The week’s mood has turned on price, pressure and the thin stretch of water the world keeps pretending it can take for granted. Inflation in the UK has picked up again, petrol has done the shoving, and the cost-of-living story ministers thought they had half-tamed is back in the room. At the same time, shipping tensions in the Strait of Hormuz have hardened from threat to action, with vessels seized and markets reminded that supply chains are not abstract things but steel, fuel and time. According to the UN 30 million people will be pushed into poverty by this US- Israeli crisis.
There is, too, that peculiarly British contrast between the grand and the domestic. One minute ministers are talking energy security, ceasefires and international law; the next, households are staring at bills and motorists are counting the cost in forecourts rather than policy papers.
The weather, at least, is in a kinder mood: London, Cardiff and Belfast are set fair to pleasantly warm through the weekend, while Edinburgh stays cooler but brighter, and the Met Office says there are no UK weather warnings in force for the coming days. Yipee!
If Carlsberg did weather they would pick the British climate – Weather warnings in mid-spring … WTF! Well that’s another six-pack sold! Staying with six-packs, BBC Sport has made the difficult decision to say goodbye to Football Focus at the end of this season.
Anyway, we think a briefing should not end its opening on a grim note, here is one properly cheering thing: Good News highlighted this week that Helsinki has opened the world’s longest bridge for cyclists and trains, while another recent round-up pointed to CAR-T cell therapy offering hope for severe autoimmune diseases. Not salvation, not utopia, just the useful reminder that progress still happens while politicians are busy shouting at each other, pretending to look useful.
So what has the PM been up to?
PM WATCH: Keir Starmer’s week has been shaped less by a clean political message than by damage control. The biggest mark against him remains Peter Mandelson: in a Commons statement on 20 April, Starmer said he “should not have appointed Peter Mandelson”, took responsibility for the decision and apologised.
Alongside that, Downing Street has tried to keep the government looking active and outward-facing showing as little concern as possible to the calls from the far right for the PM to resign.
The PM co-chaired an international summit on the Strait of Hormuz with President Macron on 17 April, backing freedom of navigation, international law and energy security, but will his words a lone achieve anything? Surely he needs and the EU need to lean on Israel and the US, becasue this war is hurting the Europe and third world more than either of those culprits, Hmmm! maybe that was the plan all along. Also this week the PM met with The Council of Europe secretary general Alain Berset, stressing support for the ECHR, rule of law and accountability for atrocities in Ukraine, which has Reform UK chomping at the bits.
The fallout has been mixed at best. The Mandelson row is still landing heavy blows, Kemi Badenoch is wagging at the tail and won’t let go: the Financial Times reported that Starmer was challenged in cabinet over his handling of the affair, after already facing wider criticism over the scandal.
Today’s Main Headlines
1) Inflation bites again
UK inflation rose to 3.3 per cent in March, driven by petrol and food, putting fresh pressure on the Bank of England before next week’s rates meeting. In the newsletter hierarchy, this is the clearest domestic lead because it lands directly on household budgets and economic credibility.
2) Hormuz is no longer just a warning light
Iran’s reported seizure of two container ships attempting to cross the strait, whilst it was closed, has pushed the Strait of Hormuz back to the top of the global risk map. What had been a market anxiety is now a live shipping and energy story, fuelled by President Trump’s callous remarks.
3) Europe’s energy nerves are showing
The wider energy shock bluntly: from gas reserves to fertiliser costs, Europe is treating the Iran war as a crisis with echoes of 1973 and 2022. The UK is not insulated from that.
4) The Druzhba pipeline is political as well as physical
The deeper geopolitical treatment: Ukraine’s reopening of its section of the Druzhba pipeline appears to remove a key obstacle to a major EU loan for Kyiv, while exposing how closely infrastructure, veto politics and wartime financing are now tied.
5) Starmer is still carrying Mandelson
Even with inflation and war dominating the wider picture, the PM remains politically exposed at home. The scandal has not dropped out of view simply because bigger stories arrived.
Hormuz, because that is where the pressure sits
Every news agency is telling you, by placement and depth, that Hormuz is the story sitting behind several others. One makes it a top line; the other gives it the fuller geopolitical treatment. That is usually the right signal for a featured item.
The facts are clear but the propaganda is not. Iranian forces fired on three cargo ships on Wednesday and seized two of them, that attempted to cross the Strait which was closed. Meanwhile President Trump extended the ceasefire without setting a deadline and peace talks were postponed. The consequence is not only military tension but renewed pressure on one of the world’s most important shipping arteries.
This matters because Hormuz is not merely about oil headlines. It reaches into fuel, fertiliser, freight, food prices and confidence and the flailing alliance the United States has with the Gulf States.
This is where the UK story meets the global one. The inflation is the lead, in effect, the domestic expression of the same wider shock. Petrol surges first, then transport costs, then the broader feeling that whatever progress had been made on prices can be quickly undone by events far from Westminster. In some ways it is the same old story, that the world is unstable, but that instability is once again being invoiced to the public.
Politician’s need to make more noise if they are to distract you from that bitter pill. With local elections coming up, desperate councillors will make all kinds of promises, ones they know they cannot keep.
Weather outlook — Five-day weather scan
London: brighter and warmer as the week goes on, with sunshine dominant from Thursday to Saturday and highs rising from 16C to 22C, before easing back slightly on Sunday.
Edinburgh: cooler than the south but improving, with sunshine and highs moving from 10C to 18C by Friday before settling in the mid-teens over the weekend.
Cardiff: mild to warm, breezy at times, and broadly settled, with highs around 17C to 21C.
Belfast: a quieter run, with partial sunshine and temperatures climbing from 14C to 19C before dipping slightly.
What to watch
- Cabinet Office questions and Business Questions are scheduled in the Commons on 23 April, keeping domestic political scrutiny live after PMQs.
- The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill returns to the Lords on 23 April, one of the clearer pieces of parliamentary business to watch in the next 24 hours. Scotts, this one impacts you.
- Looking ahead, the Commons schedule shows DWP questions on 27 April, Treasury questions on 28 April and the next Prime Minister’s Question Time on 29 April.
Espresso for …
We are in an economic and domestic disaster that was made in Tel Aviv and executed by in Washington: inflation, wages, taxes are the household strain. The second is geopolitical and strategic: pipelines, vetoes, shipping lanes and leverage. Put them together and the line becomes obvious enough without forcing it: Britain’s politics this week is being shaped by Trump and Netanyahu, questioning ‘how special is our relation with the Yanks?’
The government can argue, fairly enough, that some of this is imported. But the public does not experience imported inflation as a theory. It experiences it at the pump, on bills and in the creeping sense that every improvement is provisional. So perhaps the government needs to stop making noise and take actions that soften the blow to the consumer at the till, not big business, who technically have profited from this crisis.
This week’s most popular tweets
Top Sporting Moment: Man City vs. Arsenal
The Tweet: The official @ManCity account’s post, “Ok I like it, Picasso!”—featuring a clip of the footballers dream, getting out of a tight spot, whilst megging a player—is currently the most liked and shared post in the UK for the week.
Top News Tweet: COBRA Emergency Meeting
As of Thursday, April 23, a significant “breaking news” tweet is rapidly gaining traction following Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to chair an emergency COBRA meeting.
Notable Mention: Royal Family Statement
The Prince and Princess of Wales also generated significant engagement on April 23 after releasing a rare public statement via a Kensington Palace spokesperson regarding the latest Epstein file revelations.
Iran done Trump dirty
Last but not least Trump is not just losing the perception of winning in Iran, he is also being pummelled on social media, the Iranians just delivered a knock-out blow. Will we see Trump in a rap battle!