Trump voices frustration as Putin call ends in ‘no progress at all’

US president Donald Trump has said his latest “pretty long [phone] call” with Russian president Vladimir Putin trying to end the war in Ukraine resulted in “no progress at all” as fighting continued with several overnight drone strikes.

“I didn’t make any progress with him at all,” Mr Trump told reporters in brief comments at an air base outside Washington yesterday.

The US president also issued his first comments on the US decision to halt some weapon shipments for Ukraine. He defended the move, blaming his predecessor Joe Biden for sending too many weapons.

“We’re giving weapons, but we’ve given so many weapons. But we are giving weapons. And we’re working with them and trying to help them, but we haven’t… You know, Biden emptied out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves,” Mr Trump said.

The US has blocked a number of planned shipments to Ukraine that included Patriot air defence missiles and precision-guided artillery, warning that its own domestic stockpiles were running low, but said that “robust” options for Kyiv were still available.

Oasis and the unlikely story of Supersonic: The making of a smash-hit

Speculation is currently rife about which songs might be played when the Oasis reunion kicks off this Friday in Cardiff. People are making fake videos of soundchecks that are being reported as actual news. “I’ve been in my pool all day doing underwater farts,” Liam Gallagher replied to a fan enquiry on X this week about the legitimacy of one viral clip.

Even “Wonderwall” was dropped from the setlist for a time in the early noughties. But one thing is for certain: their debut single is making the cut. “Supersonic” remains one of their most enduring songs, as loved by both Gallagher brothers as it is by their ever-expanding audience. (The Gen Z end of that audience are infatuated with a live version from Chicago in 1998, which features an elongated Noel Gallagher intro.)

Spontaneity has always played a huge part in Oasis, and never more so than when they first entered a studio to record the song that ended up being “Supersonic”. Everything went wrong… until suddenly it didn’t. Extracted from A Sound So Very Loud: The Inside Story of Every Song Oasis Recorded, below is one of the best ever tales surrounding a band who are not exactly short on good tales.

For a damp little island in the north Atlantic, Britain has an enviable history of culture-defining debut singles recorded by photogenic groups of disaffected youths. “Anarchy in the UK”. “Relax”. “I Can’t Explain”. “Hand in Glove”. “Transmission”. “Virginia Plain”. “Gangsters”. “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” was pretty good, too, and as for “Hong Kong Garden”… The list goes on.

Has any debut single ever, though, so accurately predicted the entire decades-long career of an artist quite like the opening 50 seconds of Oasis’s “Supersonic”?

A rudimentary drumbeat. Fingers slide dramatically down the neck of a guitar. A riff circles menacingly twice around the block, then twice more, before a second guitar rhythmically joins forces with it and kicks through the door. We’re in. A voice: true like a vow, hard as a diamond. “I need to be myself”. And why is that? “I can’t be no one else.” Ain’t that the truth, as it turns out. “I’m feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic.” No more moping, no more navel-gazing. ‘“You can have it all, but how much do you want it?” Small time is over. We’re shooting for the moon. “You make me laugh…”

Now that’s a promise. Give me your autograph, Liam Gallagher, the funniest rock star who’s ever been adored, pawed, mimicked, fancied by millions around the world. Just an average lad from Burnage who grew up playing conkers, the lot, not listening to music, not being remotely interested in singing songs or hearing tunes before a hooded-up lad from another school bopped him on the head with a small hammer on the streets of south Manchester, outside St Mark’s Secondary, aged 15.

“I was having a cig when someone came running down saying some lad from another school has slapped a girl,” Liam told me. “We come out, four of us, about 15 of them. Bit of a dust-up. I see one coming towards me with a hood up. As I go in for a bit of a ding, he’s gone, ‘F*** off’, pulled out a hammer, bopped me on the head. I woke up in hospital with my head bashed up.” Bosh. Everything changed.

“Not instantly,” Liam said, but very soon after he got out of hospital. “Until then I was just into football, smoking weed, getting into scrapes. I wasn’t into guitars at all.” Before he’d been whacked on the head with that little hammer, Liam thought “music was for weirdos”. One week before the hammer attack, he regarded “Like a Virgin” by Madonna as revolting nonsense. “It’s like when people come out of comas and start speaking Japanese or Russian. All of a sudden, I heard ‘Like a Virgin’ by Madonna and I was going, ‘That’s a f***ing tune!’ A few weeks after that, he heard The Stone Roses properly for the first time. “It was like the Bisto kid. Got a whiff of the Roses and that was that. The rest is history.”

“Somebody hammered the music into him, he’s got a lot to answer for,” reflected Noel Gallagher. “I’ve got the perfect alibi, so it’s nowt to do with me.”

What is to do with Noel is the music – the songs, usually – and that’s where we initially meet our hero, Liam Gallagher, on “Supersonic”. Maybe you saw him in the song’s video for the first time doing his soon-to-be-famous and much-copied feet-out shuffle through the puddles on a roof by King’s Cross St Pancras, followed by the closest he’ll ever come to a smile on film. “’Cos my friend said to take you home . . .”

Or maybe you were transfixed by the face, the hair, the suede coat buttoned up to the top. The eyes. “I looked like a rock star even when I was digging holes in Manchester,” Liam has said. “I was cool then. People would clock my head even when I was wearing overalls and had a f***ing shovel in my hand. Full of s*** with a pneumatic drill, I still looked cool.”

It hadn’t been long between digging holes, repairing roads in Manchester, and appearing in the “Supersonic” video – a couple of years or so. The Liam Gallagher who first sang in Bonehead’s house before they formed a band was pretty much the same Liam you meet in “Supersonic”.

“He looked like Liam’s always looked,” remembered Bonehead. “He had a great topcoat and great haircut, a great walk, a great voice. His voice was just, like, woah . . .”

Girls want to be with him, boys want to be him (apart from those who wish to bop him on the head with little hammers). But without Noel writing songs like “Supersonic” for Liam to sing, he’d just be the best-looking rock star road digger in Manchester. And where would Noel be without his little brother?

“We wouldn’t have been what we were without him, that’s for sure,” Noel admitted. “As important and as vital as those songs still are, I think the two elements that made Oasis was his thing and them songs. If it wasn’t for him, we might just have been another band. I couldn’t imagine anybody else being the singer.”

So they need each other, they believe in one another. Our introduction to the pair, however, would’ve been very different if the first official single had been the nihilistic, punky “Bring It on Down”, as suggested by Alan McGee, who’d signed them to his Creation label. “I love that song, it’s like the Pistols, like The Stooges,” says Noel.

But when they booked into Liverpool’s Pink Museum studio – owned by Andy McCluskey of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – for three days in December 1993 to record it as their debut single, they discovered they couldn’t play “Bring It on Down” well enough. “Whatever we had in the rehearsal room and on stage wasn’t translating in the studio,” remembers Noel.

Mark Coyle, who was producing alongside Noel, agreed. “We were all very inexperienced. The first day is horrible and it just gets worse and worse. The whole session starts degenerating.” Noel identified that Tony McCarroll couldn’t keep the beat consistently well enough to record it, and the mood quickly became poisonous. Noting that Noel seemed panicked by the prospect of returning from the session without a first single, Tony and Chris Griffiths suggested they try a different song.

“Noel had a riff, but that’s all,” said Coyle. Nevertheless, the band jammed around that riff for a good while, the beat an easy-paced lollop that McCarroll could comfortably nail. After a while, someone in the band complained they were hungry, so a takeaway was sent for. Noel, meanwhile, thought there was something in the jam they’d been having.

“I went in the back room,” Noel told the Supersonic filmmakers, “and, as bizarre as it sounds, wrote ‘Supersonic’ in about however long it takes six other guys to eat a Chinese meal. It was a brilliant moment in time.”

Noel returned to the main room where the band were finishing their food and told them he’d written the first single, then performed it to them. Astonished, they then all played it together in the studio, “really slow”, watching each other for the changes. They recorded and mixed “Supersonic” within eight to 11 hours of Noel writing it, depending on which eyewitness relates the tale.

“It sounded massive, absolutely massive,” says Bonehead.

Listening on a cassette in Mark Coyle’s Renault back to Manchester, Noel agreed. In fact, he thought it at least the equal to “Bring It on Down” or any of the other songs he had up his sleeve. Everyone’s playing was perfect, he noted, but what really set it apart were the layers of backing vocal “aaahs” that Tony Griffiths had added to the bridge, a hat-tip to The Beatles that elevates “Supersonic”.

He liked the lyrics, too, which he’d written in just a few moments. In times to come, when the single made its way into the world, the psychedelic declarations contained in “Supersonic” would be dismissed as nonsense, and there are elements that were just thrown on the page. Like “a girl called Elsa, she’s into Alka-Seltzer”, whose inclusion was inspired by the massive, flatulent studio Rottweiler called Elsa that Noel could not escape when writing. But within the rhymes and riddles of “Supersonic” are also declarations of intent that map out Oasis’s philosophy, attitude, and hidden biography.

“The way I write is the first few lines will form a story,” said Noel of it, “and then it gets kind of confused and muddled up. I’m not writing novels here, I’m writing pop songs. I like to think all my favourite songs are somehow about me, which is why I love them. I leave it up to others to interpret them. There’s a great deal of odd lines that have real, proper relevance to my life, to growing up, but I’m not interested in telling anyone. It’s always about the melody. There’s something magical going on there.” When the band played Alan McGee “Supersonic” through speakers at the BBC’s Maida Vale studio shortly after, he could hear that magic too. He was quite surprised it wasn’t “Bring It on Down” as agreed, though.

“Noel came in and said, ‘The recording session was rubbish, it never worked out,’” McGee told the Supersonic documentary makers, “‘but I’ve written a smash.’” Most people would’ve gone, wait a minute… but “he went f***ing mental”, recalls Noel. “He loved it.”

Victory snatched from the jaws of humiliating defeat. For how it came to be, what it represents, the sound and mood it defines, “Supersonic” remains Noel Gallagher’s favourite Oasis song. Mine, too.

A Sound So Very Loud: The Inside Story of Every Song Oasis Recorded’ by Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain is published by Pan Macmillan on 3 July (£25, hardback – ebook and audiobook also available)

Home Office ‘has no idea how many people stayed after visas expired’

The government has failed to gather basic information such as whether people leave the UK after their visas expire or how many might have stayed to work illegally, the chairman of a cross-party committee of MPs said.

The Public Accounts Committee (Pac), which examines the value for money of government projects, said the Home Office had failed to analyse exit checks since the skilled worker visa route was introduced by the Tories in 2020.

Some 1.18 million people applied to come to the UK on this route – designed to attract skilled workers in the wake of Brexit – between its launch in December of that year and the end of 2024.

Around 630,000 of those were dependents of the main visa applicant.

But the Pac said there is both a lack of knowledge around what people do when their visas expire and that the expansion of the route in 2022 to attract staff for the struggling social care sector led to the exploitation of some migrant workers.

Its report said there was “widespread evidence of workers suffering debt bondage, working excessive hours and exploitative conditions”, but added there is “no reliable data on the extent of abuses”.

It noted that the fact that a person’s right to remain in the UK is dependent on their employer under the sponsorship model means migrant workers are “vulnerable to exploitation”.

While the problems began under the previous Conservative government, the revelations will come as a major headache for Yvette Cooper, who is trying to persuade voters she can get a grip on illegal migration.

It comes just days after new figures showed that a record number of people have crossed the Channel in small boats in the first six months of this year, despite Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to “smash” the smuggling gangs.

Provisional Home Office data showed that a total of 19,982 people have arrived in the UK since the start of 2025 – the highest total for the halfway point of the year since data was first collected on migrant crossings in 2018.

Meanwhile, figures published earlier this year suggested thousands of care workers have come to the UK in recent years under sponsors whose licences were later revoked, in estimates suggesting the scale of exploitation in the system.

The Home Office said more than 470 sponsor licences in the care sector had been revoked between July 2022 and December 2024 in a crackdown on abuse and exploitation.

More than 39,000 workers were associated with those sponsors since October 2020, the department said.

In its report, published on Friday, the Pac said: “The cross-government response to tackling the exploitation of migrant workers has been insufficient and, within this, the Home Office’s response has been slow and ineffective.”

It also noted a lack of information around what happens to people when their visas expire, stating that the Home Office had said the only way it can tell if people are still in the country is to match its own data with airline passenger information.

The report said: “The Home Office has not analysed exit checks since the route was introduced and does not know what proportion of people return to their home country after their visa has expired, and how many may be working illegally in the United Kingdom.”

Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said while the former Tory government had “moved swiftly to open up the visa system to help the social care system cope during the pandemic”, the speed and volume of applications “came at a painfully high cost – to the safety of workers from the depredations of labour market abuses, and the integrity of the system from people not following the rules”.

He added: “There has long been mounting evidence of serious issues with the system, laid bare once again in our inquiry.

“And yet basic information, such as how many people on skilled worker visas have been modern slavery victims, and whether people leave the UK after their visas expire, seems to still not have been gathered by the government.”

Earlier this week legislation to end the recruitment of care workers from abroad was introduced to parliament as part of a raft of immigration reforms.

The move has sparked concerns from the adult social care sector, with the GMB union describing the decision as “potentially catastrophic” due to the reliance on migrant workers, with some 130,000 vacancies across England.

The Home Office believes there are 40,000 potential members of staff originally brought over by “rogue” providers who could work in the sector while UK staff are trained up.

Sir Geoffrey warned that unless there is “effective cross-government working, there is a risk that these changes will exacerbate challenges for the care sector”.

He said the government must “develop a deeper understanding of the role that immigration plays in sector workforce strategies, as well as how domestic workforce plans will help address skills shortages”, warning that it “no longer has the excuse of the global crisis caused by the pandemic if it operates this system on the fly, and without due care”.

Adis Sehic, policy manager at charity the Work Rights Centre, said the report “unequivocally finds that the sponsorship system is making migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation because it ties workers to employers” and that the Home Office had “simply relied on sponsors’ goodwill to comply with immigration rules”.

He added: “This report is yet more damning evidence that the principle of sponsorship, which ties migrant workers in the UK to their employer, is inherently unsafe for workers and, in our view, breaches their human rights.”

Among its recommendations, the Pac said the Home Office should work with relevant government bodies to “establish an agreed response to tackling exploitation risks and consequences” and identify what data is needed, including “how to better understand what happens to people at the end of their visa and the effectiveness of checks on sponsoring organisations”.

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.

Elon Musk urges release of Epstein files weeks after Trump accusations

Elon Musk has renewed calls to release the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files, weeks after accusing Donald Trump of being in them.

After the president reignited the pair’s rift earlier this week, the tech billionaire issued a one-word reply to MAGA activist Scott Presler on X on Thursday, who wrote: “Release the unredacted Epstein files.”

“Yes,” Musk responded, without explicitly mentioning Trump.

The demand came just hours before the House was expected to vote on the president’s showpiece tax bill, which Musk claims will push the U.S. into “debt slavery.”

Musk began calling for the release of the remaining investigative documents related to Epstein’s sex-trafficking case after his explosive fallout with Trump last month over the president’s “pork-filled” signature megabill.

After promising to release the “first phase” of declassified Epstein files on February 27, Attorney General Pam Bondi faced MAGA backlash when the documents turned out to contain information already publicly available.

The Tesla CEO claimed, without evidence, that the “real reason” the documents remained sealed was that the president was somehow connected to the disgraced financier’s crimes.

“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk tweeted on June 5. “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

He followed up shortly after: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”

While Trump and Epstein were friends for decades before their fall-out in the early 2000s, the president has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse.

About six days later, Musk said he regretted some of the posts about Trump, claiming they “went too far.”

On Monday, Trump rekindled his feud with Musk, threatening to unleash the Department of Government Efficiency – the government slashing force Musk once ran – against him and warning he may have to “go back to South Africa.”

The veiled threat was in response to Musk escalating his anti-Republican rhetoric and his scathing criticism of the president’s “big, beautiful bill,” which House Republicans are hoping to send to Trump’s desk by their Independence Day deadline.

“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump said.

“No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”

The current version of the president’s bill could make electric vehicle ownership more expensive by eliminating consumer tax credits for new EVs.

Trump said earlier this week that the Biden administration’s EV mandate is “ridiculous,” adding: “Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one.”

Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill star Michael Madsen dies aged 67

Prolific actor Michael Madsen, known for starring in numerous Quentin Tarantino movies, has died. He was 67.

Madsen, whose career spanned more than 40 years, died Thursday morning from a cardiac arrest, his manager, Ron Smith, said.

According to TMZ, authorities found the Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs actor unresponsive at his Malibu home. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

A representative for the actor told the tabloid that over the last two years, Madsen had “been doing some incredible work with independent film, including upcoming feature films Resurrection Road, Concessions and Cookbook for Southern Housewives, and was really looking forward to this next chapter in his life.”

His team additionally said that he was preparing to release a new book titled Tears For My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems.

The Independent has contacted Madsen’s representatives for further comment.

Madsen was born September 25, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois, to Elaine, a filmmaker and author, and Calvin, a World War II Navy veteran and firefighter. His two sisters, Virginia and Cheryl, are also actors. In fact, the former is best known for her Oscar-nominated role in Alexander Payne’s 2004 romcom Sideways.

During his decades-long career, Madsen amassed more than 70 film and TV credits. His breakthrough came in Tarantino’s directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs, in which he starred as the sadistic criminal Mr. Blonde, who tortured a policeman by slicing off his ear.

That marked the beginning of a long and storied collaboration between Madsen and Tarantino, despite pushback from now-disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

“Harvey never liked me,” Madsen told The Independent in 2020. “I don’t know if he ever liked anybody, but I know for a fact he didn’t like me. He never wanted me in any of Quentin’s movies. I think I’m only in them because Quentin stood up for me every single time and said I’m going to use Michael whether you like it or not.”

Madsen went on to portray villains and anti-heroes in several of Tarantino’s other cult classics, including Kill Bill: Volumes 1 and 2 (2003–2004), The Hateful Eight (2015), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

His other notable acting credits include 1991’s Thelma & Louise, 1996’s Mulholland Falls, 1997’s Donnie Brasco, and 2005’s Sin City.

“The type of character I think I play really well is somebody who’s not perfect, who’s a little rough around the edges not out of a GQ magazine, and might have a cigarette now and then or need a shave,” he added in his interview with The Independent, “but you can bet your ass I’m gonna do the right thing. That’s the real Michael more than anything, and I just wish it was captured on film.”

He was preceded in death by his 26-year-old son, Hudson, who died by suicide in 2022. In 2024, he filed for divorce from his wife of 28 years, DeAnna Madsen, alleging that her “neglect, drinking, and alcoholism” contributed to their son’s death.

Madsen and DeAnna shared two other sons, Calvin, 27, and Luke, 18. He also had sons, Christian, 34, and Max, 30, from his previous marriage to actor Jeannine Bisignano.

How to host a Macmillan Coffee Morning like you’ve never seen before

What comes to mind when you think of a fundraising coffee morning? Soggy digestives, weak tea and sitting in a school hall having forced fun? Think again.

Macmillan Cancer Support are celebrating 35 years of the iconic Coffee Morning fundraiser, and we’re here to help you give your next Coffee Morning a glow-up. Behind the fun, Coffee Mornings help raise vital funds for people facing one of the toughest challenges of their lives.

Almost one in two people in the UK will get cancer in their lifetime, and no two experiences are the same. Where you live, who you are, or whether you have another health condition can all affect the care you receive – and that’s not fair. Macmillan is working to change that, doing whatever it takes to make sure everyone gets the best possible care, whoever and wherever they are.

So while tasty treats and fundraising fun of course get to stay, we’re leveling up the atmosphere with fresh ideas to keep everyone entertained.

Want to be a Coffee Morning Host?

Best of all, these new ways of raising vital funds don’t have to be expensive. In fact, they might even save you a bit of time, wardrobe space and money. Here’s how to host a Macmillan Coffee Morning like you’ve never seen before…

Organise a ‘style swap shop’

Clear out your wardrobe, raise money and bring your community together all at the same time by organising a ‘style swap shop’ – with all your finest, unworn or unwanted clothes and accessories.

Pack up the majestic hats you bought for a wedding but only wore once, the satin gloves that make you feel like Audrey Hepburn but don’t go with anything you own, or maybe that lace vintage dress your aunty wore to Glastonbury in the 70s, which now lives in an unexplored drawer in your bedroom.

Fill up a bag with your best cast-offs and get your friends, family and neighbours to do the same. Everyone pays £5 entry to the ‘style swap shop’ and then you all get to browse through each other’s preloved treasures – grabbing what takes your fancy.

One person’s hand-me-down is another person’s new look – so elbows at the ready! Want to raise extra cash? Add a £1-£2 price tag on each item that’s been donated.

Strut your stuff at a cake walk

We know that staying healthy and being physically active can reduce the risk of cancer, so why not combine the classic Coffee Morning with a walk around the block? Creative costumes, silly hats and streamers at the ready as we leave behind the school hall and instead take our cakes and cookies for a little jaunt to stretch our legs.

Up the fun, and the stakes, by upgrading from a cake walk to a cake race – the bigger and messier the dessert, the better!  And get the kids involved in the baking and racing too.

Or if you want to keep it indoors, turn your catwalk into a cake walk and give your best strut with your favourite pudding in hand. It’s giving egg and spoon race, jelly wobbling on a plate and doubling over with laughter as you sashay along clutching a platter filled with your finest roulade.

Dance away the morning at a sober rave

Why sit or stand when you can dance? Sober raves are all the rage – and ideal for a morning of fun with friends, family and neighbours. There’s no hangover, no late night and the kids can join in too – so, no need for a babysitter.

Grab your glow sticks for a Coffee Morning like no other, and you can still eat cake and have a brew or a cold drink. It’s a club night where nobody has to worry about the morning-after-the-night-before! You can host it in any hall, all you need is music and a disco ball.

You might feel silly at first, but soon you’ll be grinning with joy as dancing is proven to release endorphins (natural painkillers and mood boosters) as well as reducing stress and keeping you fit. Now, who does a good Big fish, little fish, cardboard box?

Run an Is it cake? competition

If you haven’t seen the Netflix hit Is it cake? – an American game show-style cooking competition, you’re missing a treat. Contestants compete to both identify and recreate their best version of everyday items – in cake form.

That could be fire hoses made from vanilla sponge and icing, kitchen utensils that cut open to reveal red velvet cake, replica designer handbags that are actually edible, and even other food items such as burgers, which are of course, cake.

Up the baking ante by running your own cake lookalike competition inspired by the show. The best thing about it is that even if your cake looks like a pair of stinky old sports shoes, it’ll still taste great!

Whether you’re swapping styles, raving sober or sculpting a sponge handbag, every slice of fun helps Macmillan Cancer Support do whatever it takes to help everyone living with cancer.

Signing up to host your own Macmillan Coffee Morning this year couldn’t be easier! Find out more today on the Macmillan website

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.

The curious disappearing act of Victoria Starmer

It’s exactly a year since Keir Starmer got the keys to Downing Street. Three hundred and sixty-five days since I stood at my local polling station in Kentish Town and saw Keir and his Me+Em-clad wife Victoria Starmer do the customary voting shot on election morning. It was quite the media scrum here in NW5 – the community centre at one of the local council estates, which usually hosts mum-and-baby singing or drop-ins, was besieged by the world’s press.

It’s funny when the media circus descends on somewhere you know so well; our prime minister and his wife are good north London citizens, sending their kids to local schools. I often saw Victoria at Tufnell Park station (Kentish Town was closed for a year for refurbishment). In her elegant trouser suits and long bob, she had a very north London working mum aesthetic. She fitted in just fine.

A year ago, I wrote about how I hoped Victoria would be a new kind of “first lady” – one who bucked the traditional trend of buy-one-get-one-free political wives. It’s amazing how many consort occupants of Downing Street have made being “Mrs Prime Minister” their primary identity. Lest we forget Cherie Blair, with her stylist Carole Caplin, being photographed in her Downing Street bedroom applying lip gloss. Or Samantha Cameron, who released shots of her trendified Downing Street flat with its LOVE pillows, on-trend DVD box sets (remember those?) and OKA shelving.

As the first official consort occupant not to be married to her PM partner, Carrie Johnson courted a deluge of media attention for her luxury Lulu Lytle makeover of No 11, lockdown parties, and extravagant tastes. Even Mrs Rishi Sunak was proudly paraded everywhere from Yorkshire to global summits, discussing loading the dishwasher and pretending she was just like the rest of us – despite being one of the world’s richest women.

By contrast, Lady Starmer, a former solicitor and proud occupational health professional, has flown almost entirely under the radar over the past 12 months. Fiercely private about the family’s home life, she’s not one to do a sit-down interview with a glossy magazine. When she did grace the cover of Tatler, the profile had to be stitched together from quotes by those close to her. Described as a “spectral presence” whom many in Labour circles have never met, friends were said to be “terrified of saying much about Victoria – even when it was complimentary”.

In the past year, Victoria Starmer has only appeared fleetingly at a handful of official events. She was there to turn on Downing Street’s Christmas lights, at an 80th anniversary celebration of VE Day, and during an emotional return to Auschwitz for a Holocaust memorial. We also saw her at a Taylor Swift Eras tour concert, in the Wimbledon Royal Box, and at the Vatican for Pope Francis’s funeral.

While Keir Starmer told The Observer that, after the row over accepting expensive gifts – including tickets to see Swift with his family – what really upset him was his wife being dubbed “Lady Victoria Sponger”, her disappearing act is certainly not a case of having a thin skin, but more a positive and empowered decision by Victoria to just do things differently.

If there is a normal life to be had in Downing Street (where they live in the larger flat at No 11), Victoria has seemingly achieved the impossible and managed it. Her husband generally avoids having meetings or drinks with colleagues back at the flat, so it’s kept very much as a family zone – just like their home in Kentish Town. With no interest in being a public figure, Lady Vic has had a year of simply nipping off to work, looking after her teenage children, and mostly staying well away from photo calls or wifely appearances to soften her husband’s image.

Of course, nature abhors a vacuum – and just like with the Princess of Wales, Victoria’s lack of public profile has led to some pretty wild speculation about their marriage. But wisely, instead of attending to these vicious lies, Victoria has brushed off any malicious gossip, preferring to defuse rumours through quiet and steady support behind closed doors.

And it feels very refreshing to have a PM’s spouse who is doing an ordinary gig in the NHS, feeding back the reality of life on the ground, instead of sacrificing her independence to swan around with other political spouses at G7 summits. As a highly intelligent and photogenic woman, she is a potent and valuable asset to her husband. But even more important – to the rest of womankind – is her refusal to be used as a Wag trophy or to publicly play a part in a power couple. This matters. For centuries, it’s been assumed that men who take big jobs – whether as ambassadors abroad or as top politicians – will have a wife who comes as part of the BOGOF package: providing social oil, hosting dinners, remembering names, and making everyone feel welcome and looked after.

Given the dire state of never-here-Keir’s current standing within the Labour Party (how did a PM with a landslide majority read his backbenchers’ mood so badly he ended up having to torpedo his own disability benefit reform bill to avoid a humiliating defeat?), I don’t doubt the pressure could be on his wife to change the mood – to appear in public, to show her husband in a more positive light.

Even the incomparable Michelle Obama was called upon to introduce Barack, talking about how she loved him despite his stinky socks and late-night almond habit (he would never eat more than seven nuts). Such wives were expected to work like Trojans behind the scenes to prop up the husband’s public role. (Anyone else remember Norma Major and her publicly paraded frozen grated cheese in Tupperware to make John Major seem more relatable and thrifty? Or even Mr May, wheeled out in shots of their annual walking holiday in the Swiss Alps to try and convince us that Theresa was human after all?)

But Lady Vic has said goodbye to all that. Everything about her suggests that she will stick to her guns and resist being trotted out to improve Keir’s standing with the public. Letting her husband get on with the job, while she gets on with hers, is what she does best. And she should be applauded for sticking to her principles – keeping her kids out of the spotlight and carrying on as normal, even when it’s not really normal at all. Something I was reminded of yesterday as I walked down the street where the Starmer family home was firebombed in May.

The charred brickwork was a stark example of the high personal cost that political families pay for being in the public eye. It’s Vic’s sister who lives there now, and she was upstairs with her partner when the front door was set alight. “She happened to still be awake,” Keir told his biographer last month, “so she heard the noise and got the fire brigade. But it could have been a different story.”

Vic is all too aware of the dangers in a highly polarised world. I vividly remember pro-Palestinian groups leaving piles of children’s shoes outside the Starmer home and demonstrating against Keir’s policies on our high street. No doubt she has had bile thrown at her family because of her Jewish roots and faith. Last month marked nine years since Labour MP Jo Cox – a beloved wife and mother – was murdered in her constituency, stabbed 15 times. The risk is real; many senior politicians receive near-daily death threats.

In such a highly charged, toxic environment, Victoria’s conviction to stay firmly below the parapet is entirely understandable and sensible. The risk to her teenage kids (whom Keir has said he wants to be able to walk to school and live their own lives – we don’t even know the name of their younger child) is real. We should be pleased that Victoria has resisted the kind of family photo calls beloved of the Blairs, Camerons, or even the Browns. Today, there are no halfway houses. You either play the publicity game – or you totally don’t.

Instead, Vic has pursued her own independence, protecting herself and her kids in the process. Their dad has chosen to be PM—the rest of the family hasn’t. She has honoured their commitment to staying out of the limelight.

As we hit the first anniversary of the first family moving into Downing Street – well done, Lady Vic. You’ve played a blinder.

After Labour’s first year, Starmer could learn from ‘one-term Attlee’

On the first anniversary of Keir Starmer’s general election win, there will no doubt be much comment about what his government has achieved in its first year – and, more likely, where it has fallen short of expectations.

The general feeling appears to be one of disappointment, with Starmer’s net approval rating at a record low, after the first double-digit decline in public support since a general election since John Major’s Conservative administration in the 1990s.

Starmer’s first year as prime minister has been characterised by a series of U-turns, following rebellion within his own ranks.

But it is the following day, this Saturday, 5 July, that will mark a far more consequential anniversary: the general election of 1945, which – after a count lasting several weeks – made Clement Attlee the first Labour prime minister with a majority government.

Eighty years on, it seems fitting to revisit that government – its style and achievements, as well as the qualities of Attlee – who was to lead the nation in succession to the great war leader, Winston Churchill. What, if anything, can Starmer and his team learn from that post-war administration?

Although many people were surprised by Labour’s success in July 1945, the writing had already been on the wall for Churchill’s Tories. The monthly Gallup opinion poll which, while not scrutinised in the forensic way that polls are today, had consistently pointed to a strong Labour showing throughout the war years. And ideas of how to build a better post-war nation in areas such as health, welfare and education, dominated thinking and debate – not least among servicemen and women overseas.

Attlee’s Labour campaign offered a clear blueprint based on their manifesto, Let Us Face the Future, and the people voted for it. By contrast, in 2024, while nearly everyone expected Starmer’s Labour Party to win last year, it was far less clear what Labour might be offering in government, except the rather nebulous concept of “change”.

Even before the election, Starmer had been criticised for abandoning many of the planks of the platform on which he won the party leadership. His government has, so far at least, struggled to articulate a clear vision and sense of direction.

At times, Starmer, unlike Attlee, has even appeared to be blaming the system for the government’s shortcomings, and using the allegation (also made by Tony Blair) that the supposed levers of power do not seem to be connected to anything. This is a poor substitute for looking to his ministers to roll up their sleeves, address the issues and deliver.

The second factor in the success of the 1945 government was the quality of the team assembled and led by Attlee. The government front bench included many experienced political heavyweights with substantial ministerial experience gained during the wartime coalition – people like Ernest Bevin, the former trade union leader and wartime minister of Labour, who led the Foreign Office, and Herbert Morrison, who had been home secretary during the war. Attlee himself had been deputy prime minister to Churchill, with a wide-ranging brief.

By contrast, Starmer, like Blair in 1997, arrived in No 10 with no ministerial experience whatsoever. And, of his cabinet, only three members – Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband – have ever been full cabinet ministers before.

But the most striking factor of the Attlee government was its output. From day one, the government was relentlessly focused on the demobilisation of over 3 million returning servicemen and women, and their reintegration into post war life in Britain. The economy became far more centralised, with the nationalisation of the Bank of England only seven months after the election, and later of the “commanding heights of the economy”.

There were also big changes through expanding the social role of government, by implementing the recommendations of the 1942 Beveridge Report and, most notably, through the creation of the National Health Service by the health secretary, Aneurin Bevan, three years after the election.

Add to that the Festival of Britain – Morrison’s brainchild – which brought a sense of energy and enthusiasm to the country after the dark days of the war. The government even finally achieved universal suffrage, with the abolition of the university vote, which had given some people at certain universities two votes rather than one. All in all, it was quite a record of domestic policy which, so far at least, does not look like being matched by the current government.

Internationally, Attlee’s administration helped shape the post-war world, too. From the Potsdam conference to the new economic framework based on the Bretton Woods agreement, to the oversight of the transition to independence for India in 1947 his government was at the forefront. And, in 1949, Nato was founded with Bevin heading UK negotiations. This, coupled with Attlee’s determination to procure a UK nuclear capability, designed the nation’s post-war defence framework, which is now under such strains.

Starmer so far seems much more comfortable operating on the international front, where his legalistic approach and attention to detail have worked in his favour. But it is on the domestic front where he needs to up his game.

None of the achievements of the 1945 government would have been possible without Attlee’s leadership: quiet, undemonstrative, yet ruthlessly efficient and intolerant of poor performance. The phrase about not suffering fools gladly could have been made for him.

He was determined to raise living standards and respond to the aspirations of everyone. He was committed to abolishing the poverty that he had witnessed in east London some 30 years previously. He strove to build a new world order so that, never again, would young men have to fight – as he had done in the First World War – or to defeat Nazism as the nation had just done in the Second World War. Attlee was the leader who made this happen.

Why, then, with such a body of achievement delivered in only six years, was Attlee defeated in 1951?

On one level, his government simply “ran out of steam”. There was no new programme of work designed for the 1950s. Most of his ministers were exhausted – some were ill or dying. Ellen Wilkinson, his education minister, and Bevin, both died in office.

Nevertheless, in the 1951 election, Labour achieved the highest percentage vote of any party in post-war history, with 48.8 per cent.

However, the Conservatives, with a smaller 48.0 per cent of the vote, won more seats in the House of Commons and Churchill returned as prime minister. By way of contrast, last year Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won only 33.7 per cent of the vote.

Had someone asked Attlee in 1946 what had been his successes and failures of his first year – a question that Starmer has faced – the election-winner of 1945 might have struggled to choose from his many achievements during his first 12 months in office. He would certainly have been very unlikely to have said that his greatest failure had been “not telling our story as well as we should”.

Alun Evans CBE is chair trustee of The Attlee Foundation. He is also a historian and political consultant and a former civil servant