The Sunbed King stifles a yawn at Chequers while Keir twitches at the press | John Crace

It takes all sorts. Standing around under gun-metal skies watching soldiers isn’t many people’s idea of fun but world leaders are a different breed. No bit of pageantry and flattery goes unnoticed. So why not give Donald Trump the full Disney treatment he craves? After all, it wasn’t as if he was going to be allowed to stray outside the Windsor Castle compound and it was better than making the king sit indoors and watch Fox News.But if Wednesday was the softening up – “You’re great, you’re the best, the world would stop without you

John Windle obituary

My friend John Windle, who has died aged 75, three years after a diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, was a committed socialist for all his adult life and supported the successful campaign to elect Tony Benn as MP for Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in the fiercely contested byelection of 1984. John devoted much of his earlier life to supporting his local Labour party in Chesterfield and various community associations in Sheffield.Born in Chesterfield to Kathleen (nee Ashmore), a school cook, and Roy Windle, a steelworker, John attended the local grammar school and left aged 16 to work in administration at Chesterfield Tube Works, which produced weldless steel cylinders, tubes and forgings. He continued his education part-time, gaining an HNC in business studies at Chesterfield College, then a diploma in the same subject at Sheffield Polytechnic in the early 1980s, followed later by a master’s degree from the University of Hull in 1997.In 1980, John joined the management of the University of Sheffield students’ union (SUSU); in 1982 he was appointed its general manager, where he worked with six students (“sabbaticals”), who were given a year off their studies to take up paid roles within the union

UK politics: Trump suggests Starmer use army to tackle migration and says Putin ‘really let me down’ over Ukraine – as it happened

Q: [From Jack Elsom from the Sun] To Trump, have you any advice for Starmer on immigration?Trump says he has got illegal immigration into the US down to zero.This was one of the issues that made him run for president.He says he told Starmer to stop it. They could use the military, he suggests. But it does not matter how – you have to stop it

Labour must win voters’ hearts – or Reform UK will | Letters

Kirsty Major’s article on Labour’s struggle to connect with voters in traditionally “safe seat” areas highlights a wider challenge facing centrist and left parties – winning hearts as well as minds (I went home, to one of Labour’s safest seats, and it felt like a newly minted Reform constituency, 16 September). While Reform UK and other populist movements use simple, more direct and emotionally charged messaging that thrives on social media, Labour continues to rely on complex, policy-driven narratives.The sense of hope or change that animated Labour’s general election campaign quickly evaporated in the face of cuts to the winter fuel allowance and disability benefits. Meanwhile, rising inequality, stagnant wages, job insecurity and the lasting effects of successive financial and public health crises have eroded trust in parties seen as failing to deliver economic stability, growth and meaningful job creation. The labour market is also shifting rapidly, leaving many workers without the upskilling needed to adapt

Apparent Your party implosion leaves big political vacancy on the left

A repeated question for Zack Polanski since becoming Green leader has been about cooperating with Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn, and his answer has been consistent: it’s hard to know when their party doesn’t properly exist and can’t even agree on a name. Thursday’s events show such caution was merited.It seems increasingly likely that Your party, as it was tentatively known, will not survive as originally billed, a joint enterprise between Corbyn, the former Labour leader, and Sultana, the leftwing Coventry MP, both of whom sit in the Commons as independents.Creating a new party is always difficult, particularly under the UK’s first-past-the-post system. Even Nigel Farage, one of the most naturally gifted politicians the country has produced in recent history, took 30 years and three parties to even get into parliament

Taxpayers lose £400m as result of investment fund set up by Rishi Sunak

UK taxpayers have lost £400m following the collapse of hundreds of startups backed by a heavily criticised Covid-era investment fund launched by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor.The Future Fund spent £1.14bn backing 1,190 companies, some of them of types not usually associated with government portfolios such as the sex party organiser Killing Kittens and the now defunct festival tickets business Pollen.The fund also invested nearly £2m in companies linked to Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty.The Department for Business and Trade’s latest annual report shows that 334 companies backed by the Future Fund have since gone under, costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds