Starmer ‘responsible’ if trans women harassed in male toilets, says Labour committee member

Sir Keir Starmer should be held “personally responsible” if trans women are assaulted after he said they should use men’s bathrooms, a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) has said.

The prime minister is either going to “put trans people in dangerous situations where they are vulnerable or force them out of society”, Jess Barnard told The Independent.

“Both of which are an appalling state for us to be in,” she added.

Ms Barnard’s warning comes a day after Sir Keir said he no longer believes trans women are women in the wake of last week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling.

The PM had previously said “trans women are women”, but when asked whether he still agreed with the statement on Tuesday, Sir Keir said a woman is an adult female, pointing to the ruling.

The PM’s official spokesman went further. Asked if the PM still believed that a transgender woman was a woman, he said: “No.” The prime minister’s spokesman went on to clarify that Sir Keir believes trans women should use male toilets, while trans men should use female bathrooms.

Speaking to The Independent, Ms Barnard, a left-wing member of Labour’s NEC and former chair of Youth Labour, said “any politician saying trans women have to use male toilets should be held responsible for anything that happens, particularly to trans women”.

She said: “We already know trans women face extreme levels of violence in society and are likely to be targeted with hate crime and abuse for being trans.

“So we should not be in a situation where the prime minister of the UK is telling trans women to use men’s bathrooms.

“We have a hysterical situation where you have a court ruling that talked about the legitimate protection of sex-based spaces, it didn’t say trans women can now only use men’s toilets… and now you have ministers telling trans women to put themselves in harm’s way.”

Sir Keir’s comments came after equalities minister Bridget Phillipson also said trans women should use men’s toilets, arguing “services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex”.

But Ms Barnard added that the PM and Ms Phillipson’s comments will not just affect trans people.

She said: “Any other woman who does not conform to societal standards of what femininity is, if you’ve got short hair or you are a butch lesbian, it opens the floodgates to a situation where we could have women being demanded to prove they have a vagina because they don’t fit this kind of narrow perception of what a woman should be.”

Ms Barnard warned: “If people hear the prime minister of the UK saying trans women need to put themselves in harm’s way, it will either put them in dangerous situations where they are targeted by men who want to harm them, or it is going to force trans people out of society.”

Former Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption has warned that the landmark ruling is being misinterpreted, arguing it did not create an obligation to provide single sex spaces.

He said: “That’s the main point, which I think has been misunderstood about this judgment. I think it’s quite important to note that you are allowed to exclude trans women from these facilities. But you are not obliged to do it.”

Meanwhile a transgender campaigner warned that single-sex spaces for women will become more dangerous, not safer, as a result of the ruling.

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 and has been billed as a victory for biological women.

But, speaking to The Independent, campaigner Jaxon Feeley warned that the emphasis on biological sex opens up a whole host of other issues for single-sex spaces, including that trans men could now be forced to use women’s spaces.

Outlining the difficulties in enforcing the policy, Mr Feeley – who transitioned from female to male while serving as a prison officer – 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.”

Addressing the ruling in the Commons on Tuesday, Ms Phillipson said: “I know that many trans people will be worried in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, so I want to provide reassurance here and now that trans people will continue to be protected. We will deliver a full trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices. We will work to equalise all existing strands of hate crime, and we will review adult gender identity services, so that all trans people get the high-quality care they deserve.

“The laws to protect trans people from discrimination and harassment will remain in place, and trans people will still be protected on the basis of gender reassignment—a protected characteristic written into Labour’s Equality Act.”

Strong earthquake hits Istanbul as buildings left shaking

A powerful 6.2 magnitude earthquake rattled Istanbul on Wednesday, sending tremors through Turkey‘s largest city and prompting widespread evacuations.

The quake, one of the strongest to hit the metropolis in recent years, struck at 12.49pm local time (0949 GMT), according to Turkey’s AFAD disaster agency.

While there were no immediate reports of damage, the impact was palpable across the city of 16 million, which straddles the European and Asian shores of the Bosphorus Strait.

Residents poured out of buildings as the ground shook, seeking refuge in parks, on doorsteps, and in the streets.

A wave of aftershocks further unsettled the city, leading some businesses in the central districts to close their doors.

The epicentre of the quake was located in the Silivri area, approximately 80 km (50 miles) west of Istanbul, and at a depth of 6.92 km (4.3miles), according to AFAD.

Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said initial inspections did not reveal any damage or adverse conditions on highways, airports, trains or subways.

Broadcaster TGRT reported that one person had been injured as a result of jumping off a balcony during the quake, which occurred during a public holiday in Turkey.

The Istanbul governor’s office said there had not been any reports of buildings collapsing and it called on people to remain calm and not approach buildings that may be damaged.

President Tayyip Erdogan said on X he was monitoring the situation and his office issued advice on what people should do in the case of further quakes.

Two years ago, Turkey suffered the deadliest and most destructive earthquake in its modern history. That 7.8-magnitude quake in February 2023 killed more than 55,000 people and injured more than 107,000 in southern Turkey and northern Syria.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced, with many still living in temporary housing as a result of that quake.

The latest tremor also revived memories of a 1999 earthquake near Istanbul that killed 17,000.

The German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) said the latest earthquake had a magnitude 6.02. It was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles), GFZ said.

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”.

When it comes to Lineker, the BBC has scored a spectacular own-goal

When Gary Lineker suggested to Amol Rajan in their interview this week that the BBC didn’t want him to carry on in his role as the presenter of Match of the Day, he wasn’t being paranoid. They really were out to get him. Late last year, when it was announced that at the end of the football season in May, Lineker would be leaving the presentational chair he has occupied for more than a quarter of a century, public statements insisted that both parties had agreed not to re-sign a contract to continue. In football vernacular, it was a mutual decision.

This, allegedly, was not the case. Lineker claims that he had become aware that senior figures at the corporation, including the freshly recruited head of sport Alex Kay-Jelski, would not be entirely unhappy to see him go.

When they were negotiating over what happened next when his contract came to an end, he got the feeling they wanted to see the back of him. It seems, as decisions go, this was about as mutual as Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on some rocky outcrop in the South Atlantic occupied only by penguins.

Because the fact is, from what I’ve seen, I’d imagine that Lineker was more than keen to stay. He appeared to love presenting the weekly football highlights show. His jovial presenting style suggests that he takes great pleasure in travelling to Salford every Saturday to preside over the preparation and broadcast of the show, ensuring it – and he – is at the centre of the sporting conversation. He may be in his sixties, yet Lineker shows no sign that he wants to slow down, or that his ambition is in any way sated.

But, comfortable in his own skin and even more comfortable in his own bank account (his overall net worth is estimated to be around £30m), perhaps Lineker felt this wasn’t the time to make a fuss or look like a curmudgeon. That’s not Gary’s style, particularly as a compromise was to be reached to enable him to front live coverage of FA Cup and World Cup games for another year.

Which makes you wonder, if he was right – and word within the corporation suggests he was – why on earth would the BBC want to see the back of him? He is, after all, not only the sharpest presenter of sport in the country, but among the finest in any field. Relaxed, funny, adept at bringing the best out of his studio pundits, he is a model for any aspiring young wannabe on precisely how it is done. And it is not easy.

The interesting thing is that in the nostalgic clips Rajan played of Lineker in his early days as a screen presence, he gave very little hint of what was to come. Undoubtedly good-looking (the BBC news report that Rajan showed of him in 1986 returning back from the Mexico World Cup that established his name as a player insisted he was “a big hit with the girls”), he nevertheless appeared cripplingly self-conscious, uneasy, his East Midlands twang blanding out any character.

But, just as he had on the training ground, he worked on his delivery. He had voice coaching. He learned how to relax on camera. By the time of the 1990 World Cup, when he made himself available to television reporters at every opportunity, he was already an entirely different proposition.

And when he retired as a player, his route into a second career on the box was already clear and obvious. Learning alongside the master Des Lynam, he simply got better and better at the job. Now he is untouchable. On screen, he is like your mate in the pub: warm, amusing, approachable.

Well, not everybody’s mate in the pub… Without question, he has his detractors. For those elements keen on deriding the corporation, his salary (at £1.3m) became a stick with which to beat the BBC. This, after all, is taxpayers’ money he is taking (and too much of it, many reckoned). Lynam, incidentally, has long suggested it was his fault that Lineker was propelled into the higher echelons of BBC earners.

In 1999, Lynam defected to ITV to present their short-lived equivalent of Match of the Day. The independent channel had wanted Lineker and Alan Hansen to join their new signing and dangled eye-watering offers in their eyeline. The BBC was obliged to inflate their salary to keep them in place. And ever since, Lineker has benefited from their largesse.

But there is something beyond his salary that infuriates his critics. For them, he is too outspoken on issues outside the game. Stay in your lane, they shout as he makes his liberal views known on social media. When he railed against government policy on asylum seekers, the outcry – in several cases from those who self-define as stalwarts of free speech – was loud, long and vicious. Shut him up, sack him, get rid. In panic mode, the BBC suspended him from duty. Then immediately climbed down when his colleagues demonstrated solidarity by withdrawing their labour.

Lineker told Rajan that, were he gifted the possibility of reliving things, he wouldn’t issue his tweet again. Not because he felt he was wrong. Far from it. But he believed the negative response was entirely out of proportion. And feared the ridiculous brouhaha stirred up by it might bring damage to the show.

So was it this that lay behind his new boss’s thinking: Lineker’s contract is up for renewal, imagine how much easier things would be without all the noise around his salary and his politics?

Which, if true, must be the most self-defeating response in broadcasting history. Noise is precisely what television thrives on. It was Lineker who put the BBC programme at the centre of the national conversation. It was Lineker who made it an appointment to view. It was Lineker who turned a collection of football highlights into compelling television.

But that is what it appears they did at Broadcasting House: they sought an easy life. For sure, all three of those chosen to succeed him are more than capable of holding the fort. Kelly Cates, Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman are all great talents, superb in their own way. But the fact is, none of them are Gary Lineker. More to the point, none of them have the extra cachet that he brings to the job.

Not that we should worry too much about Lineker. His “The Rest Is…” franchise is the most successful brand in podcasting, the broadcasting equivalent of a cash dispenser in the basement of his house in Barnes. So much so, the BBC still employs him – and some of his co-conspirators – to produce soundalike podcasts for them. Clearly, one part of the corporation remains more than aware of what pulls in the crowds. When he finally hangs up his microphone after presenting the World Cup final next July, how they will miss him. As you do when you lose the best.

Jenrick signals Tory-Reform pact with promise to ‘unite the right’

Robert Jenrick has vowed to “unite the right” ahead of the next general election, signalling an electoral pact between the Conservatives and Reform UK.

The senior Tory, seen as a leadership contender waiting to replace Kemi Badenoch, said “one way or another” he is determined to form a coalition between the parties.

Speaking to a group of students in March, he said his worry is that Reform UK “becomes a permanent or semi-permanent fixture on the British political scene”.

“If that is the case, and I am trying to do everything I can to stop that being the case, then life becomes a lot harder for us, because the right is not united,” Mr Jenrick added.

In a secret recording of his remarks, revealed by Sky News, he said: “You head towards a general election where the nightmare scenario is that Keir Starmer sails in through the middle as a result of the two parties not being united.

“I don’t know about you, I am not prepared for that to happen. I want the right to be united, and one way or another I am determined to do that.”

The remarks were revealed just over a week before voters go to the polls for what looks set to be a disastrous set of local elections for the Conservatives. With Nigel Farage’s Reform having established a consistent lead over Labour and the Tories in the polls, Ms Badenoch’s party is set to suffer devastating losses in next Thursday’s contests.

It is Ms Badenoch’s first electoral test since succeeding Rishi Sunak, and will only fuel speculation she does not have a long future as Tory leader.

Both Ms Badenoch and Mr Farage have previously ruled out electoral pacts, with the Tory leader highlighting her Reform rival’s claim he wants to “destroy the Conservative Party”.

Unlike Reform, however, the Conservatives have said they could work with the former Brexit Party at a local level to take control of councils after the May 1 elections.

Dismissing the idea, Mr Farage said he has “no intention in forming coalitions with the Tories at any level”. The public refusal of both party leaders to entertain the idea is predictable, with neither wanting to appear the weaker of the two.

But Mr Jenrick’s thinking will dominate behind the scenes in the run up to the next general election, with Reform and the Tories currently attracting almost half of voters but risking preventing each other from being able to win enough seats to prevent Labour being re-elected.

Reform UK on Wednesday said: “The Tories failed the country for 14 years in office. We will never do a deal with them.”

Britain’s top pollster Professor Sir John Curtice pointed to Mr Farage’s vow before July’s general election that he would only re-enter frontline politics if he could lead a party to replace the Conservatives as the main centre-right option in the UK.

He told The Independent: “So I am sure there may be people like Robert Jenrick who would like to be able to have some kind of partnership or arrangement with Reform in which the Tories are the senior partner.

“The point is, the next year or two is about an internecine struggle on the right for supremacy.”

But responding to the recording, Labour called on Ms Badenoch to “come clean” as to whether she backs her shadow justice secretary’s plans to form a coalition on the right of British politics.

Labour chairman Ellie Reeves said: “If she disagrees with Robert Jenrick, how can her leadership have any credibility whilst he remains in her Shadow Cabinet?

“We know Kemi Badenoch has opened the door to deals with Reform at a local level, which Labour has categorically ruled out and now Robert Jenrick has let the cat out the bag.

“Between the Tories who decimated the NHS and Reform who want to make people pay for routine treatments, it’s a recipe for chaos and would be a disaster for Britain.”

The Liberal Democrats called for Mr Jenrick to be sacked, adding that “anything less would show she’s either too weak or that she agrees”.

Deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “The cat is out of the bag, senior Conservatives are plotting a grubby election deal with Nigel Farage.”

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?

Gunmen kill at least 26 tourists in terror attack in Kashmir

A volley of gunfire broke the calm of the picturesque Pahalgam valley in Kashmir on Tuesday, killing at least 26 tourists in the deadliest attack on civilians in decades in the restive Himalayan region of India.

The attack began at around 2.30pm in Baisaran, a small valley dubbed “mini Switzerland” for its snow-capped peaks and lush meadows accessible only by foot or on horseback.

Thousands of both domestic and international tourists – many looking to escape the Indian summer heat – arrive in Pahalgam in southern Kashmir on any given spring day to enjoy the meadows ringed by dense pine forests. So it was on Tuesday, until gunshots echoed in the valley and sent panicked visitors running for their lives.

Witnesses say between four and six gunmen in military-style outfits emerged from the nearby forest and unleashed a barrage of gunfire from close range in an attack that lasted 15 to 20 minutes.

As the shots rang out many tourists ran for cover, but there was scarcely anywhere to hide in the open meadow where over 1,200 people were reportedly present at the time.

A survivor said it felt “like an eternity” as the attackers moved across the meadow, firing indiscriminately. “They were there at least for 20 minutes, undeterred, moving around and opening fire,” the tourist was quoted as telling police by The Indian Express.

A local tourist pony service operator told AFP news agency that the gunmen “very clearly spared women and kept shooting at men”.

“Sometimes a single shot and sometimes many bullets,” the eyewitness, who did not give his name, said. “It was like a storm.”

Another pony handler told local media they heard “what sounded like firecrackers” and then “people started screaming and dropping”.

Graphic and emotional videos shared from the scene showed the dead and injured lying in pools of blood as their relatives screamed in shock. Some women were seen pleading for help from local shopkeepers, who tried to calm them.

Some of the wounded were taken to hospital on horseback by local people, before military helicopters arrived to evacuate the survivors.

A young woman travelling with her husband said they were having snacks when a gunman came and shot him after asking if he was Muslim. She said the gunman opened fire when he said he was not.

“We were eating bhelpuri, and my husband was standing by my side. A person came and shot my husband,” she narrated in Hindi in a video on social media. A widely circulated photo showed her sitting in apparent shock beside her husband’s dead body.

The military and Kashmir police responded to the attack by launching a major counterterror operation, though as of Wednesday afternoon there were no confirmed reports that any of the gunmen had been apprehended. The military heightened security across the region as Pahalgam’s bustling resorts and hotels emptied out.

In the wake of the attack, the security forces immediately faced questions about the lack of adequate deployment around the tourist hotspot.

New Delhi has rolled out highly publicised measures in recent years to boost tourism and economic activity in Kashmir, part of an effort to project an image of stability in the restive region since Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the majority Muslim region’s autonomy in 2019 and began administering it directly.

According to government data, Kashmir received 22 million tourists in 2023 compared to nearly 17 million in 2018.

The attack prompted top Indian officials, including home minister Amit Shah, to rush to Srinagar, the regional capital, while Mr Modi cut short a trip to Saudi Arabia.

The prime minister condemned the “terror attack” and said that “those behind this heinous act will be brought to justice”.

“We will come down heavily on the perpetrators with the harshest consequences,” Mr Shah posted on social media after arriving in Srinagar and convening an urgent security meeting.

“This attack is much larger than anything we have seen directed at civilians in recent years,” Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s top elected official, said on social media.

As many as 24 bodies were collected in the aftermath of the attack and two people died on the way to hospital. At least 17 people were injured.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres condemned the attack and stressed that “attacks against civilians are unacceptable under any circumstances”.

US vice president JD Vance, currently visiting India, called it a “devastating terrorist attack”, while president Donald Trump said Washington “stands strong with India against terrorism”.

Several other world leaders, including Russian president Vladimir Putin and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, also condemned the attack.

According to Indian news reports sourced from anonymous government officials, the attack was claimed by the Resistance Front, a shadow group of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

An armed insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir has killed hundreds of thousands of people since 1989 and gunfights between security forces and rebel groups are not uncommon. However, Indian and foreign tourists flocking to Kashmir in huge numbers for its Himalayan foothills and exquisitely decorated houseboats have rarely been targeted.

India has long accused Pakistan of supporting separatist violence in the region on its borders and the two nuclear-armed neighbours have fought three wars over Kashmir, a region they both claim in full but control in part.

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, while condemning the attack, said the Modi government must take accountability instead of making “hollow claims on the situation being normal” in the region.

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.