MI5 has warned MPs and peers that Chinese intelligence agents are relentlessly targeting them by offering “large financial incentives” to their staff, friends and contacts in return for seemingly low-level information. The Security Service advised lawmakers to look out for “unusual questions from their colleagues or network” that might indicate information-gathering. Donald Trump designated Saudi Arabia a major non-Nato ally of the US as he hosted Mohammed bin Salman at the White House yesterday. The US president exonerated the Crown Prince of any involvement in the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite US intelligence concluding in 2021 that he had approved the killing, saying “things happen”. Scotland have secured a place at the football World Cup for the first time since 1998. They beat Denmark 4-2 to qualify, with goals including a spectacular bicycle kick from Scott McTominay and Kenny McLean booting one in from inside his own half. Watch the extremely enjoyable reaction from BBC Scotland’s commentators here.

The MAGA movement is finally starting to crack

Something remarkable happened in Washington over the weekend, says Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times: Donald Trump picked a fight with Republican lawmakers “and lost”. When Marjorie Taylor Greene and a handful of other House members said they would vote to release the Justice Department’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, the president lashed out – calling them traitors and losers – in an apparent attempt to dissuade others from following suit. It didn’t work. Facing a “humiliating public rebuke”, Trump reversed course and said Republicans should vote to release the files. Which, yesterday, they did.

Reports of a “MAGA crackup” should always be viewed sceptically – all too often Trump has seemed to be losing his grip on the right, only to emerge stronger. “But a few things are different now.” One is the economy, which the president has made worse with his tariffs. Another, not unrelatedly, is the polls. Republicans used to dismiss the president’s dismal approval ratings as “fake news”, but that’s no longer an option in the wake of the shellacking they received in this month’s elections. It’s amazing how quickly views can change when a president becomes a drag on his party – remember how Democrats only seemed to notice Joe Biden’s age-related decline when it became a “political emergency”. One MAGA influencer, Mike Cernovich, recently offered a blistering critique of corruption in the Trump administration, saying it’s “at levels you read about in history books”; others responded to the president’s attacks on Greene by burning their red MAGA hats. When Trump previously turned on Republicans, his base tended to follow. The fact that they haven’t done so this time suggests that his coalition may, finally, be starting to fragment.