Difficult choices between alignment with Europe and the US are coming at the prime minister fast. He risks losing control of the debate

When all eyes at Westminster are fixed on Washington, it is easy to forget how little attention is paid back in return.

Unlike Mexico and Canada, Britain doesn’t have a long border with the US. It doesn’t rival America’s superpower primacy on the planet, unlike China. And it doesn’t export more goods across the Atlantic than it imports – a trait Donald Trump despises about the European Union.

Confusing and capricious, he started as he means to go on. To all the leaders pledging to work with him: good luck with that

Full American democracy is barely 60 years old, yet seems to be in an advanced state of cognitive decline. At his inauguration yesterday, Donald Trump seated the tech bosses, his nerd broligarchy, in front of his supposed cabinet. Needless to say, it was all a hopelessly overstimulating day for Elon Musk, whose double salute on stage later was a pure Dr Strangelove spasm, generously described by the Anti-Defamation league as “an awkward gesture�. Listen, if your friends won’t tell you, then who will?

As for the staging of the inauguration, which was moved indoors several days earlier, it was an occasion devoid of a sense of occasion. I would honestly have preferred Trump to ride in on the QAnon shaman. Instead, and not to get all British about state events, the world was forced to watch a quite staggeringly inept and lo-fi ceremony. You constantly expected someone to grab the mic and say: “Could the owner of a red Honda Civic please move your car as it’s blocking in the burger van.� Or maybe, as viewers round the globe sat waiting in mortified vain for singer Carrie Underwood’s basic backing track to kick in, to announce: “Apologies, ladies and gents, we have a tech fail. Is there anyone who knows about tech in the house?�

Our job is to imagine scenarios from the impact of the climate crisis to the rise of AI – and decision-makers need our help

• Emma Newman’s Planetfall science-fiction series was shortlisted for the best series Hugo award

I am an imaginative person, but I never once imagined I would find myself in a room with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) talking about what the world could be like many decades into the future. But that is what I have been doing recently, as one of several science-fiction authors on the Creative Futures project, a partnership between Coventry University and the MoD’s defence science and technology laboratory.

As it seems the world is hellbent on making some of the dystopian futures we have imagined become reality, I raised my concerns about how our work would be used. But we weren’t there to suggest ideas for weapons of mass destruction. We were there to talk about things such as the impact of the climate crisis and potential future technologies, and how both could impact society. What kind of crises could arise and what sort of disaster relief may be required. The sci-fi writers of the past did a pretty decent job of predicting our present – from the moon landings (Jules Verne, 1865) to the use of geostationary satellites for global communications (Arthur C Clarke, 1945) – so I can see why the MoD wanted our contributions.

Emma Newman is an author, podcaster and audiobook narrator. Her Planetfall science-fiction series was shortlisted for the best series Hugo award

Germany’s capital was known for its affordable rents. Now ‘furnished temporary’ flats risk destroying the heart of the city

From London and other overpriced cities, we often look to Berlin as a beacon of progressive housing politics. Renting in the capital, as some 84% of households do, is associated with secure, unlimited, rent-controlled tenancies. Berliners have rallied behind moves to freeze rents and expropriate hundreds of thousands of apartments from corporate landlords. But in the last few years, Berlin’s housing crisis has escalated to unprecedented proportions, with median asking rents across the city rising by 21.2% in 2023 alone. Far from “poor but sexy�, as it was once dubbed by its own mayor, Berlin now has one of the most overheated property markets in the world.

The reasons for Berlin’s housing crisis are complex, yet there is one simple and resolvable mechanism driving the stratospheric rent increases of recent years: the large-scale exploitation by landlords of a strange loophole in German federal law. If apartments are rented out as “temporary� and “furnished�, owners can evade tenancy regulations and charge considerably higher rents.

Tim White is a researcher and writer studying housing, cities and inequality. He is Alexander von Humboldt research fellow at the Free University of Berlin and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics

Much of the power of work like counselling lies in a relationship where we really see each other. And tech just can’t do that

• Allison Pugh is a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World

When I interviewed a nurse practitioner in California about what she cherished most about nursing, it was the “human element� of being present with others. “I think we all just want acknowledgment of our suffering, even if you can’t cure it or do anything about it,� she told me.

She still remembered when a homeless man came into her clinic, his back hunched, feet gnarled and callused from being on the streets for years, and she “just sat and did wound care for his feet�. The moment stood out for her, in part because the opportunity to take that kind of time is getting rarer in clinics and hospitals as drives for efficiency impose time constraints.

Allison Pugh is a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. All names have been changed.

Despite scandal after scandal, Koreans have shown their solidarity with one another, and the resilience of their institutions

Compared with other advanced industrialised countries, South Korea is still a young democracy, having only transitioned from authoritarian to democratic rule in 1987. However, the political freedoms and beliefs Koreans have come to take for granted were suddenly shattered on 3 December, when President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, citing anti-state activities and collaboration with North Korea by some political actors as his reason for doing so.

His actions utterly shocked the country, and MPs promptly gathered at the national assembly in a clear act of defiance of the ban on political activities that accompanied the imposition of martial law. All 190 members of parliament who were present that night (out of a total of 300) had made it through the cordons of special forces around the parliament building and voted to nullify the law within hours of its imposition. President Yoon quickly repealed the law. Tens of thousands of ordinary citizens filled the streets around the national assembly calling for presidential impeachment. It took two attempts before enough MPs would vote to impeach the president. Watching Yoon appear at his impeachment hearing today, these may appear to be very dark days for democracy. But in reality, these events should give Koreans hope.

Youngmi Kim is senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Scottish Centre for Korean Studies

With Trump back in the White House, democracy is in danger across the west. Electoral reform is the best way to protect it

Inauguration day in the US signalled the drum beat of the far right sweeping across western democracies. According to Sadiq Khan, now is the time to be “unflinching in defence of our democracy and values�. Rightly, Khan warned that “the spectre of a resurgent fascism haunts the west� as Europe’s hard-right politicians, including some from Britain, gathered in Washington to welcome the new president.

Mayors are in a unique position: they can give voice to what many think but the government cannot say, bound as it is by diplomacy and trade links. Protecting democracy, Khan said, will mean ministers must “ratchet up� pressure on social media companies to stop “a billionaire bully� using his social media platform to amplify lies and “advance the cause of the far right�. Yes indeed – let’s do that.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

It loves freedom and equality, abhors tyranny, values minding your own business and hates, above all, to be told what to do. This will haunt Trump soon enough

At noon ET on Monday, the US presidency changed hands, and one of the largest governments in the world rearranged itself in service to the petulance and vulgarity of the nation’s new president.

At the Pentagon, a portrait of a general who Donald Trump had found insufficiently deferential to him in his first term was removed from a wall; photographs of the empty spot circulated on social media. Trump was set to sign a bevvy of executive orders, pledging to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, to revoke policies promoting wind energy and electric cars, and to exert executive powers to speed up the construction of oil pipelines.

The sound artist Ruby Colley, whose brother is non-speaking, has created a touching reminder that people can express themselves in other ways

I have long thought that each family has its own unique dialect. A panoply of words, references and turns of phrase that would be incomprehensible to any outsider. It is something that comes out of shared history, of childhood misunderstandings and practical jokes. And it exists even when one among you doesn’t talk or, in my brother’s case, is minimally verbal.

My brother is autistic and pronounces things differently, or uses certain stock phrases, and over time these utterances too have become part of the fabric of our conversations. “Pass me the truckrot,� I might say to my mother, meaning chocolate. “Nos da, Cwac,� (literally: “Night, night, Cwac�) my dad will say, borrowing a line from one of my brother’s favourite Welsh-language cartoon catchphrases. It would seem bizarre to you to hear me say “tradoos� instead of “trousers�, but it is a legitimate entry in the family glossary. It’s also a way of communicating with my brother, as well as acknowledging and paying tribute to his unique phraseology.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

While today’s speech certainly struck a more measured tone than his 2017 address, it was still Trump through and through

• The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s inauguration: fear, division and the facade of national populism

Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the US today, promising a slew of executive actions that put America first. Here our columnists reflect on a return to Trump.

Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist

Events in Vienna are forcing Germany’s bickering mainstream parties to rally together. But the AfD could yet outflank the centre

Could Germany go the way of Austria? Could the party of the far right be invited to form a government? What was previously deemed impossible, then revised down to improbable, is now possible. There are two scenarios in which this could happen.

Fast forward to Germany’s general election day on 23 February and the following assumptions: Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) win, reasonably comfortably, at around their present poll rating of 30%. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) comes second, with an impressive vote share of between 20% and 25%. Nevertheless, it is excluded from coalition negotiations thanks to the “firewall� established several years ago by the mainstream parties to keep extreme groupings at bay.

Globally, rightwing populists seem to be walking in his footsteps – but the UK is proof that that’s not inevitable

The snow lay in drifts over the railway lines at Auschwitz, when Keir Starmer went to pay his respects last week. His wife, Victoria, the granddaughter of Polish Jews who fled to sanctuary in England, stood beside him in the biting cold looking out over the tracks that once ferried unimaginable numbers of people to their deaths.

Afterwards, the prime minister talked about the relics of the dead discovered when the concentration camp was liberated: the piles of shoes, many in children’s sizes, and the suitcases hurriedly packed by people forced from their homes. What he had seen would stay with him, he said. It was “the ultimate warning … of where prejudice can lead�.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas both have reasons to collapse the agreement. Honest brokers must do all they can to keep it alive

The defiant appearance of heavily armed Hamas fighters during Sunday’s handover to the Red Cross of three Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the 7 October 2023 terrorist atrocities was a sinister reminder, if one were needed, that the ceasefire deal negotiated last week hangs by a thread – and could snap at any moment.

The basic problem, going forward, is that neither Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, nor Hamas’s reconstituted leadership, truly wants the truce to endure. Netanyahu was strong-armed, metaphorically kicking and screaming, into agreeing the deal by Donald Trump and his special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator

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Injured people are being seen in viewing rooms for dead bodies. I love my job, but I don’t know how much longer I can cope

• Susie (not her real name) is a senior nurse in an A&E ward at a London hospital

A&E nurses thrive in a crisis. That’s why my colleagues and I came into the profession – to do the best for our patients in their moment of need, even in the most chaotic of circumstances. But the pressure is currently overwhelming. This winter, a bad but by no means unprecedented flu season has put immense strain on already struggling hospitals around the UK. Some patients are waiting days to be seen, with trusts using every inch of space to look after patients in corridors, physio rooms and even store cupboards, often without access to vital lifesaving equipment such as oxygen.

In the London hospital I work in, patients brought in on trolleys are often left for hours in an indoor ambulance bay with an automatic sliding door that opens on to the elements. While they wait for a bed, some are attended to in our viewing room for dead bodies. It’s the only private place left. Everyone knows that “care� is taking place in completely unsuitable parts of a hospital, yet there is no transparent data made available on how many patients are affected, how long their treatment lasts in these inappropriate places and the extent of the harm being done. Wes Streeting and NHS leaders should commit to publishing this data immediately.

Susie (not her real name) is a member of the Royal College of Nursing and a senior nurse in an A&E ward at a London hospital

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My life’s markers may differ from those of my peers, but a year of freedom and fun has taught me to appreciate myself

From the ages of 18 to 21, I spent quite a lot of time crying in my local nightclub in the small town of Listowel in Ireland. My reason for weeping was that all my friends were pulling and I wasn’t. If I could go back in time, I’d give myself a stern talking to, hand myself a shot and say: “Of course no one’s trying it on – you’re wailing Céline Dion in the corner.�

Back then I was terrified of becoming the last single friend in the girl gang. I was petrified of being left behind, abandoned for a man who wore bootcut jeans with brown dress shoes. Every time a friend announced, “I have a date,� my body would seize up. Then I found myself in a relationship. While my friends were out on the town, living the free and single life, I was staying in, curled up under a duvet with my partner, eating takeaway and feeling smug because I didn’t need to be on a dating app.

Édaein O’ Connell is a freelance journalist

They called me ‘wormy’ in the playground – but I’ve come to see that while it isn’t pretty, it’s mine

“Wormy! Wormy! Come here, Wormy!� I’m seven years old, arms wrapped across my legs like a protective shield, while a group of older kids tease me in the playground with the unflattering nickname that would plague my childhood.

A moniker derived from my surname, Worman (pronounced “War-mon,� not “Worm-man,� although such nuances eluded my classmates in the 90s), the simple act of rescuing a worm from being unceremoniously cut in half would earn me the unfortunate title for nearly a decade. How clever they must have felt when they put two and two together, and how infuriating it was for me. From then on, I hated my rare surname and the joking that came with it.

Evelyn Rose Worman is a writer who has previously worked in advertising

I wanted to learn more about my mother. But when her half-brother that I knew nothing about got in touch, I was faced with an agonising decision

I’m sitting in my great-aunt’s retirement home on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan. It’s not yet October, but for reasons I don’t quite understand the home is throwing a Thanksgiving dinner for residents and guests. I join my great-aunt June and the other octogenarians piling up their paper plates at the buffet. Then we sit at trestle tables lined with tiny pumpkins, while framed photos of the recently deceased sit on top of the grand piano, seemingly looking our way.

The early holiday celebrations weren’t the only surprise when I arrived in Michigan. I was there to research a book I was writing about the history of the women’s movement, but also about my mother, whose life story echoes the rise and fall of second-wave feminism. In 1974, a year after Roe v Wade passed, my 22-year-old mother travelled from Essex, England to New York City and took a Greyhound bus across the country to visit June, who was then living in Omaha, Nebraska. At that time, my mum’s life, as it was for so many women of the era, was full of promise. She was the first in the family to go to university, coming of age alongside the revolutionary ideas of the 1960s. I wanted to learn from June who my mum was when everything still seemed possible. I was on this journey as a journalist and as a daughter; in each of these roles, I wanted to know everything.

Marisa Bate is a journalist, author and former Guardian reporter

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Tragedy, and an OCD diagnosis, reshaped my understanding of what I was doing – and why

When I got my first period aged 11, but not again for 18 months, I worried I might be the next Virgin Mary, pregnant by mystical means. I’d sit at my family computer and Google: “Ways to get pregnant without sex�, “Why am I not having my period?�, “No period after first period�. I’d spend an hour clicking through articles and Reddit threads until I read “no, you’re not pregnant� and “yes, this is normal� enough times. But after days, weeks, or sometimes a glorious month or two, the comfort wore off and doubt would seep back in, until finally I would start my search again.

Though my period eventually returned, my inability to cope with the inherent uncertainty of the human experience remained, and I kept turning to Google for reassurance. When I was 17, I sat on the sofa doing homework while my parents went out with friends. In the quiet of the house, with nothing to focus on besides a dull textbook and my own internal workings, I noticed my chest felt tight. I had a smartphone by then, which meant I could search Google anytime, anywhere. I looked up “chest pain�, and it quickly became evident I had no choice but to call my parents and go to the hospital (after the doctors monitored my heart and took a couple of X-rays, they told me that I probably had acid reflux).

Elle Warren is a writer covering queerness and mental health

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A new study reveals the extent to which the economy remains one of the most unbalanced in Europe. Labour needs a broader vision to address the problem

One of Labour’s first actions in office was to rename the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, ditching the Johnsonian slogan that briefly dominated British politics following the “red wall� election of 2019. Since July, the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, has instead presided over the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The change of title reflected a shift in emphasis. While still hoping to lift the fortunes of post‑industrial towns in the north and Midlands, the new government’s overriding mission was to raise living standards across the country by investing in a new era of higher growth and productivity.

Amid market turbulence and gloomy economic prognoses, the early challenges to that approach have been well documented. Meanwhile, the country’s regional divides remain as deep and corrosive as ever. This week, a report by the Centre for Cities thinktank offers a salutary reminder of the yawning gaps that led to talk of levelling up and “rebalancing� the economy in the first place.

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The first arrest of a sitting president, over his declaration of martial law, shows the strength of the nation’s safeguards – but also that more must be done

South Korean presidencies have often ended badly. Office holders have been assassinated, ousted and impeached. Former leaders have faced corruption investigations and sometimes lengthy prison terms.

Yoon Suk Yeol has nonetheless set a precedent as the first president to be arrested in office. Accused of insurrection over his short-lived attempt to impose martial law, the former prosecutor has swapped his suits for the standard khaki uniform of a detainee. In a piquant detail, the man who led his country’s first impeachment of a president, Park Geun‑hye, has also been impeached himself. His powers are currently suspended.

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The billionaire’s return to power signals a new era of upheaval in US politics, marked by authoritarian ambitions, glaring conflicts and polarisation

On the surface, Donald Trump’s inauguration looked like the usual transfer of power, with political rivals exchanging polite applause. This was a facade. Mr Trump’s address feigned conciliation but was, in reality, a rightwing call to arms against his enemies, rejecting the unity the ceremony represents. Mr Trump presented a grim picture of a country on its knees that only he can revitalise. He declared not one but two national emergencies, pledging to return “millions of criminal aliens� and “drill, baby, drill� for the “liquid gold under our feet�. His alarming call to “take back� the Panama Canal from China hints at ambitions to reshape the global order, potentially through force.

A flurry of Trumpian executive orders will accelerate the climate emergency, defy the US constitution over birthright citizenship and reduce the scope of legal protections. Forget the stirring rhetoric of Kennedy; Trump’s message was blunt: enemies at home and abroad, beware. Where Roosevelt once inspired hope, Mr Trump offered fear.

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Liz Kendall needs a policy to match her rhetoric on helping claimants back into work

Labour’s plans for social security are once again under the spotlight, after the high court ruled that a consultation on incapacity benefit cuts was unlawful. Coupled with an expected squeeze on departmental spending, and the latest warning from a House of Lords committee that the present system is “unsustainable�, the prospect of a new consultation ramps up the pressure on the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, to come up with a policy to match her rhetoric.

Ms Kendall rejects the language of her Conservative opponents – for example, the claim by Mel Stride, her predecessor, that people were being signed off work by doctors because they felt “bluesy�. Her vision for reform involves closer coordination with the NHS, enhanced support for people who are economically inactive, and stronger local oversight of job centres and training. In November, she set out her ambition for a “genuine public employment service�, including work coaches to support people through the transition back into work.

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With a struggling Labour government, the Tories fading and Reform on the rise, next year’s Senedd elections may show what’s coming for the wider UK

Since Brexit, one of the hardest tasks in British politics has been to make accurate predictions. Just when you think you know what is going to happen, a prime minister will do something stupid like call an early election during a monsoon, proudly shake hands with dozens of Covid patients, crash the economy (yes, you, Liz) or squander the benefits of a 150-plus majority.

Add to this the rise of Reform UK Party Ltd and Elon Musk’s relentless desire to promote any party globally that resonates with his “divorced dad energy�, and you would be hard pressed to guess what awaits the UK in the 2029 general election.

Will Hayward is a Guardian columnist. He publishes a regular newsletter on Welsh politics and is the author of Independent Nation: Should Wales Leave the UK?

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When you attend your local choir or yoga class, just stop and think – where are the disabled adults?

In what passes for the national conversation, our social care crisis tends to be reduced to a handful of factors so familiar they now feel like cliches. Just about all of them are centred on older people, the pressures on financially broken local councils from an ageing society and people having to sell their homes to pay for residential care. All these things, of course, are urgent and hugely significant – but they exclude a huge part of society for whom care is just as important. The reason why that happens is not hard to work out: it reflects a set of ingrained, almost Victorian prejudices – and, without wanting to sound too melodramatic, the last frontier of the struggle for human rights.

Just under 50% of care spending in England goes on support for disabled adults of working age, and more than two-thirds of that money is dedicated to people with learning disabilities. What this part of the social care picture has in common with help for older people is pretty clear: years of austerity, recruitment problems tied to low-paid jobs (made worse by Brexit), and the endless failures of successive governments to tackle a huge list of systemic problems. But the failings of care for disabled people have their own specifics: nonexistent local planning for the transition from childhood to life as an adult, no conception of successful grownup lives that does not involve paid work, and a national habit that is completely toxic: shutting away far too many disabled people, to the point where they simply cannot participate in society.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist. His memoir Maybe I’m Amazed, about his autistic son James and how music became their shared language, is published in March. For more information, visit maybeimamazed.substack.com

Across the world, societies are reverting to oligarchies. How to resist? Fight for democracy with all we’ve got

Seldom in recent history has class war been waged so blatantly. Generally, billionaires and hectomillionaires employ concierges to attack the poor on their behalf. But now, freed from shame and embarrassment, they no longer hide their involvement. In the US, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, will lead the federal assault on the middle and working classes: seeking to slash public spending and the public protections defending people from predatory capital.

He shares responsibility for the Department of Government Efficiency with another billionaire, Vivek Ramaswamy. They have been recruiting further billionaires to oversee cuts across government. These plutocrats will not be paid. They will wage their class war pro bono, out of the goodness of their hearts.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

The agreement reached this week is basically the plan Joe Biden unveiled in May. So much pain and death could have been avoided

When news of the ceasefire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas first broke on Wednesday, a friend offered the kind hope that now, at last, there could be a sense of joy. I wanted very much to feel that way but, at that moment, I could not – and here’s why.

For one thing, a mere announcement did not seem enough. When it comes to the Middle East, “believe it when you see it� tends to be a good operating principle. Sure enough, there followed 48 hours of hitches and last-minute delays and even now, as I write this and after the Israeli security cabinet approved the deal, it seems like tempting fate to assume everything will run smoothly.

Lisa Nandy needs creative ideas for the broadcaster. A hybrid funding settlement could protect its Reithian tradition

The BBC is still in the premier league of great British institutions – just. Other countries have public broadcasters, but none has the BBC’s range and authority. For generations, the corporation has served as a beacon of quality entertainment and journalism. Its World Service is a global shrine to the English language, with an astonishing 320 million worshippers. The BBC’s viewers pay a licence fee of just over £3 a week per household, which covers national TV channels, radio, iPlayer, a variety of apps and the World Service. That seems remarkably good value.

Yet the problem is obvious. What was designed as the monopoly supplier of British broadcasting is now overwhelmed by a tidal wave of competition. The BBC boasts eight television channels; on my last count Sky had about 50. What with streaming, repeats, catch-ups and podcasts, Britain’s computer-literate younger generation sees nothing special in the BBC: in 2019, YouTube overtook the BBC among under-16s. Yes, the BBC delivers Gavin & Stacey, Call the Midwife and Wolf Hall, but so could someone else and simply charge for them. And while documentaries of David Attenborough’s class remain outstanding, BBC One and Two are otherwise desperate for clicks, and seem padded out with hours of low-cost quizshows, antiques sales and celebrity wanderers.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Patients are dying on hospital trolleys, and nurses are treating them in corridors. The very least we can do is get vaccinated

Corridors are no place to die, but that is what is happening in British hospitals now as the worst winter crisis in years crams every corner and cupboard in A&Es with very sick patients waiting for beds. Some die on trolleys and chairs, nurses report to their Royal College. They talk of “straddling a patient doing CPR while everyone watches on�. The Whittington hospital in north London and Queen’s hospital in Romford, Essex, have both advertised for “corridor care� nurses. The heath secretary, Wes Streeting, says he will never allow this to become “normalised� as it did under the previous government.

But the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine suggests it already has, declaring: “This must be a watershed moment.� Last week, 20 hospitals declared “critical incidents�, because they were unable to cope with the demand for care. For nurses, the crisis means changing frail, incontinent patients beside vending machines and treating people in storerooms, car parks, offices and toilets, sometimes with just one nurse and one healthcare assistant coping with 20 or 30 patients in spaces blocked with trolleys. Barking, Redbridge and Havering NHS trust has resorted to putting up posters in its corridors asking people to lobby their MPs for £35m to make its A&E capable of coping with double the number of patients it was built for. It so happens that one of their MPs is Streeting.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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These high priests of globalisation are facing the fact that Trump’s tariffs are part of a global shift to protectionism

Hollywood would struggle to come up with a better plot. On Monday, as Donald Trump returns to the White House, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual talk fest kicks off in Davos. The arch protectionist v the spiritual home of globalisation. The man who says “tariff� is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary� being sworn in for a second term just as the high priests of free trade assemble 5,000ft up in the Swiss Alps.

The Davos elite have a love-hate relationship with Trump: they despise him, but when he showed up at the WEF as president he was the hottest ticket in town. This year, the billionaires will have to make do with a video link appearance, but even from the other side of the Atlantic, Trump will dominate events. That’s not surprising. Most of the WEF attenders have grown up believing that trade barriers should be torn down, not erected. As such, they see Trump’s support for protectionism as a dangerous heresy.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

Labour’s panicked reaction to turbulence is to promise ‘ruthless’ cuts. It has learned the wrong lessons from Britain’s shortest-lived PM

Britain’s centre of power is stalked by a zombie. Across Westminster, the mere mention of her name summons up a grim past, but she remains ever present: blond bob, eyes that never move and a grin slightly aslant so it expresses not mirth, but faint menace. When least expected, she can bark a laugh that sends shivers up a cabinet minister’s spine. And whenever her shadow looms in SW1, the dread murmur starts: she used to be prime minister, you know.

Liz Truss’s stint at the top of politics ended years ago. Perhaps close confidants and trained medics are yet to break the news, but for her, power is a fading memory, a shrinking image in the rear-view. As the voters of South West Norfolk ensured last July, she is now an ex-politician. Yet in British political culture, she is the great undead. No other prime minister since the Brexit vote so haunts current debates. It’s not just because she never belts up, never stops chuntering about how the Guardian and the BBC must be “fixed�, or siccing her lawyers on Keir Starmer. It’s also because her few days of mayhem at No 10 remains the pre-eminent cautionary tale of our times.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

A blind spot on standards has marked the new government’s early days – but it’s not too late for Labour to restore trust in politics

In theory, Tulip Siddiq’s resignation as a junior Treasury minister ought to be a political bump in the road for Keir Starmer, not a pothole crash. Siddiq is a moderately interesting politician, but not a major one. She is not a household name. She is therefore expendable. The government’s direction is unaffected by her departure.

Naturally it is a grim personal moment for Siddiq. But it is mostly a matter of indifference to the British public. This is as it should be. Few ministers ever cut through widely. Even fewer resignations stand out – Geoffrey Howe, Robin Cook and Sajid Javid are among the exceptions, perhaps. Most ministers who resign, though, are simply washed away with the political tide. This is likely to be Siddiq’s fate.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

New polling says much of the world will welcome Trump. Europe will need to be more transactional abroad – but less so at home

• European jitters about Trump 2.0 not shared by much of world, poll finds

When returning US president Donald Trump eyes up Greenland, Panama and Canada, as Vladimir Putin once eyed Crimea and Xi Jinping eyes Taiwan, he is both symptom and cause of a new world disorder. Trumpism is just one variant of transactionalism, which is the leitmotif of this new disorder. Liberal democracies, especially those in Europe, need to wake up and smell the gunpowder.

Russia and China are now revisionist great powers, which aim to change or overthrow the existing order, while middle powers like Turkey, Brazil and South Africa are happy to play with all sides. This is also a world of wars – in Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan. Most Europeans carry on pretty much as if we still lived in late 20th-century peacetime, but the world around us increasingly resembles the late 19th-century Europe of fiercely competing great powers and empires writ large. For the geopolitical stage is now planetary, and most of the players are non-western states. Trump’s United States is likely to behave more like those other transactional great powers than like, say, Germany or Sweden.

Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist. He co-authored the report on the ECFR global poll with Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard

The cash to match the prime minister’s ambition will have to come from other budgets long before any benefits are seen

Keir Starmer made two predictions at the start of his week. He said that artificial intelligence will transform Britain’s economy in the coming years and that Rachel Reeves will continue to run the Treasury. Those were safe bets, but not guarantees. One is a forecast the prime minister makes eagerly, the other was bullied out of him. He would have preferred to talk about AI improving productivity, generating jobs and improving services, without being asked if he plans to sack the chancellor.

He doesn’t, and wouldn’t say even if he did. The question isn’t serious. It is a contrivance, a lobby ritual for turning speculation into news. Demand official comment on an improbable scenario, then interrogate the answer until it surrenders a headline. Starmer isn’t poised to jettison Reeves, but economic pressure on the pair is real. There is no growth. The pound is depreciating and debt costs are rising, gobbling resources that can’t then be used to upgrade the public realm.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Zuckerberg, Musk and Bezos are falling over themselves to suck up to the incoming president. And he’s just as keen to let them

Over the past month, we’ve learned that Donald Trump’s inauguration fund has received million-dollar donations from, among others, Google, Meta overlord Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Apple boss Tim Cook. Hard to know whether it’s encouraging or quite the opposite to find them being so public about it. Traditionally when industrialists have made knee-bending gestures to incoming self-confessed authoritarians, they’ve preferred to do it in a back room somewhere, rather than on a publicly available list that also risks implying they like Carrie Underwood’s music.

So let’s deal first with the entertainers. Underwood will perform at Trump’s inauguration, having previously insisted it was absolutely impossible to put her in some kind of ideological box. “I feel like more people try to pin me places politically,� she mused a few years ago. “I try to stay far out of politics if possible, at least in public, because nobody wins. It’s crazy. Everybody tries to sum everything up and put a bow on it, like it’s black and white. And it’s not like that.� Update: it now is like that.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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Fascism in power in the 1930s brought the world to genocidal war. But memories have faded, as has the stigma attached to the far-right – and that’s dangerous

Democracy is dying across the globe. This may sound alarmist and generate a follow-up question: what does that actually mean? Will there be no elections? Will the opposition be criminalised? If these are the metrics, then Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains a democracy. Six political parties are represented in the State Duma, its federal parliament, and there are more than 20 registered political parties. Well, as you probably understand, Russia is no democracy: indeed, this is a nation veering past authoritarianism and into totalitarianism, with more Russians being persecuted for political activity than since the days of Joseph Stalin.

Faith in democracy is unquestionably on the decline. A new study finds that a fifth of Britons under 45 believe that the best system for running a country effectively is “a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with elections� compared with 8% of their older counterparts. That mirrors other findings across the world. A study by Cambridge researchers in 2020 examined attitudes in 160 countries and found that younger generations “have become steadily more disillusioned with democracy�. And according to the Pew Research Center, nearly two-thirds of citizens in 12 high-income nations were dissatisfied with democracy in 2024, up from just under half in 2017.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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A new Dylan is needed to inspire protest against Trumpism, writes Toby Wood. Plus letters from Patrick Owen, Cris Yelland, John Blake, Ian Cunningham, Richard Barnard, John Beer, Jane Barrett, Charles Jeffrey, Helen Keating, Rae Street, Pete Lavender and Tom Stubbs

On Monday, my wife and I went to our local cinema to watch A Complete Unknown, not only to see Timothée Chalamet’s stunning re-creation of a young Bob Dylan but also to avoid the wall-to-wall televised coverage of Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony. Set in the early 1960s, the film reminded us of how Dylan ignited and spoke for the interests of young people, starting out with simple folk songs of hope and aspiration, swiftly followed by angry snarls of rage exacerbated by the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

With Trump once again ensconced in the White House, promising/threatening a multitude of actions, now is surely the time for a new Dylan to appear – hopefully someone who can galvanise and electrify a new generation and then inspire and support a viable new Democrat leader who can first provide opposition to any Trump excesses and then fight to ensure that his like never succeeds again (Trump sworn in as 47th president as US braces for a new era of disruption and division, 20 January).
Toby Wood
Peterborough

The SpaceX founder’s salute was ‘chilling’, writes Robert Saunders. Plus letters from John Gorenfeld, Martine Frampton and Simon Fowler

Elon Musk’s fascist-style salute appears to be a Bellamy salute, named after Francis Bellamy, the author of the pledge of allegiance to the flag (Elon Musk appears to make back-to-back fascist salutes at inauguration rally, 20 January). This salute was common in the US until the 1930s, when the similarities with salutes to Hitler and Mussolini gave rise to concern that it could be misconstrued.

As a consequence, on 22 December 1942, Congress amended section 7 of the flag code to decree that the pledge of allegiance should “be rendered by standing with the right hand over the heart�. Whether or not Musk is familiar with this or any other history, it is chilling that he appears to be unconcerned about being associated with fascist ideology.
Robert Saunders
Balcombe, West Sussex

An unusual survival guide | Unfortunate names | The Saint Peter heresy | Oblong memories | Imprisoned women

Inspiring ideas from Emma Beddington (Somehow, it is still January. Here are my nine wellness-free survival tips, 20 January), but has she considered dipping a toe into one of the many online groups? How about Make Your Own Breastmilk Jewellery, the Bathtubs in Fields Appreciation Group or, perhaps closer to home, York Drunken Knitwits?
Joanna Rimmer
Newcastle upon Tyne

• As a prospective patient in the 1970s for wisdom teeth extraction, I was very distressed to realise that my dental surgeon was called Mr Coffin. I wondered at the time why he had not thought to change his name (Letters, 10 January), but I did go ahead with the operation.
Alyson Elliman
Carshalton Beeches, London

Treasury orthodoxy is such that the chancellor doesn’t seem to think she has a choice, writes Anthony Lawton, while Ros Wain says the government needs to get over the household view of the public finances. Plus a letter from Phil Tate

Your editorial (14 January) rightly critiques Rachel Reeves’s adherence to Treasury orthodoxy. But the persistence of this framework goes deeper than institutional inertia. It reflects a failure to recognise a choice at all – and an inability to imagine and craft better alternatives.

Treasury orthodoxy is rooted in the Thatcher-Reagan era. It is not just outdated, but has become invisible to those who wield it. Traditional economic training teaches policymakers to see fiscal discipline and market reassurance not just as good options but as the only ones. This narrow view blinds them to evidence that transformative public investment, targeted redistribution and state-led solutions can be essential to tackle inequality, stagnation and the environmental crisis.

Bob Ward points to the flood prevention and ecosystem recovery benefits, while John Varley says beavers can be a nuisance too

If the prime minister’s office really is blocking the licensed release of beavers because it regards it as a legacy of the last government (No 10 blocks beaver release plan as officials view it as ’‘Tory legacy’, 14 January), it shows that the government really has not grasped the importance of this issue.

Beavers have a potentially critical role to play, as a reintroduced native species, in helping the UK become more resilient to the growing impacts of climate change by effectively managing the risks of floods and drought as periods of heavy rainfall and extreme dryness become more frequent and intense. Beavers also help the recovery and development of ecosystems.

Ed Gillam and Peter Goodair respond to Kemi Badenoch’s admission that the Tories didn’t have a plan for the post-Brexit economy

Kemi Badenoch believes that the only problem with Brexit was that the government didn’t have a plan for the economy following Britain’s departure from Europe (Report, 16 January). This, in itself, is a shocking admission of the Conservative party’s negligence. However, as the erstwhile “poor man of Europe�, Britain’s economy has never been sustainable without easy trade with Europe. This must have been clear. Brexit was always built on the preposterous conceit that we could survive outside the EU. Perhaps the penny has dropped now that the pound is tumbling.
Ed Gillam
Exeter

• While Kemi Badenoch recognises flaws in the Tory handling of Brexit and Ed Davey calls for membership of the customs union by 2030, you rightly call upon the government for action (Editorial, 17 January). And what have we heard from Keir Starmer? He plans to “make Brexit work� but has not uttered a single word on what this will entail. Trips to Brussels and facile soundbites will not suffice; he needs to fill this vacuum with meaningful action.
Peter Goodair
Birmingham
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Animal welfare | Nuclear fusion | Atomic waste | Managing investments | What’s in a name?

While I am, of course, concerned about the risks posed to the UK’s delicate biosystem by the inadvertent importing of harmful fauna and flora from foreign countries, your article (Colombian tree frog found by Sheffield florist highlights invasive species threat, 17 January) left a vital question unanswered. What happened to the little tree frog?
Sallyann Halstead
Fitzhead, Somerset

• Intrigued to read about the government promising a record investment in nuclear fusion (Ministers pledge record £410m to support UK nuclear fusion energy, 16 January). Reminds me of the old joke: fusion, for the last 70 years, has always been 20 years in the future – perhaps an experiment to prove time doesn’t exist in nuclear physics?
Dr Paul Dorfman
Chair, Nuclear Consulting Group

Responding to an article by Polly Toynbee, Prof Sophie Watson highlights the social benefits of the workplace, while Pete Dorey takes issue with ‘labour market flexibility’. Plus letters from Ian Arnott, Maddy Gray, Dr Kirstine Oswald and David Mayle

I was surprised to read such a partisan argument on working from home by Polly Toynbee, whose articles I often appreciate (Labour has been sucked into the WFH culture war. It should know better, 14 January). Yes, there are certainly advantages – mitigating the environmental effects of commuter travel, flexibility of hours particularly for working parents, and so on.

But it is a far more complex picture. For many people – particularly for young or single people – the workplace is an important place of social connection. It also makes possible informal connections that can enhance creativity, mitigate tensions that can arise through email communication, make possible the creation of new networks, and countless other benefits.