No civilisation thankfully died last night, but a Presidency deserves to. Here below a former senior US security official concedes that the ceasefire agreement Trump has signed is not “status quo ante bellum” ie the US is now worse off than at the start of this war of choice. To spell it out, Trump needlessly started a war at the urging of Israel, refused to listen to those experts urging caution, devised a strategy built on a misapprehension of Iran, sparked a ruinous regional conflict, caused the death of thousands of civilians, unhinged the world economy, strengthened, for now, the repressive instincts of the Iranian and Russian governments, left America more discredited & isolated, provoked serious questions about the President’s fitness for public office, laid waste to large parts of Iran and Lebanon, including medical research centres, primary schools and universities, did not resolve Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium or its future nuclear program, strengthened those in Iran backing possession of a nuclear weapon, and yes ensured Iran and Oman still plan to control and toll the Strait of Hormuz for the first time. A return to war will doubtless soon be threatened even before the 2 week ceasefire ends, but the use of force in this decades old conflict has now been test driven and proven the wrong vehicle since it can only achieve its objectives at an inconceivable price. Trump has now agreed that Iran’s 10 point maximalist plan is a “workable basis for negotiation”, and Trump’s 15 point plan will also be considered. But that leaves him worse off than when Witkoff and Kushner were in Geneva in February. The US with a weaker hand may need to send a team led by Vance and some proper nuclear experts to Islamabad to rescue the negotiating progress previously made, and prematurely spurned. Iran will feel less to no pressure to concede on its right to enrich uranium domestically, the single biggest previous point of dispute. Iran has also not explicitly conceded the need to negotiate over its ballistic missiles or support for proxy resistance groups such as Hezbollah. It will instead negotiate bilateral or multilateral “non aggression pacts with its regional neighbours”. Trump is now prematurely speaking of a golden era for the Middle East but scars are deep and negotiations will require far more than a fortnight. With luck the exhausting governing style of threats, deadlines, expletives, and menacing abuse that demeans America will now be set aside or denounced, starting with Cuba. Someone in the Trump cabinet may even look in the mirror and realise dollops of sycophantic praise may feed the narcissist, but only sullies them, and the political future of Republicans. Even Lindsay Graham might learn there is virtue in reticence. Some way of tethering Trump in the seven months to the mid terms is badly needed. European countries including UK Italy and Germany will now have to decide what lessons they learn from this shameful episode, and how they secure their national sovereignty. The European pillar in NATO may have to become the only pillar relatively soon. For when the US vice president crosses the Atlantic to campaign to keep a pro Russian authoritarian Viktor Orban in office, it looks as if America has tragically evolved into something more sinister than a wayward ally. As Mark Carney at Davos advised “it’s time to live in truth”.

Piprahwa gems auction on hold at Sotheby’s after India legal threat. Sale of relics was to take place in Hong Kong but Indian government proclaimed it offensive to Buddhists and illegal theguardian.com/world/2025/m…

No ruling on whether phone hacking took place at the squeaky-clean Sun, no messy trial, no discussion of email deletion, shoving most of the blame onto arms-length private investigators, fuzziness around whether Rebekah Brooks was aware of it. I imagine they'll be delighted.

Excellent news that we will now have transparency in all family courts. This is vitally important for public confidence and helping to improve practice. Thanks to ⁦@hansummers⁩ and ⁦@louisetickle⁩ for leading in this work. bbc.com/news/articles/c5yvln…

Our Foreign Secretary @DavidLammy says ‘there are no journalists in Gaza’. So who is taking the pictures on our TV screens? Whose are the bylines on newspaper reports? Who are the journalists winning all the awards? Palestinian journalists risking their lives to bring the news.

Gisele Pelicot says the "macho, patriarchal society" must change its attitude on rape, in her final statement to a French court. Pelicot has testified against her husband and dozens of other men, accused of drugging and raping her for several years.

🧵1/ I analysed the headline and lead paragraph of 536 English news articles including the terms "Maccabi" "Amsterdam" and classified them using Claude 3.5 Sonnet to determine how many framed Israelis as victims or non-Israelis as primary victims (as well as both).

I’m now on BlueSky bsky.app/profile/david-batty…

A word on @AllisonPearson free speech row and what she describes as a ‘Kafkaesque’ threat to it. Today on @TheNewsAgents, we asked her to appear. She said ‘No. And if you get any aspect of the story wrong my lawyers will be watching.’ You gotta love a free speech warrior

I used my acceptance speech last night at @EditorsUK to call for greater diversity in the British media. Columnists should not just be non-disabled white blokes from St. Paul’s school.

I reckon Kamala Harris is on course for the worst electoral college performance for any Democrat since 1988.

usa by the numbers

Headline writers not messing about

For those waking up in US, bewildered in Europe, what happened? Have been on air for last 12 hours pouring over the data Here it is There's no silver lining for Democrats. Trump won everywhere. He's going to win the popular vote. He did better across the demographics. He grew his coalition, better with black voters, Latinos, young voters. The US become less racially divided by party. Harris underperformed Biden virtually everywhere. Trump improved on his 2020 margin in 2,367 counties. His margin decreased in only 240 counties.

With her appointment as shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel no longer runs the risk of running a freelance pro-Israel foreign policy as she did in 2017, an episode that led to her dismissal from Cabinet. From now on, she determines the policy. This is a big win for Conservative Friends of Israel, for Likud and for Benjamin Netanyahu, and is likely to make UK policy on Middle East less bipartisan. She is also natural Trumpian, so is a risk of sorts on eve of poll. Am sure the pro-Palestinian Sir Alan Duncan will be overjoyed. In his diaries, in one of his least disparaging comments, he described her as deceitful and morally corrupt.

Dozens of UK school librarians asked to remove LGBTQ books, survey finds theguardian.com/books/articl…

For those raising concern about whether Mark Smith actually existed following the coverage of his resignation by @HindHassanNews here he is talking to @MishalHusain about why he did so and his worries over UK arms sales to Israel