Plans for a third Trump term are already in motion – no matter what the law says
When Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon said “I’m a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028,” last week, it should have been a surprise, but wasn’t. “We’re working on it. … We’ll see what the definition of term limit is”, the dishevelled Bannon told NewsNation. It wasn’t the first time he had mentioned it either. The president’s adviser, who went to prison for refusing to testify before a congressional committee about the 6 January insurrection, suggested it in December. Then, he argued that Trump could circumvent the 22nd amendment, which codifies the two-term limit, because the word “consecutive” is not in the text of the document.
Trump has been making his feelings clear too. Shortly after his election victory last November, the president told congressional Republicans: “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out’.”
Then, in January, during the annual House Republican retreat in Florida, he joked with speaker Mike Johnson: “Am I allowed to run again, Mike?” In February, he asked supporters at the White House: “Should I run again? You tell me.” Offhand musings about a third term in office sound less like bluster and more like a blueprint
The safeguard of the two-term president emerged in direct response to Franklin D Roosevelt’s unprecedented four-term presidency during the Thirties and Forties. Before Roosevelt, the informal precedent set by George Washington – stepping down after two terms – had been respected by every president. Today, the 22nd amendment leaves little room for interpretation: “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
Earlier this year, Republican congressman Andy Ogles introduced a House resolution to amend it to enable a president to be elected for up to three terms. Ogles wrote: “President Trump’s decisive leadership stands in stark contrast to the chaos, suffering, and economic decline Americans have endured over the past four years.
He has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal. To that end, I am proposing an amendment to the constitution to revise the limitations imposed by the 22nd amendment on presidential terms. This amendment would allow Trump to serve three terms, ensuring that we can sustain the bold leadership our nation so desperately needs.”
However, it certainly wouldn’t surprise constitutional law professor Michele Goodwin if Trump did actively try to seek a third term by any means necessary: “There has already been a display of lawlessness in the executive orders and other actions taken by the Trump administration.”
Indeed, Goodwin, a professor from Georgetown Law, says Trump is making history for things that are anti-democratic and anti-constitutional. “For example when the president said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship, he can’t do away with it with the stroke of his pen. It’s in the American constitution. In the kidnapping of people who have green cards and then secreting them away, making history in mass deportations – these things have been wrongfully reported as if these are just people who are ‘just illegals’, but these are people who are in a legal process for refugee status or towards immigration status. So the fact that they may not have a green card does not mean that they’re not in an appropriate legal status and process.”
Birthright citizenship is protected in the 14th amendment and courts have blocked it for now. The Ronald Reagan-appointed judge issued an emergency order initially halting Trump’s executive order, saying, “I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear.”
Other legal scholars have dismissed the idea of running for a third term as impossible, but for Trump’s most ardent supporters, constitutional roadblocks have rarely been a concern. In fact, the mere suggestion that he might seek to extend his grip on power has already energised his base.
And there is little political opposition in sight. Robert Reich, who was labour secretary under president Bill Clinton and served in the Ford and Carter administrations, headlined a recent Substack post Where the HELL are the Democrats?: “It should be the Democrats’ moment,” he wrote, “Democrats are nowhere … Almost invisible. They’re squandering this opportunity.” Reich points out that some Democratic operatives are telling Democrats to “play dead”; to give the Trump administration and congressional Republicans who support him “enough rope to figuratively hang themselves”. The midterm elections aren’t until November of 2026. Keep your powder dry. “Rubbish,” says Reich. “Tens of millions of Americans believe there’s no real Democratic opposition to Trump. They feel demoralised and defeated.”
Goodwin says the Trump administration is moving in coercive ways into legal spaces. Universities have been pressured to change their curriculum (Columbia University is placing its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies departments into “academic receivership” at the insistence of the Trump administration), and this week vice president JD Vance was put in charge of “removing improper ideology” from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which comes under the Smithsonian Institute.
Whether it is a threat against law schools, or banning major law firms who have worked for his “enemies” from receiving government contracts, as of this month there are now 60 universities “under investigation” by Trump’s Department of Education “for antisemitic discrimination and harassment”.
“When people feel threatened, as some people are,” Goodwin says, “they begin making concessions – unnecessary concessions.” In the past, she says, we could rely on the unbiased, fair, judiciary to take care of things, but even successful lawsuits hold little muster with the new administration. “The difference now is there’s a certain level of defiance [on the part of the Trump administration]. And that becomes a problem.”
Law professors are fearful, she says. “There are those in the legal profession who saw in the first week of his presidency there had already been sufficient unconstitutional executive orders that caused concern that there was a crisis of democracy.” With the help of his henchman Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, Trump is also attempting to shut down agencies created by Congress, placing 4,200 staff at the US Agency for International Development on leave in February, and firing 1,600 from their job. Lawyers said Congress would be able to stop Doge but that clearly didn’t happen. “There are people afraid right now.”
The problem, she says, is “it’s much easier to destroy something than it is to build it,” Goodwin says. “A house set aflame can be decimated in no time. And it’s not just about recreating the physical structure. It’s the character. It’s remembering how people who respected each other worked together. This dismantling, the firing of people, the gutting of various institutions, may take decades in some instances to rebuild and to restore. And it will mean a commitment from our government to do so at a time when the government will be economically distressed.”
Goodwin says the US is in a “thought experiment” right now. She says Steve Bannon spoke a while back about “flooding the zone”. Bannon was talking to writer Michael Lewis in 2018 when he said “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh**.”
Goodwin reckons there’s a psychological component to this. “One analogy that comes to mind is domestic violence. In a family environment where somebody is flooding the zone with physical and mental abuse – various forms of coercion so you don’t know what to expect when that person comes home at night – it’s destabilising; you’re fearful; you’re so overwhelmed by it. But the overwhelming aspect of it works – and that’s what it’s intended to do. [What Trump is doing] is meant to destabilise people; to cause a kind of paralysis. People are so overwhelmed they lose sight of what to work on, what to do.”
While Goodwin calls the current situation “dystopic”, she believes help might come from a somewhat unlikely source – the Supreme Court. At the beginning of the month, chief justice John Roberts and justice Amy Coney Barrett, nominated by Trump during his first term, joined the liberal wing of the court in denying the administration’s efforts to freeze $2bn to pay foreign aid organisations for work they had already completed. In response, alt-right Maga activist Jack Posobiec said that Barrett was a DEI hire.
Those who had worried the Supreme Court’s lurch to the right, and its contentious ruling that presidents are immune from criminal liability for actions taken in office, would mean Trump would be given carte blanche to run roughshod over the constitution might be proved wrong. In mid-March, Roberts again defied Trump in his calls to remove a judge, in what the Associated Press called “an extraordinary display of conflict between the executive and judiciary branches”.
In a democracy under siege, the Supreme Court is the last line of defence. The question is, considering its make-up, whether it will be to the task hit after hit. Or when the time comes for a third-term run, will so much have gone up in flames that people will forget where the hosepipe is or even where to point it.
Quakers condemn Met raid as six arrested in Westminster meeting house
The Quakers in Britain group has condemned the arrests of six Youth Demand supporters by more than 30 police officers.
The arrests were the first “in living memory” to occur in a Quaker meeting house, recording clerk for the group Paul Parker said, after the officers detained the Youth Demand supporters at 7:30pm in Westminster on Thursday.
“This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest,” he said.
“Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy.”
The detainees were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, police said. Youth Demand said the meeting was held to “share plans for non-violent civil resistance actions” planned for April.
Houses were also raided during the operation on Thursday and Friday, Youth Demand added.
In a statement, Quakers in Britain said: “Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet.
“Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage and prison reform.”
Youth Demand, the self-described “youth resistance campaign fighting for an end to genocide”, began carrying out acts of civil disobedience last year.
It calls on the government to halt all trade with Israel and raise money from the “super rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay damages for the impacts of fossil fuel burning.
In April last year, the group hung a banner and laid rows of children’s shoes outside Sir Keir Starmer’s home, after which three people in their 20s were issued suspended prison sentences.
Further arrests were made last July after the group announced plans to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.
The Independent has approached the Met Police for comment.
Labour MP turns on Leadbeater’s ‘flawed’ assisted dying bill
A Labour MP who had originally intended to be an ally of Kim Leadbeater on the assisted dying legislation has claimed that the bill now has weaker safeguards than when MPs voted on it in November.
Naz Shah spoke to The Independent in the wake of the laborious and at times tetchy committee stage of the controversial bill being completed in parliament last Wednesday.
The Bradford West MP, who served on the committee scrutinising the bill, has claimed the legislation is “fundamentally flawed”.
It comes as data shows that 393 amendments were put forward by MPs who opposed the bill at second reading. Of these, 330 were rejected by the committee, 31 withdrawn before going to a vote and another 32 accepted.
Ms Leadbeater, the bill’s sponsor who gave a detailed interview to The Independent, wrote to MPs last week pointing out the changes and number of amendments accepted from both sides of the debate. In her email, she pointed out that 32 amendments from MPs were accepted and she hailed her new Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission chaired by a judge or retired judge for “strengthening” the process.
She noted that a survey taken before the vote in November saw 79 per cent of the public in favour of assisted dying.
She said: “I hope that whatever our views on the Bill itself, we share the commitment to ensuring that if it does become law, it should contain the best protections and safeguards, and this amendment helps achieve that.”
But Ms Shah has said she is “very disappointed” and “disheartened” with the direction taken after hopes they could ensure the safeguards were robust.
She revealed: “Kim [Leadbeater] is a friend and when she first told me about the bill I was happy to support it and was even willing to be a sponsor. But the more I looked at the details, the more concerns I had.”
Top among these were concerns over the way people who suffer from domestic abuse and have disabilities could potentially be coerced into ending their lives early. As someone who had suffered previously from domestic abuse in a forced marriage, these issues were important to her.
Ms Shah also made headlines during the process when she was forced to leave a session because her hearing aid batteries had run flat. An attempt to push through amendments had seen the session extended despite pleas from Ms Shah that she could not take part.
She ended up voting against the bill at second reading but went into the committee stage with a view of “wanting to make it work”.
She said: “I went into it open minded. If we could get the safeguards right then I would be happy to support it.”
But as MPs prepare for the showdown on the final stages on 25 April, Ms Shah said she feels “disheartened” about it.
She said: “I feel a bit disheartened, because I feel like I’ve put a lot of work into this, because I went in to try and make this bill better, and actually, I’ve come out, and the bill is now weaker than it was when we first went in.”
In particular she highlights Ms Leadbeater’s amendment to remove the safeguard of having a High Court judge rule on whether a request for assisted death should go ahead. This was replaced by an expert panel or Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission.
“It’s fundamentally changed everything, generally is like the court, there’s no judicial oversight. The idea that it’s a judge led now is just, it’s a story for the birds, really, because it’s not judge led.
“You’ve got a judge who’s going to be a commissioner, and there’s no oversight on that commissioner now, because you’ve taken the commissioner, you’ve taken out the oversight from the actual chief medical officers. It has actually weakened the bill.”
She had also backed attempts to toughen up the bill by ensuring eating disorders such as anorexia could not be given as reasons for assisted dying.
“I talked about a lot with the anorexia stuff, and that’s weakened. The amendment that [Kim Leadbeater] put in, in the capacity bit, that’s actually weakened the bill, not strengthened the bill.
“Then there’s the issue that children are now exposed, that doctors can have this [assisted death] conversation with children. You know, there’s fundamental flaws in the bill, and I just feel disheartened that I’ve gone in trying to help fix it and actually come out, not from my fault, but, you know, with it weakened.”
Opponents of the bill have claimed that 23 of the 32 of their amendments accepted were “tidying up measures” and not significant while just seven were meaningful.
Ms Shah said: “I mean there were no there’s no big fundamental ones.”
Parents arrested for complaining about school in WhatsApp group
A couple have criticised police after they were arrested for making complaints about their daughter’s primary school.
Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine say they were detained by six Hertfordshire police officers in front of their young daughter on 29 January after they were arrested on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications, and causing a nuisance on school property.
They told The Times they were fingerprinted and searched, before being left in a police cell for eight hours. But no further action was taken following a five-week investigation.
The couple said the arrest came after their nine-year-old daughter Sascha’s school, Cowley Hill Primary School, in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, raised objections over them sending multiple emails and raising criticisms on a parents’ WhatsApp group.
They said they had previously been blocked from entering the school after taking issue with the process for appointing a head teacher and “casting aspersions” on the chair of governors. They said this meant they were not allowed to attend Sascha’s parents’ evening, nor her Christmas performance. The said the ban also meant they couldn’t provide crucial medical information to teachers, relating to their child, who is disabled, neurodivergent, and has epilepsy.
Mr Allen, who is a producer at Times Radio, condemned Hertfordshire police for its “massive overreach” and Cowley Hill primary for attempting to “silence awkward parents”.
He said: “It was absolutely nightmarish. I couldn’t believe this was happening, that a public authority could use the police to close down a legitimate inquiry.
“We’d never used abusive or threatening language, even in private, and always followed due process. Yet we have never even been told what these communications were that were supposedly criminal, which is completely Kafkaesque.”
Cowley Hill primary told The Times that it “sought advice from the police following a high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts”.
The couple said the arrests came after Mr Allen, who had until recently been on the board of governors, had written to school governors in May 2024 wanting answers over why an open recruitment process had not been initiated after the head teacher announced his retirement half a year earlier. He said he hoped for more transparency from the school, but instead he said his questions were rebuffed.
The couple said the chair of governors then wrote to the parent body warning that the school would take action against any “inflammatory and defamatory” comments made on social media.
Mr Allen and Ms Levine expressed their shock at this in a private WhatsApp group with other parents, which they said prompted a direct warning from the chair of governors over “inflammatory and disparaging comments made on social media”.
The couple said they were then only allowed to correspond with the school over email, but the school later asked for advice from Hertfordshire police over the number of emails they were sending. The couple said they were issued with a warning and were instructed to take Sascha out of the school, which they did. They were arrested a week later.
Cowley Hill Primary School told The Times: “We sought advice from the police following a high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts from two parents, as this was becoming upsetting for staff, parents and governors. We’re always happy for parents to raise concerns, but we do ask that they do this in a suitable way, and in line with school’s published complaints procedure.”
A spokesperson for Hertfordshire Constabulary told The Independent: “Following reports of harassment and malicious communications, which are criminal offences, a man and a woman from Borehamwood, both aged in their 40s, were arrested on Wednesday 29 January.
“The arrests were necessary to fully investigate the allegations as is routine in these types of matters. Following further investigations, officers deemed that no further action should be taken due to insufficient evidence.
“In relation to the police visit on 20 December, a complaint was submitted which was reviewed by our Professional Standards Department. It was deemed that the service provided by officers was appropriate.”
Euromillions £209m winner revealed after biggest ever jackpot draw
UK Euromillons ticket holders have missed out on a record £209m jackpot as the prize was scooped by a European punter.
The competition’s biggest-ever payout was won by an Austrian participant after the winning number’s were revealed as 10, 21, 30, 42 and 45.
The Euromillions jackpot has been won a total of 19 times by Austrian winners since the launch of the competition, according to Austria’s lottery operator.
No-one won the £182 million EuroMillions jackpot on Tuesday, meaning the top prize rolled over into Friday’s draw.
The lucky winner topped the last record prize of £195m, which was claimed by an anonymous player on 19 July 2022.
Two months earlier, Joe and Jess Thwaite, from Gloucester, won a then-record-breaking £184m with a Lucky Dip ticket for the draw on 10 May 2022.
The UK’s third biggest win came after an anonymous ticket-holder scooped the £177 million jackpot in the draw on 26 November last year.
Mr Thwaite woke up early to an email telling him he had won. “I looked it up and saw we’d won. I saw how much and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to sleep,” he said.
“I didn’t want to wake Jess up so I just laid there for what seemed like forever. I spent some time searching for property with no budget limit, which was a novelty!”
Ms Thwaite was in disbelief when she heard the news, insisting either her husband had made a mistake or The National Lottery was wrong.
Trying not to get her hopes up she continued her normal morning routine until they were able to confirm the win with Camelot.
She said at the time: “The win gives us time to dream, which we haven’t had before. We’ve had one week to think about this and we now have time to share lots of experiences and go on adventures with our family and friends.
“Our two children have always talked about going to Hawaii, I’ve no idea why, but we can now make that dream come true.
“They have always wanted a horse box for our ponies rather than the run-down trailer we use. Just to see their faces when we can make these things come true will be worth every penny.”
The Barbados edit: Best experiences, from festivals to foodie feasts
There’s always something happening in beautiful, beachy Barbados, so whether you’re a carnival fan, firm foodie, or love live music, you’ll find incredible experiences to suit every passion. What’s more, travellers heading to Barbados this year can enjoy incredible discounts of up to 65 per cent on select hotels and an array of attractions and activities across the island, while indulging in the island’s vibrant culinary scene through exclusive menu offers from participating restaurants.
Here we delve into just some of the best activities, events and unmissable adventures you can enjoy on this wonderful, welcoming island.
The Crop Over festival transforms Barbados into an island-wide party with music, parades and dancing everywhere you look. More than 100,000 people take part in this annual gathering, which traditionally marks the end of the island’s sugar cane season. This year, the fun kicks off in July and the excitement peaks on the Grand Kadooment Day, featuring costumed revellers in bands, parading and dancing to great calypso songs blasting from the music trucks driving along the sizzling streets. The Crop Over festival is where Rihanna “got her style groove” according to fashion writers. You may just find yours there, too.
Read more: Best adults-only hotels in Barbados
If you’d prefer a smaller but equally fun celebration then Holetown Festival on the West Coast of Barbados is your friend. It’s a bouncy, colourful and family-friendly jamboree that celebrates the arrival of the first settlers to the island back in 1627. With a steel band concert, nightly shows, and a floodlit tattoo and night parade, the week-long event showcases the rich cultural heritage and traditions of Barbados.
Read more: Best family hotels in Barbados
The Barbados Reggae Festival is your chance to plunge yourself into the beating heart of reggae music. Renowned local and international reggae artists gather on the island in April to conjure up a rhythmic menu of reggae and dancehall. The music is only part of the fun: there are several beach parties and themed get-togethers across multiple events, including Reggae On The Hill. This year is the 20th anniversary of this festival, so the vibe is set to be better than ever.
Read more: Best beach hotels in Barbados
Culinary fans should book their trip to coincide with the vibrant Barbados Food and Rum Festival. This event has been named the Caribbean’s Best Culinary Festival at the World Culinary Awards two years running. Held annually in October, food lovers from around the globe descend to enjoy the island’s famed culinary experiences, with local and international chefs joining the eminent local mixologists to serve up fine food, drink and Bajan hospitality.
Another foodie must-experience is the Oistins Fish Festival, held annually over the Easter weekend in the pretty fishing village of Oistins, on the south coast. It celebrates the local fishing industry, with music, crafts and delicious local food. Dubbed one for the whole family, it includes an Easter bonnet competition, egg and spoon races, a fish boning competition and a hilarious contest where youngsters compete to reach the top of a greased pole.
By day, Harbour Lights on the stunning Carlisle Bay is a popular beach club, with loungers, umbrellas, and turtle and shipwreck snorkel tours, but at night, it transforms into a thrilling venue offering pulsating steel pan rhythms, stilt walkers, costumed dancers, and a live band. On Friday evenings you can party under the stars as the venue turns into an open-air nightclub.
For bar-hopping, head to St Lawrence Gap, known as ‘The Gap’ by locals. Here you can watch the sunset with a cocktail at On The Bay or Mimosas Trattoria and Bar, or head indoors for a great dining experience at Cocktail Kitchen, and finally take your pick from the late-night bars where you can party into the small hours of the morning.
Barbados lives and breathes cricket, and you can hear the sweet sound of leather on willow in villages across the island. The cream of the action is at the celebrated Kensington Oval, where you can take in an international Test Match or a One-Day match, soaking up the incredible atmosphere with music, dancing, drinking and delicious food. No one does cricket quite like the Barbadians.
For more adventurous sports fans there’s the Barbados Open Water Festival, with a variety of open water swim races that are open for all ages and abilities, as well as fun social events where the athletes and spectators can rub shoulders. It’s held in November at the Barbados Yacht Club in the tranquil, crescent-shaped Carlisle Bay. If boating is more your drift, Barbados Sailing Week in January promises incredible sailing experiences, races, beach parties and delicious Bajan food and drink. The perfect way to explore the island, cuisine and culture.
For travel information and inspiration and to discover hotel, experience and culinary offers, head to Visit Barbados
Who is fighting in Whitehall’s spending wars?
There’s no respite for Rachel Reeves after her spring statement. As well as worrying whether Donald Trump’s tariffs will blow her economic strategy off course, the chancellor must now divide up a shrinking cake among Whitehall departments before her spending review concludes in June.
The Treasury hoped this process would be more harmonious than previous reviews, but it is not, as cabinet ministers fight hard to defend their budgets. The “protected” departments, health and defence, will get a larger share of the cake, so the slightly bigger cuts announced by Reeves on Wednesday will fall disproportionately on those whose budgets have not recovered since George Osborne’s austerity.
Housing and local government is already down 46 per cent on its 2009-10 level, while culture is down 38 per cent, work and pensions 29 per cent, environment 22 per cent, transport 20 per cent, and justice 19 per cent. Despite that, the Treasury has told these departments to model cuts of 5.7 per cent and 11.2 per cent over the three-year review period.
Several ministers tried but failed to persuade the chancellor to change her fiscal rules earlier this month. She doubled down on them this week, judging that the financial markets would not tolerate higher borrowing. Reeves will be relieved that the bond market dog did not bark, but her decision makes the spending review even more difficult.
Tensions between the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions led to this week’s last-minute announcement of a £500m cut in universal credit after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) fiscal watchdog ruled that the government’s £5bn worth of welfare cuts would save only £3.4bn. OBR officials complained that the rushed, late figures had not given them enough time to work out the precise savings.
The £500m worth of cuts in injury time gave the game away: for all the talk of (admittedly needed) welfare reform, these rushed savings were really about making the chancellor’s sums add up. History suggests that hurried measures save less than expected.
Despite all the uncertainty in the global economy, Reeves replaced the vanished £9.93bn of headroom against her rules with a new figure of precisely £9.93bn. Old Whitehall hands detect a Treasury trick of keeping the headroom low to redouble the pressure on ministers to rein in spending. But it could come back to bite Reeves if her cushion disappears again by her Budget in October.
There’s also bad blood between the Treasury and the Department for Education. They blame each other for a leak suggesting that Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, was ready to end free school meals for infants and reduce spending on schools by £500m. A classic “bleeding stumps” move in the Treasury’s eyes – putting up something so gruesome it would be knocked down – as Reeves duly did on free meals.
“Complete rubbish,” replied Phillipson’s allies.
Whitehall is not a happy place. Reeves wants to save £2.2bn by reducing administration costs by 15 per cent by 2030. She has earmarked £306m for redundancy payments, and up to 50,000 jobs could go – a lot more than the 10,000 she trailed.
The chancellor promised that some savings will be switched to frontline services, but civil servants insist that such a cull will harm service delivery. Again, there’s a long history of headline-grabbing efficiency savings that do not live up to their billing.
Ministers are right to encourage underperforming officials to leave rather than be shuffled to their next Whitehall job. But their unnecessarily hostile language, like Keir Starmer’s talk of “an overcautious flabby state”, has alienated civil servants – many of whom voted Labour and, wearing their professional hat, welcomed the fresh start of a new government. “A lot of people are disillusioned; they did not expect this from Labour,” one senior official told me.
Sue Gray, Starmer’s former chief of staff and previously a Whitehall lifer, had a point when she used her maiden speech in the Lords to urge politicians to avoid phrases like “blobs”, “pen-pushers”, “axes” and “chainsaws”.
But Starmer and Reeves have a point too. There are now 513,000 civil servants – 90,000 more than at the start of the pandemic. In 2023, productivity in public services was 0.3 per cent lower than in 1997.
Reeves delayed her cuts until the later years of this parliament, and Whitehall whispers suggest she hopes some will not be needed if she secures greater economic growth. But such hints are not bankable as ministers squabble over their budgets.
Many Labour figures are alarmed that the welfare cuts will push 50,000 more children into poverty. Even though the OBR said the planned housebuilding boost could add 0.2 per cent to GDP, Labour backbenchers are starting to wonder whether Reeves will avoid a “doom loop” in which no or low growth forces more cuts or tax rises, which then further harm growth.
As one MP, a Reeves loyalist, put it: “She has put all her chips on growth. But what if we don’t get it? We’ll lose the next election.”
Stand up to Donald Trump on tariffs, prime minister
The prime minister is considering retaliation against the United States after giving up hope of avoiding tariffs due to be imposed by Donald Trump on Wednesday. Sir Keir Starmer is right to hit back, unfortunately, because that is the only language that the US president understands.
Mark Carney, the new prime minister of Canada, has demonstrated that standing up to President Trump is the way to persuade him to engage positively. On Thursday, Mr Carney – who is in the middle of an election campaign – tore into the US president, saying that the US was “no longer a reliable trading partner”, and that Canada’s old relationship with the US, “based on the deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over”.
On Friday, he was rewarded with a telephone call which Mr Trump afterwards described as “extremely productive”. Mr Carney said that, in it, the US president “respected Canada’s sovereignty”, which had not always been the case in conversations with Justin Trudeau, his predecessor, whom Mr Trump, in a mocking reference to his desire to make Canada the 51st state of the US, used to call “Governor Trudeau”.
“I’ve always loved Canada,” Mr Trump told reporters after the call – not that he loves it enough to lift the tariffs he has already imposed on the country, or to lift the threat of further tariffs to come, including those on car imports that will also be imposed on Britain on 2 April.
As our political editor reports, at the beginning of last week there had been optimism in 10 Downing Street that the United Kingdom would avoid the tariffs planned for Canada, the European Union, China and the rest of the world. There was even a hope that a very limited quick-fire trade deal might be completed before Wednesday, which Mr Trump insists on calling “Liberation Day”.
Those hopes have now evaporated, leaving the chancellor braced for the destruction of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts within a few days of their publication.
The only hope that remains is that based on the experience of Mr Trump’s first term, when the tariffs that he imposed tended to be limited and of short duration. It is not clear whether the president knows perfectly well that tariffs will raise prices for US consumers, but that those consumers, as voters, like the rhetoric of socking it to “unfair” foreign competition – or if Mr Trump genuinely believes that free trade is against America’s interest, and has in the past been talked out of doing too much harm by his advisers.
Either way, we can only hope that he retreats from a full-blown trade war this time, as he has done before. In the meantime, it makes sense to adopt a robust posture towards him, as Mr Carney has shown.
Sir Keir should make it clear that he cannot allow US firms to have low-tariff access to the British market if British firms are being shut out of America. It may have no basis in economics, but if it is the way to convince Mr Trump that the UK is not his doormat, then needs must.
The prime minister is right to stand up to Mr Trump, while at the same time continuing to pursue a special US-UK trade deal. The British position does not have to make sense: it just has to match Mr Trump’s combination of bluster and sweet talk. With any luck, the US president will feel that he has made his point with his domestic audience and can move on.