Starmer refuses to apologise to Rosie Duffield over transphobia row

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to apologise to MP Rosie Duffield over historic disagreements on trans issues, instead accusing Kemi Badenoch of using the topic as a “political football”.

Ms Duffield, who now sits as an independent after quitting the Labour Party, has been accused of transphobia for her push to protect single-sex spaces and has previously claimed the prime minister has “a problem with women”.

At Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), the Tory leader and the prime minister took swipes at each other over last week’s Supreme Court judgement on biological sex, with Mrs Badenoch accusing Sir Keir of “hounding [Ms Duffield] out of the Labour Party”.

The judgment, which states that the definition of a woman in equality law is based on biological sex, means trans women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can be excluded from single-sex spaces.

Asked by the Tory leader whether he would apologise to the MP for Canterbury, Sir Keir said: “I always approach this on the basis that we should treat everyone with dignity and respect, whatever their different views, and I will continue to do so”.

He added: “When we lose sight of that approach and make it a political football, as happened in the past, we end up with the spectacle of a decent man – and he was a decent man – the previous prime minister diminishing himself at this dispatch box by making trans jokes whilst the mother of murdered trans teenager watched from the public gallery just up there.

“That will never be my approach. My approach will be to support the ruling to protect single-sex spaces and treat everybody with dignity and respect, and I believe there’s a consensus in this house and the country for that approach.”

Rishi Sunak faced criticism last year for making a joke about Sir Keir’s position on trans issues at PMQs while the mother of murdered trans teenager Brianna Ghey was watching from the House of Commons gallery.

Mrs Badenoch has launched a series of political attacks on the prime minister in the days since the ruling, accusing Sir Keir of “hiding behind” the judgement.

Wednesday’s heated PMQs back and forth came a day after Sir Keir said he no longer believes trans women are women in the wake of the ruling.

The prime minister has since said the government’s approach is to “protect single sex spaces based on biological sex” and “ensure that trans people are treated with respect and… dignity in their everyday lives”.

“I do think this is the time now to lower the temperature, to move forward and to conduct this debate with the care and compassion that it deserves”, he added.

However, Sir Keir has been accused of putting trans people at risk after his spokesperson confirmed the PM believes trans women should use male toilets, while trans men should use female bathrooms.

Jess Barnard, a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) told The Independent on Wednesday that Sir Keir should be held “personally responsible” if trans women are assaulted in male bathrooms.

The prime minister is either going to “put trans people in dangerous situations where they are vulnerable or force them out of society”, she warned. “Both of which are an appalling state for us to be in.”

And last week, transgender campaigner Jaxon Feeley warned that single-sex spaces for women will become more dangerous, not safer, after the Supreme Court ruling.

The campaigner, who transitioned from female to male while serving as a prison officer in the UK, said: “If I walk into a [women’s] toilet now and say: ‘Well, I was assigned female at birth’, people are not going to be happy about that. I feel like people are going to be quite intimidated by that.

“It not only obviously puts [biological women] in a difficult situation, but it also allows any [cisgender] man to walk into any so-called official single-sex space now and say, ‘Well, I was assigned female at birth.’ How are you policing that? You can’t police that.”

Harvey Weinstein returns to New York courtroom to face sex crime allegations

Disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein is set to return to a New York courtroom today as a jury will hear opening arguments in the rape and sexual assault retrial.

A female-majority jury will decide the outcome of the retrial at Manhattan criminal court after prosecutors and Weinstein’s lawyers finished jury selection Tuesday.

Weinstein is being tried again after New York’s highest court last year overturned his 2020 conviction and 23-year prison sentence in a major blow to the #MeToo movement.

The Court of Appeals found that his trial had been tainted by improper rulings and prejudicial testimony.

State prosecutors brought new sex crimes charges against Weinstein in September, this time charging him with first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape based on accusations from a former TV production assistant, Miriam Haley, and aspiring actress, Jessica Mann.

The 73-year-old has pleaded not guilty.

Weinstein was granted a minor legal victory last week when a judge ruled he could spend the remainder of his retrial in a hospital rather than Rikers Island due to his extensive health issues.

Judge Curtis Farber agreed and said “to not do so could lead to exacerbation of and further serious medical conditions, and possibly death.”

From Tate McRae to Addison Rae, why does Gen Z love vapid pop music?

After dabbling in melodramatic bedroom-pop, Tate McRae steers straight into the early-2000s lane with her latest single “Sports Car”. It was a time when hip-hop met glossy pop and everything sparkled (including the diamanté flip phones). From the opening stuttering beat, it’s a love letter to an era of Tamagotchis, Juicy Couture, and mainstream club tracks you could really dance to.

But with whispered vocals layered over revving motor sounds, the pop star conveys an ode to lust without pushing the boundaries like fellow pop princesses Britney and Christina did, respectively, with songs like “I’m a Slave 4 U” and “Dirrty”. “Sports Car” has no intention of being dirty or bold; it is meant to be a bit of beige fun.

Fans and critics alike drew immediate comparisons with The Pussycat Dolls, and “Sports Car” mashups with “Buttons”, the group’s sultry 2006 single, complete with glossy beats, began surfacing online. “Nasty pop girls are so back and I’m so here for it,” one fan wrote under McRae’s music video, which features her performing at a peep show.

Once dismissed as shallow, the slick, bass-heavy pop of the 2000s is now being re-evaluated, especially by Gen Z. Where critics once decried “Buttons” as “style over substance” and dismissed its parent album PCD as vapid, today’s listeners hear something else: simple escapism.

And maybe that’s the point. Gen Z – those born from the late 1990s through to the early 2010s – are reclaiming music once labelled as “guilty pleasure” and ditching the guilt. Artists like Hilary Duff, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Heidi Montag, who once embodied the height of the tacky manufactured pop star, are now celebrated as icons of a nostalgic sound and aesthetic that feels oddly comforting in 2025.

McRae is part of a new cohort of Gen Z artists reworking Y2K influences into something fresh. “It makes sense,” says pop critic Michael Cragg, “that kids who loved those acts have grown into artists themselves and are now referencing them. ‘Sports Car’ sounds so much like ‘Buttons’ that it’s clearly not accidental.”

Cragg points to a broader shift in critical thinking: “The mid-to-late 2000s saw the emergence of ‘poptimism’, which was about viewing pop music with the same critical eye as was afforded to rock. A new generation of writers, who’d grown up on the pure pop of the late Nineties, were starting to view things differently to the older generation.”

According to streaming data from Deezer, 75 per cent of Addison Rae’s listeners – and 69 per cent of Tate McRae’s – are aged between 26 and 35, suggesting that older Gen-Zers and younger millennials are drawn to music that echoes their tween years. But intriguingly, many Gen Z fans weren’t even around for 00s pop. This is where anemoia comes in: a term that means nostalgia for a time you didn’t live through. “Gen Z can build an emotional connection to the past through digital archives and internet culture,” says existential psychotherapist Eloise Skinner.

It was only a matter of time before Gen Z gravitated towards superficial pop, because our world today is “extremely referential”, offering “archive-level access to pretty much anything in any industry all the time”, says Anna Pompilio, a cultural strategist at the brand design agency Marks, who is on the cusp between Gen Z and millennial.

“Pair that access with recent tendencies to churn and burn through ‘micro-trends’ and you create a whirlpool that’s pretty easy to drown in. When we’re inundated with so much, nostalgia begins to feel like something we can wrap our arms around.”

Even McRae herself has leaned into comparisons with Britney Spears, calling them “flattering and scary”. Pompilio argues that many emerging stars, like McRae and Addison Rae, don’t aim to be “the first” – they want to be “the next”, paying tribute to a long lineage of pop archetypes. Rae’s “Diet Pepsi” and “Aquamarine” thrive on a “lexicon of references”.

But when does homage become lazy? James Kirkham, branding expert and founder of the consultancy firm Iconic, warns that endless recycling of past aesthetics – what theorist Mark Fisher dubbed “hauntology” – can dilute originality. Especially when artists face the daunting task of releasing music in an environment where a staggering 100,000 new tracks hit Spotify daily.

“Today’s Y2K revival isn’t just referencing the 2000s,” he says. “It’s referencing a TikTok interpretation of the 2000s – already twice removed from the source. We’re entering an era where nostalgia feeds on nostalgia, creating a Russian doll of references increasingly distanced from their source material.”

Of course, nostalgia loops are nothing new. Cultural sociologist Dr Richard Courtney notes that a 20-year nostalgia cycle has long existed. By 2003 – the year that Tate McRae was born – young people were fascinated with the futuristic synthesisers and cheesiness of songs from the 1980s.

Having grown up in that decade, Courtney remembers seeing a sudden surge in appreciation for music that was not considered “cutting edge”, but instead basic pop: tunes like “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive, or anything by Spandau Ballet. This shift in perception was thanks to older millennials. “Nostalgia is where we’re constantly walking into the future with our backs turned towards it, looking at the past,” he says.

But streaming’s new democratisation of taste has further blurred the lines between “real” and “manufactured” music. “There’s less embarrassment about what you like,” says Pompilio. “Young listeners today can enjoy Depeche Mode and The Pussycat Dolls side by side.”

Kirkham agrees: Gen Z care more about “vibe” than traditional ideas of artistry. They weren’t part of the discourse that tried to label The Pussycat Dolls as empowering or exploitative. Instead, they experience it all through a post-irony lens, where sincerity and superficiality can coexist.

This sense of freedom makes the bubblegum pop of the 2000s feel almost revolutionary. In a world of crisis and discourse overload, its simplicity is a form of release. “The straightforward hedonism of a Pussycat Dolls track feels almost revolutionary now,” Kirkham says.

For emerging girl group Sweet Love – whose 1.3 million TikTok followers enjoy their upbeat, Y2K-infused sound – fun is the point. “Creating something catchy and memorable is an art,” they say. “If it’s about getting ready with your girls to go out, we’re all for it.”

Even ironic detachment has become part of the charm. Hilary Duff’s “With Love” choreography – once panned for its blankness – is now adored for being exactly that: so unserious it’s iconic. TikTok trends, including revivals of songs like Heidi Montag’s “I’ll Do It”, have pushed nostalgia into charitable territory: following the destruction of Montag’s home in the LA fires, fans bought her album Superficial en masse, pushing it to No 54 in the Billboard 200.

Maeve from Leeds pop duo Lucky Iris grew up loving The Pussycat Dolls, thanks to the Pop Princess CD she owned, as well as Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift. She sees this era of pop as playful and lighthearted above all else. “Heidi Montag making a comeback is incredible,” she says. “It’s that crossover of reality TV and pop. She knows how people see her, and she’s leaned in – and we love it.”

In times of uncertainty – whether it’s down to economic stress, climate anxiety, or political unrest – the appetite for lighthearted, maximalist music increases. The result is known as “recession pop”, a term born during the late 2000s financial crisis, when Lady Gaga urged us to “Just Dance”. Today, as inflation bites, the housing crisis continues, and Donald Trump introduces new tariffs, “Abracadabra” is casting spells on the dancefloor, while fans scroll TikTok for ever-more-nothingy throwbacks.

For many fans, last summer marked a new golden age of pop-girl supremacy. The recognition of Charli XCX with brat, the stratospheric rise of Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan’s breakthrough all coincided with a newfound love for Y2K pop icons. “Gen Z and millennials are revisiting this music because it reminds them of a time that felt simpler,” says 23-year-old Tate McRae fan Ciara Allen.

Unsigned pop artist Amelie Jat, who released her debut album for the plot in 2023, is savvy to this Gen Z trend. She’s now pivoting from “sad girl songs with metaphors” to what she calls “nonchalant pop”: carefree, girly, and fun. “People want escapism,” she says. “This kind of pop wasn’t appreciated before because it wasn’t seen as deep.”

To older ears, these charting tracks might sound tired – or even AI-generated. But to Gen Z, they are thrillingly empty. And, as Jat puts it, it works because “our generation constantly feels the need to discover new and exciting things”.

O’Sullivan defeats Carter in grudge match at World Championship

The greatest snooker player of all time, Ronnie O’Sullivan, returned to action on Wednesday afternoon as he stormed through the conclusion of his first-round clash with long-time foe Ali Carter at the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

O’Sullivan made plenty of mistakes during his first session since January, having taken time out from the sport to prioritise his mental health and wellbeing. But his opponent gifted up plenty of opportunities and the Rocket took a 5-4 overnight in their tight first-round battle. O’Sullivan then rattled off five frames in a row on Wednesday to run out a 10-4 winner.

O’Sullivan has pulled out of several events at short notice over the past 12 months, including the Masters at Alexandra Palace and admits he has been scared to go near a snooker table during his absence, while fearing he has “lost his bottle”.

He is currently level with Stephen Hendry for the most world titles won at the Crucible, with seven, and although he has played down expectations of securing a record-breaking eight this year, he does have form – having opted to miss the whole of the 2013 season before rocking up in Sheffield and winning the world title that year.

Follow all the action from the first-round encounter between O’Sullivan and Carter from the Crucible with our blog below:

Can Badenoch’s new policy idea save her from local election disaster?

Kemi Badenoch is facing a difficult set of local elections, with Nigel Farage threatening, as the prime minister put it in the Commons today, to “eat the Tory party for breakfast”, and Robert Jenrick, whom she defeated for the leadership last year, making his availability to replace her all too obvious.

Yet she declares that she will take her time to get her Conservative Party’s policies right and won’t be hurried on the detail. Critics say there’s a policy vacuum; she says she’s an engineer who insists on a plan to underpin every policy, and that there is plenty of time to get things right.

Some wonder how long she has got left to do so…

Yes indeed, and it’s a typically “Kemi” signature one, focusing yet again on a “culture wars” issue. Even as the stock markets crash, the dollar slides and the IMF slashes the UK’s growth forecasts, Badenoch wants to end the recording of non-crime hate incidents by police forces in England and Wales, except in a few cases. She says they cause the police to waste time “chasing ideology and grievance instead of justice”.

The government says that the move “would prevent the police monitoring serious antisemitism and other racist incidents”. The previous government, in which Badenoch served, in any case introduced guidelines to prevent trivial and non-intentional incidents from being included. Badenoch says the guidelines are ignored, “so it’s time to get rid of them completely”.

Not much. It’s a central government matter, and there aren’t even any police and crime commissioner elections happening on 1 May. It suggests an obsession with the culture wars stuff, which might be fine if Farage wasn’t better at it.

Badenoch is spinning as hard as she can in an effort to manage expectations, saying that these elections will be “very difficult”. She has a point. These elections are mostly in the English counties, traditionally fertile land for the Conservatives. They were last fought in 2021, during the successful Covid vaccine rollout, when Boris Johnson was at the height of his popularity and no one was interested in what the new and relatively obscure leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, had to say about anything.

The Tories won two-thirds of the seats, which is unrepeatable. Opinion polls suggest they will fall far short. Badenoch’s failure to capitalise on the government’s unpopularity is worrying her followers. She’s likely to lead her party to a humiliating result, winning a lower share of the vote than Reform UK.

The results will inevitably be bad and, in the aftermath, there’ll be renewed speculation about Badenoch’s leadership. Starmer tried to encourage it at Prime Minister’s Questions, gesturing at Conservative MPs and saying: “Nobody believes, none of them, that she’s going to lead them into the next election.”

Starmer made a great deal out of Jenrick’s absence from the chamber as he quoted the leaked recording in which the shadow justice secretary told students last month that he was determined to unite the right and “to bring this coalition together”. According to the prime minister, this meant that Jenrick and Farage would “cook up their joint manifesto”, involving “NHS charging, a pro-Russia foreign policy and an end to workers’ rights”.

It’s pretty obvious that Jenrick hasn’t lost his ambition, and he’s been unusually active and successful for a Tory backbencher. He has claimed credit for the government’s U-turns on “two-tier” sentencing guidelines, and now the planned publication of crime and nationality “league tables”. He is more hardline on immigration and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights than Badenoch, and he has been ranging far off his justice portfolio on social media.

While he is on manoeuvres, others who were disappointed last time round – James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat – might also like another run.

The chances are that it will be too difficult, and bloody, to oust Badenoch this time, and that to do so would stir an even more uncomfortable debate about the Conservatives’ relationship with Reform UK. However, the Tories’ chief engineer will need to start churning out the blueprints for victory soon.

What smart investors need to know about changing status symbols

“It’s not a bag, it’s a Birkin.”

In 2001, Sex and the City introduced us to the Hermès Birkin, with character Samantha Jones being told there was a five year waiting list for would-be buyers. The fashion set’s favourite accessory went mainstream.

The Birkin continues to sell well over 20 years later, both new and second hand. Resale values have reportedly risen faster than gold. The Birkin has helped Hermès to outperform in what has been a torrid time for luxury brands.

But how long can that appeal sustain?

Do you know what apps your child uses in school? You should…

The UK government’s recent £45m investment in school connectivity is a laudable step toward digital transformation. But while we race to install routers and upgrade broadband, we’re still missing the crucial piece of the puzzle: what students actually do online once they’re connected.

A delivery system is only as powerful as the content it delivers. And when it comes to education, content is king.

In 2019, the Department for Education (DfE) launched the Early Years Apps Pilot, a pioneering initiative to accredit high-quality educational apps. It was quietly shelved as classrooms reopened post-Covid, but its purpose is more urgent now than ever. Today, with nearly half of UK families still digitally excluded in some way – lacking broadband, devices, or essential digital skills – we need a clear national standard to ensure educational apps are safe, effective, and aligned with the curriculum.

During the pandemic, digital learning tools were not just useful – they were essential. Yet not all tools were equal. Evidence from the Behavioural Insights Team shows that thoughtful EdTech design can dramatically improve outcomes. On the HegartyMaths platform, usage of help tools more than doubled and accuracy improved significantly. Other trials saw online course completion rates boosted by between 15 and 32 per cent through simple behavioural prompts and study planning support.

Schools and teachers are under immense pressure. Apps can help – not by replacing teachers, but by empowering them. They personalise learning, identify children needing support earlier, and free up time for real teaching. They’re also powerful tools for homework and out-of-school engagement.

But without guidance, schools are left to fend for themselves in a crowded digital marketplace. An app store is not an accreditation system. We need a rigorous national framework – one that supports both teachers and developers.

The digital divide remains stubbornly wide. A 2024 study by the University of Liverpool and Good Things Foundation found that 45 per cent of UK families lack essential digital access. During school closures, children eligible for free school meals were twice as likely to do less than an hour of learning per day, according to UCL research. The kids who would benefit most from high-quality EdTech are the ones most at risk of being left behind.

This is where a national standard could be transformative. As CEO of Mrs Wordsmith, a UK-based EdTech company focused on literacy, I’ve seen how evidence-based, game-driven content can ignite a love of reading. Our tools are rigorously tested and built around curriculum outcomes. But not all companies work to these standards – nor should they be expected to without oversight.

This isn’t about nostalgia for lockdown learning. It’s about realising the missed opportunity: by failing to build on the success of the apps pilot, successive governments have left children, parents, and teachers to navigate a Wild West of digital content. And as secretary of state Bridget Phillipson focuses on digital, we risk delivering gigabit internet to schools where children are still playing games that teach them nothing.

If you’re a parent, that should make you angry. But you can make your voice heard. The government must introduce a seventh digital standard: one for content. Let’s move from “connection over content” to “connection with content” because infrastructure is meaningless without the tools to use it wisely.

It is easy, just restart the programme from 2019! The DfE is currently consulting on this very issue and inviting educators, developers, parents, and stakeholders to contribute their perspectives on digital standards. This is a rare opportunity to push for the revival and expansion of the 2019 Early Years Apps Pilot into a full national framework for educational content. The estimated 5,000 to 7,000 UK schools already using these DfE-endorsed apps are especially encouraged to contribute their experiences.

A formal DfE accreditation process would go a long way in extending the benefits of these tools to schools that lack the internal capacity or funding to conduct their evaluation – ensuring that access to high-quality apps isn’t just a privilege for well-resourced institutions. Together, let’s ensure the future of UK education is not just wired for speed – but powered by purpose.

It’s official – Donald Trump is bad for the world economy

Though covered by a thin veneer of nuanced “econospeak”, the message of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) could not be clearer: Donald Trump is bad for the world economy and will make America poorer, not wealthier – now, tomorrow and far into the future.

The assessment of the IMF’s economists – who are listened to intently by investors, even if not President Trump – is damning. The downgrade in the growth forecasts for the United States this year alone amounts to almost 1 per cent of GDP – a loss of some $200bn, of which about half is a direct result of the tariffs announced on and after the ironically named “Liberation Day” on 2 April. Mr Trump was at least wise to postpone his foolish initiative by one day.

The losses to output and the negative effects on the living standards of Americans will continue to accumulate well into the long term. Rather than “trillions” of dollars flowing into the US Treasury, the impact of tariffs will be negative virtually everywhere on the planet. Trade wars have no winners and countless losers. As Mr Trump said, no other president has ever done anything like this before – but it’s not in a good way.

At least some of the rest of the collapse in world growth prospects also derives from the chaos and confusion that Mr Trump has brought to economic policy-making. For a time, it looked as if trade between the US and China would virtually cease. That panicked markets, so, for a change, the usual roles were reversed.

The latest example of Mr Trump’s expensive forays into economic policy is his description of the chair of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, as “a loser”. The president has not only taken the unprecedented step of threatening to sack Mr Powell, but also of declaring his intention to be rid of the world’s leading central banker as soon as possible.

Mature economies do not do such things. It would be unlawful, which doesn’t seem to trouble Mr Trump, and it has deeply unsettled financial markets – and that should concern every American and every government in the world.

It is already the case that Mr Trump has wiped trillions off the value of equity and bond markets around the world. He seems to sense that he already needs to blame someone, apart from perfidious foreigners, for the continuing disaster – which is why he’s urged Mr Powell to cut interest rates.

In a typically unnuanced social media post, the president warned: “There can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW.” Unfortunately for Mr Trump, even he hasn’t the power to bully or fool the world’s investors, and the effect of a series of his impetuous, ill-considered statements has been to crash equities, bonds and the dollar – a particularly alarming combination, given that investors normally flee to US Treasury bonds in times of stress.

This time, it’s America that’s becoming a more risky place to keep one’s money; gold, German government bonds and the Swiss franc have been the choice beneficiaries of this crisis of confidence in Mr Trump’s administration.

It’s poignant to recall Mr Trump’s social media post just before polling day: “If Kamala wins, you are 3 days away from the start of a 1929-style economic depression. If I win, you are 3 days away from the best jobs, the biggest paychecks, and the brightest economic future the world has ever seen.” The markets have, so far, had their worst April since 1932.

The “Trump Slump” may not be far off. While the IMF doesn’t expect a recession in America this year, it has raised the probability of two successive quarters of contraction from 25 per cent to 37 per cent – much too high for comfort. Inflation, including those groceries Mr Trump pays so much attention to, will also increase. So much for making America great again.

Not the least of America’s concerned allies is the United Kingdom. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is in Washington to hear for herself the IMF’s gloomy prognosis for the British economy. Inevitably, given that Britain is a major holder of dollar-denominated assets and a leading investor in the US – our second-largest trading partner – when America catches a cold, the British tend to get pneumonia.

The downgrade for British growth next year is thus substantial – down to 1.4 per cent, with inflation peaking at the highest rate in the major G7 economies later this year. The hit to British GDP and tax revenues will only add to the pressures Ms Reeves faces as she attempts to put the public finances on a sustainable footing, and that is inevitably bad news for public services.

Much of this reversal in British fortunes is because of the choices the Trump administration has made in its economic policy – and, even worse, the uncertainty surrounding how long any of its policies will survive before another presidential whim throws everything in the air again.

All the more reason, then, that when Ms Reeves meets her American counterpart, Scott Bessent, she will need to press the case for that most elusive of Brexit benefits – the fabled US-UK free trade agreement. In reality, such is the present febrile geopolitical environment and the immensely complex nature of a full trade treaty (as well as the resistance of entrenched vested interests in Congress), that the deal will be less ambitious.

Nonetheless, a relaxation of the recent hikes in tariffs, a harmonisation of digital and biotech taxation and regulation, mutual recognition of professional qualifications and other measures could provide a welcome boost to the UK’s greatly denuded growth prospects. Britain will be required to make some hard choices and, as in all such trade deals, there will be winners and losers.

But the UK needs to rebuild its economy and return it to sustainable growth. In the long run, in principle, linking with what, even now, remains the world’s most dynamic economy carries enormous potential. If the Starmer administration manages to pull that off, conclude the long-awaited deal with India, and, crucially, achieves the overdue Brexit “reset”, then it might start to dream about Britain breaking out of its economic stagnation.

Grim as the IMF forecasts are, things can get better.