The president has opened fissures in his base by starting a war he couldn’t finish with Iran, stoking inflation and offending Christians. Barred from running again, he may feel he has nothing to lose

Lance Johnson voted for Donald Trump three times. Now he is feeling buyer’s remorse. “I haven’t been too happy with the third time around,” said the 47-year-old contractor, sitting at a bar in Crescent Springs, Kentucky. “We’re supposed to not start any new wars. Prices were supposed to come down. We were promised a lot of things and we’re not getting them.”

Johnson is not the only Trump voter having doubts about a US president who, after defying political gravity for a decade, finally seems to be crashing back to earth. The past two weeks have arguably been the most bruising of Trump’s two terms in office, suggesting that his tried and trusted playbook could finally be falling apart.

It starts with a ‘back in my day’ nostalgic meme – then suddenly your elders are sharing AI-generated ‘boomerslop’ and repeating conspiracy theories …

Graham doesn’t remember his mother ever sharing her political views. He’s not certain she even voted until she met his father, who was a big Labour supporter. She went along with that, only once voting Tory as an act of spite towards the end of their relationship. She later married a farmer who was more conservative, and leaned towards leave in the Brexit referendum. “But, honestly, beyond that, she would never even speak of politics. She just wasn’t interested.”

Graham, who works in the transport industry in the Midlands, noticed a big change in his mother during the Covid pandemic. “I remember walking home from work one day and I got this phone call and all of a sudden she was listing off these conspiracy theories at me.” He now realises how much time she was spending online, on her phone and iPad, cut off from friends, family and the church life that had always been so important to her.

Supporters and club insiders look back at the Sky Blues’ journey, from the depths of text-a-sub ridicule and fan mutinies to promotion

To understand the extraordinarily wild ride that Coventry have been on, culminating in the promotion achieved at Blackburn on Friday night, you need only look at the text-a-substitute idea that has become part of football folklore.

In less than a decade, the club were relegated from the top flight for the first time after 34 years, lost their stadium and came within half an hour of extinction before being bought by a Mayfair-based hedge fund in 2007. The story goes that, as a way to generate extra revenue, fans would be able to text substitution suggestions to a premium-rate number during a match. It is frequently recalled in local and national newspapers. Fans are still asked about it today.

Rebecca (left), 26, a stage manager, meets Sophie, 28, a standup comedian

What were you hoping for?
Great conversation, since I’ve had way too many dates where I’ve borne the weight of the chat.

Some of today’s far right is openly violent and undemocratic – and even in its less extreme forms, far-right populism is a profound threat. But that doesn’t mean it is just a re-run of history

Politics, before it is about anything else, is about emotion. We all base our judgments about the world – the state of the country we live in, for instance, and what we’d like to do about it – on a mix of rational calculation and instinct. But for these judgments to be shaped into a political programme whose ideals are shared by millions of people, and for us to place our trust in leaders who promise to realise those goals, we really have to feel it. What, then, might be the particular set of feelings evoked by the following?

“The Britain that I love is being ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion.”
Suella Braverman, former home secretary, February 2026

Transplanted from YouTube, this nostalgic, low-budget revival offers some welcome musical performances – but the chat is superficial

The biggest chatshow news of 2026 so far has been Claudia Winkleman’s foray into celebrity chin-wagging, not least because there was something slightly hubristic about the beloved Traitors host taking on the genre. Not because of any shortcomings on Winkleman’s part, but because chatshows seem almost impossible to get right (especially for female hosts; the UK TV landscape is littered with single-series attempts by Nigella, Davina and Lily Allen).

As the country was watching Winkleman, however, another veteran broadcaster was debuting their own new(ish) chatshow to far less fanfare – and far less pressure. In February, Chris Evans began putting out episodes of TFI: Unplugged on YouTube. Produced by Virgin Radio – where Evans has hosted the breakfast show for the past seven years – this was a lo-fi endeavour that saw the presenter joined by a handful of guests in a poky studio lined by dressed-down staff members professionally obliged to laugh and whoop. Still, the guests were good (Danny Dyer, Chris Hemsworth, Bono, Noah Wyle) and the show quickly built a decent audience – so much so that Channel 4 considered it worth its while to acquire a run of six episodes that have just begun airing at 11pm on Fridays. Will this revival of the 1990s juggernaut turn out to be the real chatshow story of the year?

As revelations mount and accusations fly, prime minister prepares for MPs’ anger and Olly Robbins’ testimony early next week

• UK politics live: latest news updates

Keir Starmer’s claim he was “staggered” not to have been told of Peter Mandelson’s vetting failure has provoked incredulity across Westminster and accusations that he sacked a senior civil servant to save his premiership.

Senior government figures said the prime minister faced “judgment day” next week when Olly Robbins, who is understood to be furious at being forced to quit the Foreign Office, is expected to appear before a powerful committee of MPs.

Inquiries into who knew what, and when, will be pored over in coming weeks and could ultimately decide Starmer’s fate

When the Guardian revealed that Peter Mandelson had failed his vetting checks before being appointed as British ambassador to Washington, members of Keir Starmer’s cabinet, who were scattered around the world on government business, were caught by the same element of surprise.

In Washington for the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had just come out of a meeting with the Ukrainian finance minister when she was told the breaking news.

Almost all officials working in Foreign Office HQ undergo process before gaining access to top secret material

• UK politics live: latest news updates

After Keir Starmer announced Peter Mandelson as his pick to be ambassador to the US in December 2024, officials in the Foreign Office contacted him to organise the security vetting clearance process.

As with almost all of the 8,000 officials working in the Foreign Office’s Whitehall headquarters, Mandelson required a level of clearance known as developed vetting(DV). This is necessary for individuals in roles that require frequent and uncontrolled access to material marked top secret.

Iran says passage through waterway will depend on Iranian authorisation and accuses Donald Trump of multiple falsehoods

• Iran says strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ to commercial vessels as oil prices fall

Separate to the Pakistani army chief’s trip to Iran (see post at 07:53), the Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and foreign minister Ishaq Dar also concluded a trip to the Middle East after visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey for talks.

“We have just concluded the last leg of our engagements following productive and fruitful visits … where we held meaningful bilateral discussions aimed at strengthening cooperation across key areas,” Dar said on X.