How much longer is the world expected to endure the consequences of Donald Trump’s war with Iran? This is no longer simply an American domestic issue. The economic consequences are being felt across the world. Energy prices have risen sharply, vital shipping routes have been disrupted, businesses face higher costs and renewed inflationary pressure threatens households and economies far beyond the United States. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the war had already cost the United States $38 billion by August, with the cost projected to rise by around $3 billion every month. The disruption to Gulf oil supplies is having consequences for the entire global economy. Donald Trump campaigned as a president who would bring wars to an end. During his 2024 campaign he repeatedly spoke of “no more wars”, and after winning the election he declared: “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.” Yet it was the United States and Israel that launched the strikes against Iran which began the present conflict. Nearly seven months later, the conflict continues. On 15 September, the House of Representatives voted 220 to 204 for a War Powers resolution seeking to halt US military operations in Iran without congressional authorisation, with every Democrat and seven Republicans supporting it. The Trump administration, meanwhile, maintains that its actions are necessary to protect American personnel and interests and to counter the threat posed by Iran. Whatever one's politics, the consequences do not stop at America's borders. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most important energy arteries, and disruption there feeds directly into oil prices, transport costs, inflation and ultimately the prices paid by ordinary people thousands of miles away. Brent crude has again moved above $100 a barrel, while the International Energy Agency warns that continued disruption in the Gulf is placing increasing strain on global energy supplies. Who governs the United States is, quite rightly, a decision for the American people. But those decisions have consequences for the rest of us. America remains a remarkable country and an enormously important ally, but its foreign policy decisions can affect economic stability, international trade and the security of countries across the world. The rest of the world therefore has every right to question the consequences of this war, its continuing escalation and, above all, how and when it is supposed to end. bbc.co.uk/news/live/cq804g52…

I completely reject the way the BBC has framed this argument, and particularly the suggestion that the triple lock is somehow becoming unsustainable because pensioners’ living standards have improved more quickly than those of working people. That is an extraordinarily narrow way of looking at what has actually happened. There is a rather important part of this story that is being conveniently overlooked. Successive Conservative governments froze the personal tax allowance, and the present Labour Government has continued that policy. The consequence for pensioners is particularly stark. Their State Pension rises, as it should, yet the amount they are permitted to receive before paying income tax remains frozen. They are therefore being steadily dragged into the tax system through fiscal drag, with an increasing proportion of their pension becoming taxable. Indeed, we are now reaching the absurd position where the full new State Pension itself is likely to exceed the personal tax allowance. The Government will increase the pension under the triple lock and then, because it refuses to raise the tax threshold, begin taking part of that increase back in taxation. If we are going to talk about a “ratchet effect”, perhaps that is the ratchet effect we ought to be discussing. Nor are these payments some unexpected act of generosity bestowed upon pensioners by the state. These are people who have worked and paid National Insurance contributions throughout their lives on the understanding that, when they reached retirement, the State Pension would form part of their income. For millions of people, that was part of the social contract between the individual and the state. We should also remember how that contract has already changed. When many of today’s pensioners began their working lives, the State Pension age was 65 for men and 60 for women. Those ages have since been increased. People have already been required to work longer and wait longer before receiving the pension towards which they spent decades contributing. Against that background, to portray a State Pension of around £250 a week as evidence that pensioners are somehow becoming too prosperous is frankly absurd. Nobody could seriously describe that sum, from which people must meet the ordinary costs of living, as an extravagant retirement income. The triple lock was introduced for a reason. The value of the British State Pension had been allowed to fall behind earnings over many years, while pensioner poverty became a serious national problem. It was designed to prevent that happening again and to ensure that pensioners shared, at least to some reasonable extent, in the rising prosperity of the country rather than being progressively left behind. So the question should not be whether Britain can afford to honour the triple lock. The more pertinent question is why governments believe it acceptable to increase the State Pension while deliberately freezing the tax threshold until that pension itself becomes taxable. After a lifetime of work and contributions, pensioners are not asking for charity. They are asking for the settlement they spent their working lives paying towards to be honoured. That distinction matters.

Watching Louise Haigh deliver this statement, I was struck by one thing above all else: we have heard virtually all of it before. Perhaps that should come as no surprise. Haigh was one of the leading figures in the political coup that ultimately brought down Keir Starmer and propelled Andy Burnham into Downing Street. Listening to her now, it is becoming increasingly apparent that much of the language, political positioning and populist appeal that characterised Burnham’s campaign was not merely electoral rhetoric. It appears to be the governing philosophy of the new administration, with Haigh very much at its heart. Much of what she says about the problems facing this country is perfectly true. That is precisely why the absence of substance is so frustrating. Identifying what is wrong with Britain is not difficult. Articulating public dissatisfaction is not difficult. Producing grand phrases about returning power to communities, putting people back in control and rewiring the state is not difficult either. The difficult part is governing. Where are the figures? Where are the firm commitments? Where are the timescales? Where are the measurable objectives against which this Government expects to be judged? How, precisely, will these promises be delivered and, perhaps most importantly of all, how will they be paid for? These are not unreasonable questions. They are the most elementary questions that any Government making promises of this magnitude should be capable of answering. There is also something rather disingenuous about presenting much of this as though it represents some revolutionary departure from what went before. A considerable amount of what Haigh described was already being pursued by the previous Government under Keir Starmer. Taking an existing direction of travel, clothing it in more populist language and presenting it with greater political theatre does not make it a new philosophy of government. Burnham and Haigh are no longer insurgents. They are no longer campaigning against the establishment, nor are they plotting a change of leadership from the sidelines. They succeeded. They now occupy Downing Street and possess all the authority and machinery of government that comes with it. With that victory comes responsibility. The time for simply telling people what they want to hear has passed. It is no longer sufficient to declare that Westminster has failed, that the system is broken or that everything is about to change. Government requires rather more than identifying grievances and promising something better. Tell us precisely what you are going to do. Tell us how you are going to do it. Tell us when it will be done. Tell us what it will cost. Then give Parliament and the British public clear measures by which your success or failure can be judged. After Burnham’s performance at PMQs and now this statement from Haigh, a rather troubling pattern is beginning to emerge: an abundance of rhetoric, an abundance of populism and an alarming shortage of detail. Campaigns can be won with slogans. Countries cannot be governed by them.

Mr Streeting, you might exercise a little more caution before rushing to provide political cover for John Healey. Let us not forget your own conduct during the collapse of Sir Keir Starmer's premiership. You too chose to challenge the leadership publicly, positioning yourself during a period of extraordinary instability within your own Government. That political calculation did not ultimately produce the outcome you might have anticipated. And now you ask us to have “no doubt” about John Healey's commitment to defence. There is every reason to ask questions. Healey resigned as Defence Secretary because he argued that defence spending was so inadequate that he could no longer remain in Government. He is now Chancellor, yet you are defending him by pointing us towards funding at a future Budget and targets to be determined at a future Spending Review. If it was sufficiently urgent to resign over then, why can it wait now? Both of you were senior members of the Government during the political destruction of Sir Keir Starmer's authority. The British public are perfectly entitled to examine what was said then against what is being done now. The honeymoon is over. Parliament is back. Perhaps rather less reassurance from one another and rather more explanation to the British public would now be appropriate.

I am not entirely persuaded by this increasingly fashionable narrative that Keir Starmer simply “got government wrong”. What some now portray as weakness or a failure of leadership, I regarded rather differently. Starmer was a cautious, methodical Prime Minister who understood that repairing the country after years of political and economic instability was going to be a step by step process, not something achieved through grand announcements, political theatre or promises that could never realistically be delivered. Indeed, there is something contradictory about Yvette Cooper's criticism. Starmer's approach of “bring me solutions, not problems” was not necessarily evidence of a Prime Minister detached from government. It could equally be seen as a Prime Minister empowering his Secretaries of State to run their departments and expecting some of the most senior politicians in the country to do the jobs for which they had been appointed. Cooper was Home Secretary. She had the Home Office, the Civil Service and the authority of one of the great offices of state behind her. Surely a Prime Minister was entitled to expect his Home Secretary to bring forward solutions rather than simply arrive at No. 10 with another collection of problems. Nor should we conveniently forget that Starmer subsequently entrusted Cooper with another of the most important offices in government, moving her to Foreign Affairs at an extraordinarily difficult moment internationally. She was hardly being cast aside. She was being trusted with Britain's relationships abroad during a period dominated by Donald Trump, Gaza, Iran and profound instability across the Middle East. That is why I find Cooper's sudden conversion to the virtues of Andy Burnham rather difficult to swallow. She was hardly known historically as one of Burnham's great political supporters, yet she appears to have discovered remarkably quickly that his style of leadership is everything Starmer's supposedly was not. Perhaps Burnham is more collegiate. Perhaps he enjoys discussing the problems before deciding upon the solution. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. But neither does it automatically make him a better Prime Minister. There is an important difference between political style and effective government. Burnham may speak with greater emotion and promise a more inclusive conversation, but eventually every Prime Minister encounters the same uncomfortable realities: money has to be found, policies have to work, departments have to deliver and difficult decisions have to be taken. Starmer's great political failing may ultimately have been that caution and methodical government are considerably harder to sell than populism. He rarely promised instant solutions because he understood that there weren't any. That may not have produced the excitement some wanted, but it does not follow that the approach itself was wrong. And perhaps those who served at the very heart of his government, benefited from the considerable authority he gave them and accepted promotion to some of the highest offices in the land should exercise a little caution themselves before retrospectively explaining everything he supposedly did wrong. It is remarkably easy to discover the virtues of the new Prime Minister when he is the person now determining your political future.

I've rarely heard such a misguided argument. The Labour Party is built on democratic principles. It is not simply a parliamentary club run by MPs. Its members have always played a central role in choosing the Party's leader. To argue that the Parliamentary Labour Party alone should decide who leads the Labour Party is to abandon one of the Party's fundamental democratic principles. If that's the future you want for Labour, then perhaps you've forgotten what the Party is supposed to stand for.

Yet you chose not to trust the views of the grassroots or the wider Labour Party membership. Instead, the decision rested solely with the Parliamentary Labour Party. The PLP has put itself in this position and must therefore accept the consequences. If the Party is not united, it should come as no surprise. Around 400 Labour MPs do not, by themselves, represent the Labour Party. The Party is made up of hundreds of thousands of members whose voices deserve to be heard, particularly when it comes to choosing their leader. This Prime Minister has not been elected by Labour MPs, nor by the Labour Party membership, nor by the British electorate in a general election.

The suggestion that creating a "Number 10 North" somehow transforms the way government operates is difficult to sustain. Ministers have always been able to meet regional mayors, local authorities and business leaders wherever they choose. They can travel, hold meetings across the country, or, as in this case, even meet virtually. None of that requires a second "Number 10". The constitutional centre of the United Kingdom remains Downing Street in London. Cabinet decisions, the Civil Service, Parliament and the principal departments of state are centred there. Establishing a branded office elsewhere does not relocate those institutions or alter how decisions are made. If the objective is to listen to regional leaders of the whole country, that has always been possible without creating a new political symbol. If the objective is to devolve powers, that is achieved through legislation, funding settlements and the transfer of statutory authority, not by putting a "Number 10" sign on another building. Holding meetings in Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Exeter, Bristol, Canterbury, Brighton or anywhere else is entirely sensible if it improves engagement. But presenting that as a fundamental change in how government works risks confusing symbolism with substance. The effectiveness of government depends on the powers delegated, the resources provided and the quality of decision-making, not on the postcode of the meeting room.

I find Angela Rayner's comments entirely unconvincing. The suggestion of creating another Number 10 elsewhere in the United Kingdom is, in practical terms, little more than a political gimmick. The seat of government is, and should remain, at Number 10 Downing Street. No Prime Minister, nor indeed the Monarch, would routinely conduct the affairs of state from Manchester. For reasons of security, logistics and the concentration of government departments, London will inevitably remain the centre of government. If the objective is genuinely to spread investment and decision making across the country, a far more sensible approach would be to establish satellite government offices in regions that have suffered long term industrial decline. Places such as Newcastle and parts of Yorkshire would benefit far more from sustained government investment and the relocation of departments than Manchester. Those areas have endured decades of economic change and would gain much more from improved infrastructure, skilled employment and a lasting government presence.