiment and language from August.” More

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      Why Tony Blair just can’t kick the habit of imperial interference in the Middle East | Oliver Eagleton

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      “There are two types of politician,” Tony Blair observed in 2012. “Reality creators and reality managers.” While postwar politics was generally a matter of steady management, he claimed, the emerging order called for more creativity, “both in the economy and foreign policy”. Only a particular type of visionary leader was fit for the task.More than a decade later, Blair has now joined forces with the pre-eminent reality-creator, Donald Trump, to draft a hallucinatory 20-point plan for Gaza. It aims to turn the devastated Strip into what seems to resemble a colonial protectorate: cleansed of armed conflict, buzzing with development projects and a “special economic zone” through which foreign capital can flow, and overseen by an international “board of peace” with Trump himself as chair.The authors of the programme have not explained how they intend to impose it on a resistant population, or how they will persuade Hamas to disarm and concede defeat. So there is a high likelihood that the Blair-Trump fantasy will remain just that. Whatever its fortunes, though, it is a clear reflection of our historical moment, representing the most recent mutation of an imperial worldview that has already left a trail of destruction across the Middle East.For Blair, “the economy and foreign policy” have long been entwined. His military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan tried to spread the virtues of the market to supposedly backward nations. The privatisation of resources created new investment opportunities, while a wide range of profiteers, from weapons dealers to security contractors, made a killing off the wars themselves.Upon leaving office in 2007, Blair immediately took up a post as Middle East envoy for the so-called Quartet: the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia. His work in Palestine displayed the same unerring faith in free enterprise. He proposed a series of “industrial parks” to attract foreign investment, advocated eccentric agribusiness and tourism schemes, and promoted other ventures that raised questions about possible conflicts of interest: while being paid £2m per year as a JP Morgan adviser, for example, he was accused of using his Quartet role to advance the interests of JP Morgan clients. (Blair denied the claims, insisting he did not know about the links between the bank he worked for and the companies it served.)As envoy, Blair often bypassed or rejected political solutions – fighting vigorously against Palestinian attempts to win statehood at the UN – and instead treated economics as the route to progress. His diplomatic activities seemed to be based on the notion that peace would naturally follow prosperity. If securing the latter was the task of the intrepid statesman, then strong ties to the business sector could perhaps be framed as an asset.Yet Blair’s tenure in the Middle East brought no diminution of the conflict. In 2012, a senior Palestinian official gave a succinct assessment of his record: “Useless, useless, useless.” Still, undeterred by failure and fond of dramatic political comebacks, the former prime minister now appears to be seeking to apply the same logic to Gaza. Since the early months of the war, he has reportedly been crafting his plan for the “day after”.Staff from his thinktank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), participated in a project that appeared to endorse ethnic cleansing in the territory and outlined what could be built atop its mass graves: a “Trump riviera”, an “Elon Musk smart manufacturing zone”, “regional datacentres”. Although Blair’s organisation claimed it had no meaningful involvement in the plan, and rejected the idea of displacing Palestinians, there are a number of continuities with his own blueprint, details of which were soon leaked to the press.Drawn up with the help of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the 21-page document suggests reconstructing Gaza through “public-private partnerships”, forged by a “commercially driven authority, led by business professionals and tasked with generating investable projects with real financial returns”. Hamas would be demobilised and a small unelected executive would be installed. This would include Blair himself in a prominent role, plus “leading international figures with executive and financial expertise” and “at least one qualified Palestinian representative (potentially from the business or security sector)”. An international stabilisation force would meanwhile put down “threats to public order”.View image in fullscreenBlair met Kushner and Trump in the White House on 27 August and his proposals got a warm welcome from the president. They have since been refined and repackaged as the Trump “peace plan”. As with previous versions of the initiative, the emphasis is on creating a Gaza that is “conducive to attracting investment”, and in which Israel will continue to reign supreme. Blair is primed to take charge of governing the Strip until some unspecified future point when day-to-day administration may be returned to a “reformed” Palestinian Authority.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe practical issues are glaring. Which states would be irresponsible enough to send troops to serve this novel dictatorship? How can it hope to sustain itself with no mandate nor legitimacy? Even more striking, however, is the extent to which the plan signals the overlap between Blair’s ethos and Trump’s.It is not unreasonable to suggest that Blair might see a business opportunity beneath the rubble of Gaza. To figure out who may benefit, we can look at his network of paymasters. Since 2021, Larry Ellison, founder of the tech company Oracle, has donated or pledged £257m to the TBI. The thinktank has, in turn, transformed into what one commentator has called an “Oracle dealership”: promoting the company’s software around the globe, including in impoverished countries where it has been criticised for potentially “trapping” and “indebting” users. Ellison is also a prominent supporter of Israel who has given millions to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and, according to Haaretz, once offered Benjamin Netanyahu a seat on the Oracle board. Were Blair to rule over Gaza – perhaps establishing “regional datacentres” in line with the TBI-linked plan – it is possible that Ellison could wield major influence.The TBI has also received huge sums from the authoritarian regimes of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, while Blair has been given a lucrative advisory contract by the UAE state-owned investment firm Mubadala. All three states have readily endorsed the plan for Gaza. Once the besieged enclave is opened for investment, they may well be first in line. Blair’s work for these petro-monarchies tallies with his involvement in the fossil fuel industry, having taken cash from a BP-led consortium, the oil company PetroSaudi and the South Korean UI Energy Corporation, which has interests in the Middle East. Given that Israel has recently granted new licences to explore for oil and gas off the Mediterranean coast, such connections could prove significant later down the line.In one sense, then, this “peace plan” could simply be read as an extension of Blair’s belief in market-led development. Yet this chapter in the annals of colonialism also has a uniquely Trumpian twist. Visions of a new world order that underpinned earlier regime-change projects are gone. Here politics is reduced to dealmaking, grand strategy to crude self-interest. The fusion of public power and private profit is complete. Blair may be creating new realities, but few would want to inhabit them.

      Oliver Eagleton is an associate editor at the New Left Review and author of The Starmer Project: A Journey to the Right

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      in US Politics

      A rightwing late-night show may have bombed – but the funding behind it is no laughing matter

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      A group of conservative donors spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a rightwing version of late-night talkshows like the Tonight Show and the Late Show, leaked documents reveal, in a further indication of the right’s ongoing efforts to overhaul American culture.News of the effort to pump conservative viewpoints into the mainstream comes as entertainment shows and the media at large are under severe threat in the US. In September, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was taken off the air, under pressure from the Trump administration, after Kimmel’s comments after the killing of Charlie Kirk, while Donald Trump has launched multiple lawsuits against TV networks and news organizations.Four pilot episodes, each of which has been watched by the Guardian, were made of the rightwing chatshow. It was promoted by the Ziklag group, a secretive Christian nationalist organization, which aims to reshape culture to match its version of Christianity. In an email in 2022, Ziklag – which ProPublica reported spent $12m to elect Trump last year – urged its members to stump up money for the project, called the Talk Show With Eric Metaxas.“For too long, the late-night talkers on network tv have filled the airwaves with progressive rants and outright mockery of anyone who espouses traditional American values,” the Ziklag email read.The Talk Show With Eric Metaxas, Ziklag wrote, will “change that forever”. The email said the show needed $400,000 to $500,000 to film five pilot episodes, “which will be presented to digital distributors, networks and tv ownership groups”.The Guardian sat through nearly four hours of the Talk Show, and found it to be an almost exact copy of existing late-night shows, just worse: with hack jokes about tired issues and has-been, conservative guests. The show was never picked up, presumably to the chagrin of Ziklag and its investors, who had lofty expectations.Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead.“Spoiler alert! The secular elites who currently reign over late-night tv are about to find out the joke’s on them!” Ziklag’s pitch email read. It lauded Metaxas, a conservative radio host and author who was an eager proponent of the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, claiming: “His comedic bent has gone largely unnoticed until now that is…”Unfortunately, across the four pilots, Metaxas’s comedic bent was noticeable only by its absence.“Big news in the world of show business,” Metaxas began the first episode. “Harrison Ford will be returning for a fifth Indiana Jones movie. Yeah. In this one Harrison will find an ancient artifact … by looking in the mirror.”There were a few titters from the audience, and scattered applause. Metaxas, appearing nervous, continued with the one-liners:“Barbie’s longtime companion, Ken, just turned 61 years old. Yeah. And he said the perfect gift for his birthday would be to finally get a prostate.”This time there were some audible groans. Metaxas stuck at it.“In India, doctors removed 526 teeth from a seven-year-old boy’s mouth,” he chortled. “The boy is recovering nicely. However, the Tooth Fairy declared bankruptcy.”Ziklag claimed the show would welcome “guests who are routinely shadow banned on other talk shows”, and quoted Metaxas as saying: “It’s kind of like Stalin has air-brushed these people out of the culture.”But the common theme among the guests was that they had been naturally phased out of existing talkshows due to their irrelevance.The first episode featured an exclusive interview with Carrot Top, the 60-year-old prop comedian. Carrot Top showed Metaxas some of his props, including a bottle of Bud Light that had a torch in the bottom of it and a dinner plate that had a hole in it. Carrot Top managed to say absolutely nothing of interest during the three-minute tête-à-tête, before Metaxas cut back to the studio.“Tonight’s show is loaded with talent,” Metaxas announced to the live audience. The guests included a TikToker – “for our generation, Tic Tac was a breath mint”, Metaxas quipped – Tammy Pescatelli, a comedian who has been absent from the limelight for at least a decade; and Danny Bonaduce, best known for his work on the 1970s sitcom the Partridge Family.Throughout the episodes – as Metaxas sang a song with a terrified-looking Victoria Jackson, a self-described conservative Christian who was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1986 to 1992 and has claimed Barack Obama is an “Islamic terrorist” – and as he continued with awful jokes about some scientists who had developed a robot that could build furniture but “cannot promise that the robot won’t swear”, it was hard to see what the point of this was.In its email, Ziklag said it was offering the opportunity to invest as part of the “Media Mountain”, a reference to the Seven Mountain Mandate, a theology popular among the Christian right. The theology proposes that Christians should seek to take over seven spheres of influence in public life: religion, the government, the media, education, culture, entertainment and business.Chris Himes, who produced the Talk Show, said the show was not intended to be a “rightwing late-night show”. The aim, Himes said, was “to create a broad, throwback late-night program for the entire country – not just one side”.“These are not partisan or ‘right-wing’ shows. Think Letterman or Dick Cavett in tone: humor first, with no space for snark or ‘clapter’,” he said in an email.“Sadly, much of late night over the past decade has shifted from being genuinely funny to becoming a vehicle for tribal signaling – even occasionally straying into messaging far beyond comedy. We believe the country deserves something better.”Himes added: “To be clear, a ‘right-wing’ late-night show would be a terrible idea. What we’re building is something more essential: a genuinely funny, unifying alternative.”In the pilot episodes, there were guests who were known for rightwing politics, but Metaxas largely didn’t ask them about those politics. In episode three, he seemed to decide he needed to at least say a bit of something to satisfy the rightwing donors funding this enterprise, but that came in the form of going over well-trodden ground about liberals.“Botanists have discovered a meat-eating plant in Canada,” Metaxas said in his intro. “Researchers determined that the plant started eating meat because it just got tired of explaining its vegan lifestyle.”He continued: “Detroit’s sanitation workers – I just read this – they’re threatening to go on strike. Detroit’s mayor said not to worry, because Detroit will continue to look and smell exactly the same.”Another quip ventured into current affairs: “Gas costs a fortune. It’s insane how much it costs. And who would have thought that the best deal at the Shell station would ever be the $3 microwave burrito?”Ziklag’s pitch to investors had promised big-name guests. It didn’t deliver apart from an interview – heavily touted by Metaxas – with film-maker Ron Howard. The interview turned out to be from a press junket, where directors or actors sit in a room for eight hours and basically anyone with a press pass can schedule time to question them.It’s unlikely Howard knew he was appearing on what Ziklag described as a “faith-friendly, late night alternative”, but that’s perhaps irrelevant, given networks clearly passed on what is a confused, drab copy of shows that are actually successful.But while Metaxas’s effort to shoehorn a conservative show into the mainstream may have been lamentable, the fact that wealthy rightwingers are attempting to do so should be cause for concern, given the threat television is under from Trump.Earlier this year, CBS scrapped the Late Show with Stephen Colbert – Colbert had repeatedly mocked Trump – weeks after CBS’s parent company settled a lawsuit with Trump. Trump has also called for late-night show hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, who have both criticized the president, to be fired, while the president has overseen NPR and PBS being stripped of funding, having decried “biased media”.The Talk Show was a terrible product, memorable only for dreadful humor and snooze-inducing interviews. In the current climate, however, it serves as a reminder that the right wing is waging a well-funded war on the media that is unlikely to end soon. More