Why Starmer must stand up to Trump at crucial G7 summit

There may not be enough maple syrup in Canada to sugar coat any diplomatic misstep by Keir Starmer as he joins arguably the most important international summit of his premiership so far.

The last time the word “Canada” passed the prime minister’s lips on a trip to North America, it caused a diplomatic storm with one ally even as he was carefully trying to get another one on side.

This weekend, the prime minister joins fellow leaders from the world’s biggest economies – including Donald Trump – for the G7 summit in Alberta.

While the leaders, hosted by recently reelected Canadian PM Mark Carney, will discuss a number of issues, top of the real agenda will be the hot topics of US tariffs, the war in Ukraine and now the combustible situation in the Middle East with Israel’s America-backed attacks on Iran.

Starmer – with his soft approach to dealing with Trump – will be hoping that he can stay on course to get the trade deal the two announced to great fanfare over the line.

The UK prime minister will also be trying to edge Trump towards a tougher approach to Ukraine and avoid him ditching the Aukus submarine agreement with the US, UK and Australia.

All this requires a careful balance of egos – particularly that of the man from the White House. Trump is at his first summit since being ousted from office in 2020.

But the added picante to this summit is the overhang of a diplomatic incident Sir Keir inadvertently caused the last time he was asked about the status of Canada in the presence of President Trump.

Back in March, at the White House press conference, the prime minister was pressed by The Independent’s White House correspondent, Andrew Feinberg, on Trump’s (ongoing) plans to turn Canada into the 51st state.

Just hours after Sir Keir had handed Trump an invitation from the King for a state visit to the UK in the Oval Office, it seemed only fair to ask about the status of another part of Charles III’s sovereign realms on the US border.

The prime minister, desperate to be Trump’s best pal, at the time, tried to laugh it off.

He said: “Look, we had a really good discussion, a productive discussion… you mentioned Canada, I think you are trying to find a divide between us that doesn’t exist, we are the closest of nations. We didn’t discuss Canada.”

To say the failure to stand up for Canadian sovereignty did not go down well in the Commonwealth country is an understatement.

Among a series of angry and disobliging quotes was one from retired Canadian ambassador Artur Wilczynski.

He noted: “Starmer’s refusal to come to Canada’s defence in front of Trump is more than disappointing. Canadians died for the UK by the tens of thousands. He could have opened his bloody mouth to speak up for us.”

But the incident – likely to come up as an issue again with Trump next week – highlighted the near-impossible situation he has in dealing with the US President.

Waving off the problems of the UK’s Canadian cousins was perhaps a price worth paying if it meant goint from Obama’s “back of the queue” for a trade deal to the front of the line for Trump.

Unfortunately, even though it was announced to great fanfare, the trade deal with the US still has not come into effect.

Just on Thursday, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds was telling journalists in Parliament’s Press Gallery lunch about his frantic calls to keep the negotiations moving.

Worse still, the zero tariffs that Sir Keir thought he had won on steel could soon turn into 50 per cent tariffs if issues are not resolved soon after Trump increased his levies.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is showing outright hostility to the UK for arguably doing the right thing in sanctioning extremists in the Israeli government.

Surrounded by other allies including the EU, Germany and France, Sir Keir will need to carefully balance his approach, especially if Trump gets tetchy again.

For those of us who have been around a bit, we all remember the last time Trump arrived for a G7 summit in Canada in 2018 and the utter chaos it unleashed.

Sir Keir could do well to call former prime minister, Baroness Theresa May, for advice on how to handle it, because this G7 is a case of deja vu.

Trump infamously arrived late but was persuaded to sign a communique of the event hosted by the then-Canadian PM Justin Trudeau after he was surrounded by fellow leaders led by the then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In the process, the US president managed to insult the then-Japanese prime minister, the late Shinzo Abe, suggesting he would send 25 million Mexicans to Japan to teach him about migration issues.

Things only got worse when he left early to fly to Singapore to meet North Korean despot Kim Jong Un.

A fed-up Mr Trudeau said of Trump: “Canadians are polite and reasonable but we will also not be pushed around.”

Trump’s ego was hurt and his swift rebuke was to accuse Trudeau of acting “meek and mild” during meetings, only to attack the US at a news conference, and order his team to unsign the communique he had agreed to support in response.

When she was asked by The Independent’s Kate Devlin (then of the Sunday Express) in the subsequent press conference about whether Brits would be pushed around, Baroness May characteristically suggested Brits were “strong and stable” – a phrase which provided the epitaph for her tumultuous premiership.

She was, though, at a time somewhat traumatised by her Brexit negotiations with the EU and the political upheaval it caused in the UK.

The lessons of the present and the past should act as a warning for Sir Keir to prepare for complete disarray and to expect anything.

But, given recent criticism of his leadership style, he may want to be less robotic in his responses than Baroness May and might want to avoid selling out Canada again.

He’s fighting to clear his name for murder he says he didn’t commit. But star witness still hasn’t been contacted

It has been almost 18 months since Jason Moore submitted vital new evidence to the miscarriage of justice watchdog in a bid to overturn his murder conviction – but he is still no closer to freedom.

The only witness to the crime had revealed he was drunk and was not sure if he identified the right man in an astonishing admission which Moore hopes could finally clear his name after 12 years in prison for a crime he insists he did not commit.

But in nearly a year and a half the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which has just been put under “urgent review” by the justice secretary, has failed to even speak to the witness.

Frustrated at the lack of action, the Revd Dr Joanne Grenfell, Bishop of Stepney, stepped in to help. When she tried to contact Abdul Ahmed, who in 2023 revealed his doubts to an investigative journalist, she found him at home after simply knocking on his front door twice, The Independent can reveal.

The bishop said the failure to carry out the most basic enquiries leaves her “seriously concerned about the ability of the CCRC to do justice for anyone” as Moore languishes in prison.

“It wasn’t that difficult, I went in the morning and he was there,” said Bishop Joanne, who is backing Moore’s campaign for freedom.

“It’s quite incredible that no one has been persistent in doing that. He clearly lives there and has lived there for quite a while.”

She said the CCRC’s efforts to contact Mr Ahmed were “not good enough” as she hit out at the review body, which has come under sustained fire for its handling of other cases, including that of Andrew Malkinson who spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

Last week, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood installed former victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird as interim chair and ordered her to carry out an urgent review of the body, whose chief executive Karen Kneller has admitted she only goes to the office “maybe one or two days every couple of months or so” while drawing an £130,000 taxpayer funded salary.

MPs last month called for her step down after she was accused of misleading the justice committee as they quizzed her over the CCRC’s handling of Mr Malkinson’s wrongful conviction.

An investigation led by Chris Henley KC found he could have been exonerated 10 years earlier if not for serious failings by the review board.

He said it was “absolutely shocking” that investigators had failed to establish contact with Mr Ahmed in 18 months since Moore’s application, adding: “Nobody should have to have to wait that amount of time.”

He told The Independent the CCRC needs “energetic, focussed and rigorous leadership” to properly investigate alleged miscarriages of justice.

“Every day when there’s a lethargic approach – and there was lots of this in Mr Malkinson’s case – is a day someone is losing from their life and that has to be at the forefront of the work of the CCRC,” he told The Independent.

In a message from HMP Oakwood in Wolverhampton, Moore accused the CCRC’s leaders of treating “people’s lives like they are toys”, adding: “To keep people in prison when you have evidence that exonerates them is a form of evil that needs to be squashed.”

His sister Kirstie described the CCRC as “shambolic” as she hit out at a string of excuses from the commissioner who is supposed to be examining his case.

“My brother’s freedom hinges on the independence and diligence of the CCRC,” she told The Independent.

“They are our last hope when justice fails. Yet 18 months have passed, and the CCRC has nothing to show—no sign of a single effort, only a relentless succession of excuses. And still, Jason is the one paying the price for their weary resignation and neglect.

“To ‘try’ means to act—and thank God for Bishop Joanne Grenfell, who did just that. She knocked twice, and her efforts brought the witness to the door.”

Moore, a former professional gambler, 53, claims he has been wrongly convicted of the 2005 stabbing of Robert Darby outside a pub in London’s east end.

A string of high-profile supporters, including Mr Darby’s brother, Bishop Joanne and cricket legend Sir Ian Botham, have backed his bid to overturn his conviction

Miscarriage of justice campaigner Lord Nicholas Monson, who has visited Moore in prison and is backing his fight, said such apathy makes it seem like the CCRC simply “doesn’t care”.

“These people are put in jobs to root out injustice and they are doing the opposite,” he added.

Chairman of the justice committee Andy Slaughter welcomed the appointment of Dame Vera to carry out a “much-needed” review of the CCRC, after the committee outlined “strong concerns about how investigations were operating” in a report last month.

A CCRC spokesperson said: “We have received an application in relation to this case and a review is underway.

“We have made repeated efforts to contact all relevant parties. These efforts will continue.

“It would be inappropriate for us to discuss the application further at this stage.”

Hairy Bikers star Dave Myers’ wife opens up about his final months

Lili Myers, the wife of the late Hairy Bikers star Dave Myers, has opened up about his cancer diagnosis and the final months of his life for the first time.

Myers, who was one part of the Hairy Bikers duo with Si King, died of cancer aged 66 last year after first being diagnosed in 2022.

Together, Myers and King made countless BBC shows together that merged their shared love of cooking and motorbikes.

Myers met his wife Lili in Romania in 2005, when the Hairy Bikers were in the country to film their debut series, The Hairy Bikers’ Cookbook.

In an excerpt from her new book, Dave and Me, published in the Mail, Lili writes about the last months of Myers’ life in 2024.

“We’d hold hands and cry, sometimes unable to move or talk, just despairing at the unfairness of it all,” she recalls. “I knew so well the depth of Dave’s pain: the desperation, the helplessness, the anger.”

Of her continuing grief, she writes: “Every time I feel the pain ease a little and my balance doesn’t seem quite so off-kilter, something comes out of nowhere to obliterate the stillness.

“A smell, a picture, something he touched, a song he loved, a feather landing at my feet. I guess I need to give it time. A lot of time. An eternity, maybe.”

Writing about the moment doctors told the couple that Myers had cancer, she says: “We didn’t eat and barely slept, both disorientated and drifting like ships without a compass.

“After a couple of days we called Si, Dave’s beloved fellow Hairy Biker, to tell him the awful news.

“And we told Dave’s oldest friend from his home town of Barrow-in-Furness, Dr Dave. Those were very hard, distressing conversations to have.”

She also recalls how “difficult” Dave found it to love himself when undergoing chemotherapy.

“As his treatment went on, Dave told me how difficult he found it to love himself when he looked in the mirror,” she writes.

“He felt reduced to being only a cancer patient, stripped of his image, identity and personality, and with a face he didn’t recognise.”

Dave and Me by Lili Myers will be published by Ebury Spotlight on 19 June.

Jim Broadbent: My life-changing trip to visit donkeys in Morocco

In the 1960s, my father, who was a sculptor, joined the group Free Painters and Sculptors where he met a brilliant woman, Nina Hosali, who co-founded animal charity Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA) with her mother Kate in 1923.

Together, Nina and Kate would travel across North Africa to understand the difficulties facing local communities and their working animals. My father was very impressed by Nina and they became great friends, leading to my own support of the charity since the early nineties.

At that time, it was very unusual for two women to travel independently across North Africa and to be actively working with communities. It’s hard to imagine now how difficult it must have been and how brave they were. I can’t imagine the struggles they must have gone through venturing out into the desert to help working animals.

My wife Anastasia and I took a trip in 2006 to see the extraordinary work being done in Morocco by SPANA, and I felt privileged, in some small way, to follow in their footsteps some 80 years later. I remember visiting one of the centres the charity continues to run, where I saw donkeys being treated and animal owners receiving advice on animal welfare. We also travelled to more remote areas, where hardworking animals were helped by mobile vet clinics. We learned how working animals are vital to families and communities, particularly in low-income countries and the importance of their welfare.

Growing up in rural Lincolnshire, I was surrounded by friends with farms. They were mostly dairy farms, with fairly large herds of milking cattle. These animals were all appreciated and well looked after in a part of the world where we’re lucky enough to have largely clement weather and where animals benefit from access to clean water, nutritious diets and proper medical care. This standard of care was for me the norm.

The circumstances facing the people and animals we met in Morocco were very different. Working animals like donkeys, mules, horses and oxen are used much more widely, for tasks such as ploughing fields, transporting goods to market and collecting water – they are a real lifeline for their communities.

Obviously, it’s much hotter in Morocco, particularly in the summer months. We saw animals pulling heavy loads in extreme heat with little rest, which can lead to health issues such as dehydration, heatstroke and fatigue. At that time, animal owners had limited access to proper harnesses and, as a result, we saw animals suffering from wounds caused by ill-fitting and makeshift equipment.

Globally, the climate crisis is now making life harder for working animals and their owners. Many countries at the sharp end of the climate crisis are already experiencing more frequent droughts and water scarcity. The situation is worse for the most vulnerable, who are less likely to have access to clean running water because of inadequate water infrastructure.

The climate crisis is affecting every corner of the globe, with Morocco among the most hard-hit regions. There, they’ve experienced six consecutive years of drought due to record temperatures caused by climate change. This has led to increased evaporation and threats to water supplies.

And it’s working animals who many communities around the world desperately rely on at times of water crisis. They play a vital yet often overlooked role helping people carry huge amounts of clean water over long distances, often in the most challenging conditions.

It’s animals that help communities endure these desperate circumstances. But, despite being so essential to survival, they’re often the last to receive the little water that’s available.

That’s why, this International Working Animal Day, SPANA is urging governments around the world to prioritise inclusive water services that meet the needs of working animals and the people who depend on them, to ensure fair and reliable access for all. Having witnessed how central these animals are to the communities they support, and the suffering they endure, I’m proud to wholeheartedly add my voice to this call.

The end of WFH teaches us an important lesson about bad bosses

Barclays has taken overflow office space in Shoreditch. HSBC, having decided to relocate from Canary Wharf to new headquarters near St Paul’s, is looking for extra room, including moving some workers back to Canary Wharf (and has told staff that their bonuses could be cut unless they’re back in the office). JPMorgan and BBVA are finding accommodating everyone a tight squeeze. And BlackRock is also struggling to fit in all its staff.

Some City firms are using a booking system, which sees those who wish to come to the office having to reserve a slot, such is the demand for desks. After three years, Citigroup has shut its Malaga outpost, billed as providing a better work-life balance for the bank’s analysts, and steered its staff to London.

What distinguishes all these financial corporations and others is that they claim to only recruit the brightest and the best. They make fortunes from advising the rest of us, along with businesses and governments, how to manage our affairs. On deals, they take command, devise strategy, issue orders and tell those involved how to behave. Yet when it comes to their own internal management, they are all over the place.

We’ve seen it before, of course – the sector is littered with numerous instances of banks and investment houses being penalised huge sums for their poor conduct or for showing a lax attitude to other people’s money. Frequently, they’ve set out on one course only to change direction, usually at a substantial cost in both money and people. Their approach to working from home (WFH) and remote working shows a herd instinct – something of which they are often guilty. If their customers did the same, these companies would be the first to complain and criticise.

This is the most stark example of the confusion that rages around hybrid working, certainly in Britain. A recent study by King’s College London found that Britain is the remote-working capital of Europe, with UK employees WFH 1.8 days a week on average – a number that is well above the global average of 1.3 days, and the highest in Europe. Globally, only Canadians average more days a week at home, WFH for 1.9 days.

Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy, associate professor of economics at King’s and lead economist at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, says: “Remote work has moved from being an emergency response to becoming a defining feature of the UK labour market.”

Dr Aksoy, who also advises the House of Lords on policy regarding the implications of remote working for productivity and labour markets, adds: “This shift is forcing businesses, policymakers and city planners to reimagine everything from office space to transport to regional growth.”

But is it? While his study may point to Britain being out in front or lagging, depending on how the figures are viewed, growing apocryphal evidence indicates something different. The City, for one, is signalling “enough”. Stockbroker Panmure Liberum, reports the Financial Times, has joined Deutsche Bank in barring staff from working at home on consecutive Mondays and Fridays. UBS has told its folk they must be in on either Mondays or Fridays or both, as one of their three mandated days in the office. Broker Peel Hunt insists on four days a week in the office, while traders at Man Group are up to five. Santander views five days as the default option.

Goldman Sachs regards WFH as an “aberration”. JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, probably the most influential banker on the planet, argues that remote working allows “bad habits to develop”.

Where the City leads, like it or not, the rest of the country, business and organisation-wise, tends to follow. Brightmine, which studies HR practices, claims that 15.1 per cent of UK companies have reduced their WFH hours.

Slowly but surely, the TWaTs – those who go in on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays – have begun to retreat. What began as a temporary solution to Covid and morphed into a trend, then a stampede, is coming to an end. Commuter numbers are edging towards their pre-pandemic levels.

There will be those who resist, and there are bound to be lingering pockets of refuseniks, but by and large, Britain will fall into line. Maybe not reaching all five days, but the number WFH will be lower than it is currently, and will no longer be an outlier.

It was predictable, and the banks for one should have seen what was likely to happen. After all, that is what they do, paying huge sums to smart graduates and deploying state-of-the-art technology to forecast the future. Seemingly no amount of qualifications from Stanford and MIT, no brilliant algorithms or AI, no “thought leadership” gleaned in sessions at Davos or elsewhere, prepared them. This, too, in spite of the refusal of the mighty Goldman and JPMorgan’s Dimon to play ball.

If they had only stopped to think, it would have been obvious. Those super-smart hires are also intensely ambitious. How you get ahead, anywhere, is by standing out, making the boss sit up and notice. It’s by showing that creative spark, which often results from being in the right spot at the right time. Convenient as they may be, the stultifying environments of Zoom or Teams, or even the sunny delights of Malaga and the Costa del Sol, are not that place.

Ours – again, like it or not – is a globally connected world where commerce and trade are concerned. Nowhere more so than in banking. Why should workers in London, or the UK, operate to a different standard from everyone else? It does not make sense.

At present, many employers are on the cusp; they are playing a balancing game. They are keen to not dissuade, and some Gen-Z and millennial employees expect to have the option to work from home. For now. But as they see those who spend more time in the office forging closer relationships with the chiefs, and winning promotions and higher salaries, it is surely a matter of when, not if, that changes.

Win a Wilderness Festival luxury package for two

Music fans can win a luxury package for two to this year’s Wilderness Festival, all courtesy of Audi.

Wilderness returns this year to the picturesque nature reserve at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, and will be headlined by rock band Supergrass, Nineties rave duo Orbital, and Brit Award-winning, Grammy-nominated indie-rock duo Wet Leg.

Completing the headliner lineup are Basement Jaxx, who are making their return to live shows for the first time in over a decade, as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of their groundbreaking album, Remedy.

The winner will receive a pair of complimentary festival tickets and boutique accommodation in a luxury cabin for two. They will also be treated to an Audi Kitchen experience and, for the ultimate luxury, your own private chauffeur to take you and your guest to the festival and return journey.

Enter the prize draw here.

Wilderness Festival is known for its eclectic music lineup, which this year includes performances from pop singer Lapsley, singer-songwriter Bess Atwell, Scottish musician Jacob Alon and DJ Craig Charles.

At The Sanctuary and Spa, guests will discover an oasis of calm, whether that means taking part in disco yoga or a workshop to explore your sensuality. Highlights include boating, massage treatments, sauna rituals, hot tubs, a wild sauna, Wim Hof method ice baths and wild swimming.

Gourmet food offerings can be found at Ben Quinn’s long table banquet in the woods, a once-in-a-lifetime experience set in the woods and lit by chandeliers. There, Quinn and his team will serve up a feast of flavour cooked right in front of you five courses of carefully curated, responsibly sourced, local and seasonal ingredients.

Elsewhere, attendees can join a number of talks, comedy sets and conversations, from Food Stories with Jay Rayner to a live recording of Jamie Laing’s podcast, Great Company.

Comedian, writer and NHS doctor Matthew Hutchinson will share a sharp and moving look at life on the frontline of British healthcare, while cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith will uncover a bold and fascinating alternative history of female friendship.

The prize draw will open for entries at 3pm (BST) on 7 May 2025 and close at 3pm BST on 17 June 2025. Only one entry per person is permitted for the Prize Draw. Terms and conditions apply.

Prince William’s friend Sunjay Kapur dies after ‘swallowing bee’

Prince William’s friend and Aureus polo team owner, Sunjay Kapur, has died after having a heart attack during a polo match.

Guards Polo Club issued a statement about Kapur’s death Friday on Instagram, noting he died “after becoming unwell when playing in a match at Smith’s Lawn” in Windsor. On Thursday, he was playing for the Sujan Indian Tigers polo team in the Cartier Trophy Semi-Finals when he fell ill.

“The Club sends its deepest condolences to his wife, Priya Sachdev, his children, the wider Kapur family and his Aureus team-mates,” the organization wrote in the caption.

His death was also confirmed by Sona Comstar, where Kapur worked as Chairman and Non-Executive Director. The automotive company noted that the 53-year-old died “of a sudden heart attack” on Thursday.

However, the heart attack was reportedly triggered by a freak accident. According to The Mirror, a bee stung Kapur in the mouth during the polo match, sending him into anaphylactic shock, before his heart stopped. He then collapsed on Smith’s Lawn, according to the outlet.

A witness told The Telegraph that before he collapsed, Kapur said: “I’ve swallowed something.”

Anaphylactic shock is a type of anaphylaxis, “a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction,” according to the Mayo Clinic. When someone goes into shock due to anaphylaxis, their “blood pressure drops suddenly and the airways narrow, blocking breathing.”

A friend of Kapur also issued a statement about the businessman’s death to Telegraph Sport, saying: “He will be greatly missed not only by his family and friends but the local community around his club as he employed so many people and made so many friends – he was fun, kind and generous.”

“He didn’t distinguish between his grooms or high net worth friends – when he had a party, everyone was invited and everyone was equal.”

In 2015, Kapur inherited Sona Comstar from his father, Dr. Surinder Kapur, who founded the company in 1987. Sona Comstar has nine factories spread across India, China, Mexico, Serbia, and the U.S., according to Forbes. The publication also noted that Sunjay Kapur had an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion.

Sona Comstar also paid tribute to Kapur in its statement, writing: “A visionary leader, Mr. Kapur played a pivotal role in shaping Sona Comstar into a global mobility technology company built on innovation, sustainability, and purpose. His passion, foresight, and relentless commitment to excellence inspired everyone who had the privilege of working with him.”

An avid polo player, Kapur was known to play with members of the British royal family, including Prince William. The team Kapur owned, Aureus Polo, also paid tribute, calling him the “life and soul” of the team.

Kapur was married to Bollywood star Karisma Kapoor from 2003 to 2016. The pair welcomed two children, Samaira, 20, and Kiaan, 14. In 2017, he married model Priya Sachdev, and they welcomed a son, Azarias, 7.

Only hours before his death, Kapur issued an emotional statement on X about the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad that killed all but one of the 242 passengers onboard.

“Terrible news of the tragic Air India crash in Ahmedabad,” he wrote on X. “My thoughts and prayers are with all the families affected. May they find strength in this difficult hour.”

The Independent has contacted a representative for Prince William and the Guards Polo Club for comment.

Transfers: Spurs want Brentford duo as Arsenal submit Gyokeres bid

The transfer window has shut after a mini opening ahead of the summer’s Club World Cup. The window will re-open on 16 June and clubs are continuing to make deals in the interim.

Liverpool are making plans for a Florian Wirtz medical after agreeing a £116.5m deal for the German superstar. The Premier League champions, who have already brought in Jeremie Frimpong, will make Wirtz their club-record signing after agreeing a deal with Bayer Leverkusen.

Manchester United, who have secured Matheus Cunha from Wolves for £62.5m, are negotiating with Brentford over Bryan Mbeumo, who would prefer a move to Old Trafford over Tottenham Hotspur even as Thomas Frank takes charges in north London – though Spurs want Mbeumo and teammate Yoane Wissa.

Arsenal hope to bring in Spanish midfielder Martin Zubimendi, and Mikel Arteta has made RB Leipzig striker, Benjamin Sesko, their No 1 target for a striker. Chelsea, meanwhile, have been rebuffed in their efforts to sign Borussia Dortmund winger Jamie Gittens.

You can sign up to DAZN to watch every Club World Cup game for free, while all the latest updates, rumours and done deals from what promises to be a chaotic transfer window will be covered in the blog below: