Donald Trump has authorised sanctions against the International Criminal Court, specifically aimed at anyone involved in what he calls the “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”. The US president’s executive order puts financial and visa restrictions on individuals, and their families, who assist ICC investigations of American citizens or allies. Ed Miliband has dropped his opposition to building a third runway at Heathrow Airport, despite threatening to resign over the proposed expansion in 2009 and voting against it in 2018. The energy secretary has said that he will “abide by collective responsibility”. A 300-year-old violin could become the most expensive musical instrument ever sold when it goes up for auction in New York today. The Joachim-Ma (pictured), made by Antonio Stradivari in 1714, is expected to fetch up to $18m, surpassing the current record of $15.9m. If you fancy a cheeky bid, there’s still time to register here.

The behind-the-scenes battle in No 10

Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, does not immediately display the “demeanour of a disruptor”, says Michael Gove in The Spectator. But beneath those sober blue suits are “the scars of a streetfighter” who obliterated Corbynism and handed Starmer a majority big enough to “remake Britain”. McSweeney learnt his political craft fighting the hard-left in Lambeth and the far-right in Dagenham, and he owes some of his insurgent style to his upbringing in Ireland. His parents were activists in Fine Gael, the party inspired by IRA mastermind Michael Collins. In many ways, McSweeney is Collins’s “spiritual successor”: ruthless in identifying the real enemy, conscious of how internal rivalries threaten success – and a realist “scornful of soft-headedness”.

Since winning No 10 for his boss, McSweeney has been disappointed: Labour has “returned to its cosy comfort zone”. “Metropolitan indulgence” has allowed Ed Miliband to pursue an energy policy which is “applauded by NGOs” but hated by working people and industry. Similar sentimentality has allowed the “Blob” to unwind education reforms, letting failing schools off the hook. And Starmer appointed as attorney general an “even more zealous human rights ideologue” than himself, Richard Hermer KC, who has set about correcting the behaviour of elected ministers, whose “grubby ascent to office through actual contact with voters” sits ill with his devotion to “legal purity”. Whether imposing arms embargoes on Israel, ceding sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, or “lecturing his colleagues on the defects of ‘populist’ democracy”, Hermer entrenches establishment thinking over insurgent instincts wherever he can. All that makes space for another insurgent party, which is now topping polls – Reform UK. Unless McSweeney can bring Starmer back round, wipeout awaits.

👨‍⚖️🪓 Starmer values his friends outside politics more than anyone in Westminster, says Patrick Maguire in The Times, and “Hermer is one of them”. He was Starmer’s junior in countless cases “before the very courts that now drive ministers mad”, and the relationship has endured. But does that mean the PM would never sack him? Not a bit of it. The lesson about Starmer is that he is capable of moving “hard and fast” when the political reality changes. Just ask Sue Gray, Jeremy Corbyn, or “countless others who learnt the hard way”.