For the first two years of his leadership, Keir Starmer seemed “policy-phobic”, says Michael Jacobs in The Guardian. Labour’s strategy was “almost entirely” centred on presenting him as “neither Boris Johnson nor Jeremy Corbyn”, with little insight into his own plans. But in recent months, Starmer has adopted a slate of policies “considerably more radical” than many imagined. Just look at his economic stance. For all his talk of “fiscal discipline”, he has pledged to spend £28bn a year on climate action this decade – more than Corbyn promised – and to establish a huge state-owned energy company to drive a decade-long, £60bn efficiency programme to fix Britain’s leaky homes.

That war broke out last year in Ukraine, of all places, isn’t surprising, says Hal Brands in Bloomberg: the country has been central to “every great global clash of the modern era”. Both resources and geography make it a valuable “strategic prize”. Within its borders is some of the richest agricultural land in the world, which accounts “for 6% of all calories traded on international food markets”. It is also the “hinge” connecting what the great geopolitical thinker Halford Mackinder called the “Eurasian Heartland” with the economically advanced countries of Europe. Any European or Eurasian power looking to expand into the other sphere must pass through Ukraine.