Keir starmer

If there is a hallmark of Keir Starmer’s leadership, it is a willingness to bash the left. For five years, he has repeatedly sided with his moderate factions to make Labour electable. Corbynites have been purged from parliament and the party machine. Principles and policies have been changed to meet the electorate’s approval. Last summer’s election result appeared to vindicate the Prime Minister’s strategy. But with Starmer’s authority crumbling, the British left is aiming to reassert itself and wreak its revenge from outside, rather than inside, the Labour party. ‘This Labour government is here to appease Reform. We are here to defeat Reform’ Three groups pose a threat to Starmer. The first is the new ‘Your Party’, led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

What people on the other side of the pond call "Brand Britain" has taken something of a knock in recent years – especially in the United States, which the British often still view as an errant son. With unnerving speed Britain's reputation has collapsed stateside, especially among the political right, from the country of Brideshead Revisited to a grotty Airstrip One. The symbol of the new Britain in the eyes of many Americans are the ubiquitous licenses (or, in the argot of a London copper, "loicenses") that citizens seem to need for everything – including, most notoriously, owning a TV. Now even the Foreign Secretary has been caught without a loicense. On Friday David Lammy went fishing with the now-Vice President J.D.

The British Empire may be gone, but there is one area where the UK has not lost its global ambitions: online censorship. The latest vehicle is the Online Safety Act (OSA), a behemoth internet regulation law whose vast provisions are steadily coming into force – and increasingly drawing the ire of the Trump administration as it starts to impact US tech firms.  Under the OSA, “Britain has the power to shut down any platform” that breaks its content regulation rules, boasts secretary of state for technology Peter Kyle. The latest stage of its implementation began last week with new mandatory age-verification measures for social media platforms.  The Act is already curtailing what can be read online in the UK.

Whatever loopiness there is in Donald Trump’s personality is a loopiness born of isolation. For ten years the history of the world has revolved around him, not he around it. The events of last November have left Trump as, for all intents and purposes, the only remaining historical actor – especially after Xi Jinping’s retreat into obscurantism since the pandemic.

A close associate of Nigel Farage received phone calls from three civil servants in the past week, asking how they might help Reform UK prepare for government. Officially, mandarins won’t begin talks with the opposition until six months before a general election, which might be nearly four years away. And Reform currently has just four MPs. But behind the scenes, the source reveals: ‘I’m personally getting middle-ranking civil servants in various departments asking if they can help – people who actually understand how to get things done. They don’t want to lose their jobs, but they want to tell us what’s going on.’ MPs may have departed Westminster for recess, but that also marks the firing of a starting gun on a highly consequential political summer.