Jawad Iqbal

Britain and India have struck a landmark free trade deal, the biggest agreement of its kind since Brexit. It will see tariffs slashed on cosmetics and medical devices and could potentially boost growth by up to £5 billion a year. This deal has been three years in the making and follows intensive negotiations in recent days between Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, and Piyush Goyal, India’s trade minister. The agreement was formally signed off during a call between the leaders of both countries today. The two sides were keen to get the negotiations over the line in the wake of President Trump’s 'liberation day' tariffs that imposed 26 per cent taxes on Indian exports to the US and 10 per cent on the UK.

What will it take for Labour and the Tories to realise how bad their situation is? Reform’s by-election victory in Runcorn and Helsby is symbolic of a much wider success, with support for Westminster’s two traditional parties falling through the floor. Britain’s traditional two-party electoral system has morphed into a multi-party system because voters are angry and disillusioned with what is on offer from the establishment. Yet even now, neither Labour nor the Tories appear to have the political wits to grasp the scale of the challenge posed to their duopoly. Take Keir Starmer. He reacted to the setback in the polls with the observation that the results were ‘disappointing’.

Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, refuses to go away quietly. Her latest barnstorming idea is to launch her very own 'uncensorable' social media platform to counter the mainstream media and protect free speech in Britain. Truss told a cryptocurrency conference, held in Bedford, that the platform would launch this summer. Honestly, who wants this? As pointless new ventures go, it must be right up there. The idea of a Truss social media network was first mooted at the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) in Washington. At the event in February, she pledged that the platform would be 'uncensorable' and 'uncancellable'.

Could Idris Elba, the film star and anti-knife crime campaigner, be in the running to be Labour candidate for London mayor? He is rumoured to be the party’s top choice to replace Sir Sadiq Khan, who is expected to stand down ahead of the next London mayoral election, likely to take place in 2028. Could he? Would he? Why would someone as rich and famous as Elba – as close as it comes to a genuine box office star – throw it all away for the chance to be the capital’s political top dog? Are long meetings at City Hall discussing the congestion charge that interesting? There is something depressing about the naked political cynicism on display Labour bigwigs say Idris is ‘top of our wish list’ to be the next candidate for City Hall.

The head of the Prevent counter-terrorism programme, Michael Stewart, is to carry the can for failures exposed by the Southport attack last year. Stewart's role has been in question for some time, following revelations that Prevent failed to stop Axel Rudakubana murdering three girls at a dance class in Merseyside last July. Rudakubana was first referred to Prevent in 2019, when he was just 13 A 'Prevent learning review' after the attack revealed a damning catalogue of basic failures. It found that counterterrorism police missed several chances to stop the killer, and that Prevent 'prematurely' dismissed the threat posed by Rudakubana on each of the three occasions he was flagged to the programme.

Poor Lord Coe. His dream of leading the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – the most powerful job in international sport – lies in tatters. He was roundly beaten by Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, the former Olympic swimming champion who will now become the first female president of the IOC. She received a whopping 49 of the 97 votes up for grabs. Lord Coe was widely seen as the most qualified of the candidates – having won two Olympic gold medals, run the London 2012 Games and been World Athletics president since 2015 – but he garnered just 8 votes. The other leading candidate, Juan Antonio Samaranch, bagged 28 votes. Coe was viewed as the candidate for reform, and his defeat is a bitter blow for those seeking change at the Games.

Football’s most revered promulgator of platitudes is at it again. Sir Gareth Southgate, the former England manager, has warned that vulnerable young men are falling victim to ‘callous, manipulative and toxic influencers’. Delivering the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, Southgate said the young are falling prey to an ideology that asserts success is measured by money and dominance. This is just a tad rich coming from a man who owes his wealth and fame to a game that worships money above all else, and in which everyone – football club owners, managers and players – prizes dominance at any cost over their rivals. In a nutshell, a man who used to manage some of the wealthiest young footballers in the world is complaining that men are too obsessed with wealth and status.

What possessed the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump in a verbal wresting match in the White House? It makes almost no sense as a diplomatic strategy. It is well documented that the US president, notoriously thin-skinned and egotistical, likes to be showered with compliments and treated as an all-knowing, all-seeing master of the political universe. All that Zelensky was required to do was behave in a simpering manner while the cameras were rolling, before moving on to the substantive negotiations behind the scenes. Indeed, only 24 hours earlier, Sir Keir Starmer provided a useful primer on how to go about pandering to Trump in order to get what you want. It’s dirty work, but that’s what leaders have to do.

A British couple detained in Iran have been charged with espionage, according to the Iranian judiciary news agency. Craig and Lindsay Foreman have been accused of entering the country 'under the guise of tourists' and of being 'affiliated with intelligence services'. No actual evidence to back up the spying charges has been provided by the regime in Tehran, which has a habit of ignoring such legal niceties.  The Foremans were arrested last month during a round-the-world motorbike trip. After staying in the cities of Tabriz, Isfahan and Tehran, they travelled to Kerman in the centre of the country, where they were detained. According to their social media feed, the couple were in Iran as part of a psychology research project asking people what constitutes a 'good life'.

JD Vance certainly knows how to grab people’s attention. In a landmark address to the Munich Security Conference, he accused Europe’s leaders of being scared of voters and failing to defend democracy. In a fiery speech, he criticised Europeans for abandoning their roots as ‘defenders of democracy’ and of shutting down dissenting voices. Vance even went on to claim that  the demise of free speech posed a far bigger threat to Europe than Russia. Harsh words indeed. Vance’s criticisms came as something of a shock to his audience, who had been expecting to hear more from him about the US administration’s priorities for the transatlantic alliance, military spending, and President Trump’s approach to negotiations for ending the war in Ukraine.

Who knew that being a voice coach qualified for ‘key worker’ status during the pandemic lockdowns? It has been revealed that the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer employed a personal voice coach as a ‘key worker’ during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite strict government guidelines at the time. The rules defined critical workers as those essential to public services – including those on the frontline of health, social care and transport. Nowhere does the official guidance mention the life-saving qualities of voice coaches as worthy exemptions to the lockdown rules. Yet, according to a report in the Times, Starmer appointed Leonie Mellinger, an actress and communications skills specialist, in such a role. Did the then opposition leader breach lockdown rules in doing so?

The best that can be said about Lord Mandelson’s change of heart over Donald Trump is that it shows how much he wants to be the next British ambassador to Washington. He is expected to be confirmed in the role shortly. Even so, Mandelson was taking no chances in an interview he gave to Fox News, widely believed to be Trump’s favourite TV viewing. Peter Mandelson is just the latest Labour figure to undergo a Damascene conversion on Trump The Labour peer wants everyone (especially Trump) to know that his previous criticism of the American leader was “ill-judged and wrong”. In previous years, he has described the president as “reckless and a danger to the world”. In a 2018 interview, he called Trump a “bully”. He could not have been more wrong in doing so, apparently.