Having run aground in the Middle East, Trump looking for another country he can bully without consequence. The hot favourite is Cuba.

Streeting and Burnham: we need to be back in EU: not any day soon; but one day; in the long term. Sounds remarkably like the very incrementalism they are supposed to despise. And now Burnham appears to have done a complete U-turn on rejoining the EU!

The Political and Media Myopia That Has Paralysed Keir Starmer’s Government Distorted and biased media coverage and short-sighted politics in Westminster have both prevented Starmer's Government from reaching its potential, argues Professor Chris Painter

The latest leadership instability is as much a crisis over the ethos of political journalism in this country as a trauma for the UK's political system.

Trump and his 'peace envoys' have become almost superflous to the situation in Ukraine. They have few cards left to deal in doing Putin's bidding. That country is showing an increasing capability to determine its own future with the support of European allies.

Every advance of the nationalist right makes the world a more uncertain, unsafe place, leading to yet more economic dislocation. Everyone suffers, but especially those from demographic groups most likely to vote Reform - as already seen from the impact of Brexit.

Whether it be financial scandals or related conflicts of interest. A dysfunctional running of local authorities they already control, with high councillor attrition rates and poisonous in-fighting. Or seeking to replicate the chaos Trumpism has unleashed on US in the UK. Reform is the toxic vote.

The spike in UK government borrowing costs should concentrate minds. It is just a foretaste of what is to come if there is protracted political instability over coming weeks.

Just one more corruption scandal on Reform's doorstep! www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

King Charles in Washington. A triumphal articulation of the chasm between British and Trumpian values. Trump reduced to the petty political pygmy that is his real essence.

The political circus continues in Trump's America. Nothing is quite what it seems!!

An on-going security threat in Europe from Putin's Russia; turmoil in Middle East; a US President in severe cognitive decline whose idiocy is causing yet another energy crisis; climate emergency accelerating. What's the obsession of the UK media! Who said/did what, when over Mandelson's appointment.

The Trump White House now makes Monty Python sketches seem like masterly documentary vignettes.

All incentive in the media landscape is for leading practitioners not to be even-handed in their comments but to feed melodrama. It's not known as the attention economy for nothing. Let's therefore abandon the quaint notion that these are mere reporters. They are political actors in their own right.

How about this for a remarkable rate of local councillor attrition! observer.co.uk/news/politic...

Hegseth provides yet another example of the calamitous effects of journalist-politicos - following the precedents of Gove and Johnson in the UK. Partisan commentary doesn't begin to translate into effective statecraft. Indeed, more often at the extreme end of embarrassing.

Whenever the nationalist far right establish state control, financial corruption follows as surely as night follows day. A common factor in the Orbàn-Putin-Trump nexus. We're seeing this very same pattern taking shape with Farage, even before he gets his hands anywhere near the levers of power.

Infamous Gove assertion that we had all had enough of experts; one of the few positives to emerge from the Covid inquiry is the remarkable role of science in coming to the rescue to save lives. BBC News - Rollout of Covid vaccines extraordinary feat - inquiry report www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The lid is being lifted to confirm just how pivotal Orbàn's Hungary was to the organisation, collaboration and funding of far right international and European networks. That's why all those associated political figures flocked to the country during its election, not least JD Vance.

Orbàn evicted from power in Hungary. Trump struggling and diminished both domestically and internationally, heading for a drubbing in November's mid-terms. Putin stalled as the stalemate in Ukraine grinds on into its fifth year. Is it premature to be a little more optimistic about the future?

Every signature policy initiative launched by Trump has left a trail of chaos or humiliation in its wake: DOGE; ICE; tariffs; pressurising Ukraine to capitulate to Putin; Greenland fiasco; Iranian offensive. Way beyond a story of failure; this a presidency in full meltdown.

Hungarian voters have the opportunity to inflict the second humiliation on the Trump règime within a week, following foolish interference in that election by Trump's henchman, JD Vance.

It's TACO again! But nothing can erase from the public record Trump threatening genocide in another country. This man glorifies in violence, domestically and internationally. Yet, he can be outstrategised by virtually anyone because of his foolish impulsiveness.

Surely senior US military commanders are obliged to make a stand when ordered to attack Iran civilian infrastructure by Trump and Hegseth in breach of international law. www.theguardian.com/law/2026/apr...

Happy Easter. Blessed are the peacemakers.

It would appear that Trump is intent on joining Netanyahu and Putin in the ranks of the world's international war criminals. www.theguardian.com/law/2026/apr...

Trump continues to rage, demanding x, y and z. But guess what; nothing happens any more. He is shouting into a void. The whole Trump edifice is crumbling; his credibility shot to pieces.

Poignant in Holy Week. A rebuke from the Pope for grotesque evangelical hijacking of Christianity within Trump circle to justify gratuitous violence and wars of choice. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

All Farage good for - disruptive antics. Repeat performance of his past behaviour in European Parliament. Baulks at idea of running financially challenged Worcestershire County Council, let alone taking on Whitehall with its on-going externally generated crises. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The Brexit so closely linked to Farage denied reality of interdependence; that's why it's done so much damage to the British economy. Trump's unilateralism flies in the face of very same interdependence; hence havoc currently impacting global economy. The nationalist Right are impoverishing us all!

Trump prides himself on burning through other people's reputations. But now Netanyahu has been allowed to irreparably damage Trump's political reputation, such that it was. What happens when foreign policy is sub-contracted to your son-in-law and a golfing buddy.

NATO countries should ignore Trump's latest rant. He threatens all sorts yet, just like Putin, he can't even successfully prosecute the one conflict he's already initiated.

When evaluating Premierships context is so crucial. Starmer inherited a flatlining economy, crumbling public services and constraints of high public borrowing levels. Internationally, a major European security threat in Ukraine and, within months of taking Office, an unhinged US President. Daunting!

'Trumpflation'. That epiphet will be Trump's legacy for the remainder of his days in Office.

US-Israel Middle East military strategy just becomes more and more bizarre and self-defeating. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Whereas Trump - and those around him - are increasingly viewed as incompetent goons outside US, courting global disaster, Starmer is highly regarded on the international stage. Even more so given his patience over Trump's school playground invective directed towards him.

Contrary to promises, Reform politicians when they take control raise everyone else's taxes, whilst going to considerable lengths to avoid paying taxes themselves. Could explain why, as a Tory defector, Zahawi was welcomed with open arms.

Trump's spell broken. Alienated so many former US allies. His foolishness writ large for all to see. Unable to sustain consistent policy positions from one 24-hour period to the next. Nepotism, cronyism and corruption rife in his règime. What former strategic hegemons are like when unravelling.

Starmer distancing UK from US-Israel offensive in Iran increasingly vindicated. Badenoch will rue her terrible mis-reading of geopolitical realities. As for Farage, he just trots along, however wild the stakes, even though Trump can't be bothered to spend the time of day with him any more.

A characteristic feature of fascist ideology is revelling in state violence. Reflecting on some of the statements of Trump and Hegseth in recent days, bear in mind that association.

Trump's recklessness creates yet more global economic instability, layered on top of his moveable feast on tariffs. What governing by mere whim looks like. How populists behave given public office; unleashing chaos. Deriding diplomacy, evidence and science, too, for good measure.

The Trump Administration has no idea what it is doing in this Middle East conflict, or why it is doing it, other than showing off an arsenal of weapons. Foolishly co-opted into doing Netanyahu's bidding. A Secretary of State 'for War' demonstrating all the sophistication of a street thug.

Concentration of power in one person invariably ends in strategic calamity; Putin in Ukraine, Trump in Middle East - an historical pattern repeating itself endlessly over the centuries. The US desperately needs to re-establish checks and balances on which its constitution is supposed to be based.

This is what grown-up thinking sounds like. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

So many contradictory explanations on reasons for US offensive against Iran from those involved in the Trump Administration. Utterly incoherent, despite magnitude of all the ensuing consequences, not just for the region, but globally.

Trump was always going to overreach at some point and badly miscalculate, because he thinks his gut instincts are a better guide than informed evaluation. This is what happens when bar room bravado becomes a substitute for serious foreign policy.

How wise of Starmer to avoid doing a Blair in the Middle East - something that has cast a shadow over everything else that Blair achieved ever since.

Trump talks about an 'imminent threat' from Iran, having claimed following a previous strike on the country that its nuclear installations had been 'obliterated'.

The US electorate are seeing everything from Trump that he promised would finally be brought to an end by his Presidency!

The 'Great Kemi Revival' that, somehow, never caught on! www.theguardian.com/politics/202...