James Murray says PM has approached Middle East crisis with a ‘cool head’ amid repeated criticism of UK’s position from US president
Meanwhile, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has this morning been making the case for dragging Britain into another Middle Eastern conflict.
He suggested that Britain joining the US in its war on Iran was a different situation to the Iraq war.
There are times to say no to the Americans, absolutely. We should have said no a couple of times in the last 25 years. Of course, because Saddam Hussein didn’t pose any direct threat to this country, they had to invent a threat.
I would argue in the case of Iran, since 7 October this country has fundamentally changed as a result of terrorism funded by Iran. Frankly, if this operation stops Iran getting a nuclear weapon, it would have been worth it. I believe that very, very strongly.
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© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP
© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP
© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP
Iran the only nation missing from Fifa planning summit
US and Israel began attacking Iranian targets on Saturday
Donald Trump has said he does not care whether Iran participate in this summer’s World Cup, which is being jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada. The US and Israel began attacking targets in the country on Saturday, with the conflict in the Middle East since spreading to the wider region.
US president Trump told Politico: “I really don’t care. I think Iran is a very badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes.” Iran was the only nation missing from a Fifa planning summit for World Cup participants held this week in Atlanta, deepening questions over whether the country’s team will compete on US soil this summer amid an escalating regional war.
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© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock
© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock
© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock
Amid a cost of living crisis, pricey patisserie is all the rage – and not just in London. Our reporter goes on a crawl to find out if a tart can really be worth £45
There was a time when you could get a stuffed vanilla cream slice or a neon-pink Tottenham cake for about £1 on the leafy, residential corner of Hackney, east London, where I stand today. But the branch of Percy Ingle bakery that was here for nearly 50 years is gone. In its place sits Fika, a cafe where a cinnamon bun costs £4.20 and a pistachio croissant will set you back nearly £5.
In comparison with other bakeries, however, Fika’s pastries are a bargain. At Copains, a Parisian favourite that opened its first UK branch in central London late last year, a large babka (about the same size as a supermarket chocolate twist) will set you back £12.50, while an eclair costs £11.90. In Harrods’ food hall, a stuffed, savoury croissant topped with gold leaf is £12. At Cedric Grolet, located inside the luxury Berkeley hotel, a hazelnut cookie will leave you £25 out of pocket. Yes, the age of the £10-plus pastry has arrived.
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© Photograph: Hannah Cauhépé/The Guardian
© Photograph: Hannah Cauhépé/The Guardian
© Photograph: Hannah Cauhépé/The Guardian
The future Hall of Famer’s behavior over the years has been rash and erratic. But it’s understandable given the scrutiny he finds himself under
They’re calling the posts the “KD Files”. There’s no definitive proof that Kevin Durant is the man behind the X account @gethigher77 (display name: getoffmydickerson), but if he isn’t, somebody has done a phenomenal impersonation. In various screenshots splashed across the internet, getoffmydickerson took shots at Durant’s teammates, as the player himself has done before. There was also creative and amusing trash talk, something Durant has shown a talent for. Some of it crossed the line: the account made a reprehensible joke about supplying drones (Durant invests in the company Skydio, which has provided the Israel Defense Forces with weapons) and called Durant’s teammate Jabari Smith Jr “retarded”. When asked about @gethigher77, Durant said, “I’m not here to get into Twitter nonsense” – far from a denial that he was behind it, and in the eyes of many, confirmation that he was. We’ve got people writing in-depth proofs that the account is real.
Not that getoffmydickerson is Durant’s only problem. Shortly after the tweets blew up, Boardroom, which defines itself as a “sports, media, and entertainment brand” co-founded by Durant and his agent Rich Kleiman, laid off three of its staff writers, rationalizing the move as part of a pivot to video. (An aside: what’s the point of having career earnings of half a billion dollars if you’re not willing to invest some of it to protect your media company from financial headwinds?)
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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The MLS champions face a familiar conundrum: lend credence to a warmongering administration, or sit out and draw heat
Donald Trump was not at the White House when the military he commands began bombing Iran over the weekend. He was at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Florida, following the action from a makeshift situation room apparently built from those curtains that you can wheel away. That’s also where he was when American forces kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife a few weeks earlier.
On Thursday, however, Trump will be at the White House for the really important business – namely, receiving Inter Miami as winners of the 2025 MLS Cup.
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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
US-Israeli onslaught may lead regime to push for bomb or embolden other groups to steal uranium stockpile
The US-Israeli onslaught against Iran is intended to resolve a 24-year standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme, but it runs the risk of backfiring and driving the regime towards making a secret bomb, proliferation experts have warned.
The regime in Tehran has long insisted that the programme is for civilian purposes and it has no intention of making a nuclear weapon. However, since two undeclared sites, for uranium enrichment and heavy water plutonium production, were discovered in 2002, the programme has been treated with intense suspicion.
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© Photograph: Maxar Technologies Handout/EPA
© Photograph: Maxar Technologies Handout/EPA
© Photograph: Maxar Technologies Handout/EPA
Pregnant women prisoners are being handcuffed to prison officers – often male – during intimate vaginal examinations and long, agonising births. Will this dehumanising treatment be stopped?
The worst moment of Joanna’s labour was an internal examination. She was handcuffed with her legs splayed apart and a male prison officer at the foot of the hospital bed saw everything. She had prepared for the arrival of her first baby as carefully as she could. But she understood that birth can be unpredictable – and this was complicated by the fact that, during the latter part of her pregnancy, she was serving a jail sentence.
Joanna was a model prisoner who followed the rules. She had been convicted for a non-violent drugs offence and was not deemed to be at high risk of escape, particularly not in the throes of an agonising labour. She hoped to use hypnobirthing, breathing and relaxation techniques to make the birth calmer and more comfortable. Thanks to information provided by the charity Birth Companions she knew it was her right not to be handcuffed during labour. She had highlighted the handcuffing points in the booklet.
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© Composite: Guardian Design; globalmoments;Thianchai Sitthikongsak;Diy13/Getty Images
© Composite: Guardian Design; globalmoments;Thianchai Sitthikongsak;Diy13/Getty Images
© Composite: Guardian Design; globalmoments;Thianchai Sitthikongsak;Diy13/Getty Images
Anthony Vaccarello marks decade at helm of fashion house with powered-up take on Yves Saint Laurent’s classic
The most famous suit in the world, Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking, has returned to the Paris catwalk 60 years after its invention.
Designed by the late couturier to be worn by men in smoking rooms to protect clothing from the smell of cigars, he adapted it for women, slimming the trousers and lapels. It wasn’t a runaway success – only one sold from his 1966 collection – but it became a global symbol of power dressing and gender dismantling, and would appear in every collection until Saint Laurent retired in 2002.
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© Photograph: Stéphane Cardinale/Corbis/Getty Images
© Photograph: Stéphane Cardinale/Corbis/Getty Images
© Photograph: Stéphane Cardinale/Corbis/Getty Images
Forget cleavage. A deep V plunging to the waist is the current style – as seen on Gwyneth Paltrow and many others this year. Why is it suddenly so popular?
Good news for anyone looking to portion off their skin in new and creative ways: we have entered the era of the “veavage”. This new term for a deep, V-shaped cleavage plumbed new depths this weekend at the SAG awards. As seen on (deep breath) Kristen Bell, Jenna Ortega, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Paulson, Odessa A’zion and Lauren Miller, this neck-to-navel style appeared on wafer-thin tops and second-skin dresses. In a red carpet first, veavage somehow outweighed cleavage 2:1. Other recent veavage-flaunters about town include Zendaya, Emma Stone, Elle Fanning and Erin Doherty. Think the boyband JLS meets Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction, by way of a couture gown cut with exacting technical rigour.
The talking point is not the clothes, though. It’s what they leave behind, which is the boobs. Or at least the bit where the boobs usually are. Because the great thing about this trend is that you don’t need boobs to do it. In fact, it’s better without. Or a bra. Nipple tape, which is worn to stop nipples sticking out in frigid temperatures, is probably useful but otherwise you could see it as a cost-saving exercise – a way of using up less fabric. Right?
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© Photograph: MBBImages/Shutterstock
© Photograph: MBBImages/Shutterstock
© Photograph: MBBImages/Shutterstock
Danica De La Rey Jones’s elite fighter is targeted in a film that would be more exciting if its padded runtime was trimmed down
Here is an action-thriller that opens with some zesty Call of Duty-style military violence unfolding in Angola in 2013. A crack unit believe themselves to be in pursuit of poachers who kill protected animals for profit, but these baddies turn out to be all that and more: they kidnap children, burying them underground in coffins with a wifi connection so that they can broadcast live footage of the kids to their parents when they demand ransom money. In short, they’re not very nice people. Elite fighter Jessica (Danica De La Rey Jones) handily wrecks their operation and now, more than a decade later, they’re after revenge.
The revenge takes the form of hunting this resourceful single mother, whom they have finally located despite a change of identity, through the bushland of South Africa, with a motley crew of villains all loosely connected to the enterprise she took down back in the day. Their leader is a relentless sadist called Lazar, who is written as a fairly one-note character – and that note is simply, “he’s evil” – but full credit to actor Richard Lukunku for finding a way to smash that one note over and over again in a manner that’s actually pretty effective in a blunt-force trauma kind of way.
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© Photograph: Signature Entertainment
© Photograph: Signature Entertainment
© Photograph: Signature Entertainment
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