At least four crew members of a US refuelling plane involved in the Iran strikes have been killed following an apparent mid-air collision with another American aircraft. A rescue operation is under way to find the KC-135’s two other crew members. The UK has accused Russia of having a “hidden hand” in Iranian drone attacks, after a shared British and American base in the Iraqi region of Erbil was targeted using tactics the Russians have honed in Ukraine. Britain’s economy unexpectedly failed to grow in January, as the dominant services sector struggled even before the war in Iran triggered a global energy shock. Economists also blamed people failing to go out to pubs and restaurants. A Cheltenham-winning jockey’s romantic prospects may or may not have been boosted by an intervention from his mother. Asked by a TV interviewer what Tom Bellamy, 31, would gain from his 40-1 victory on White Noise, his mum Sue replied: “A girlfriend, maybe? Anybody out there? He’s a nice lad.”

War is the “teacher of kings”, says Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal, and President Trump is discovering it’s a “tough grader”. So far, neither the decapitation of Iran’s leadership nor complete air superiority has prevented the Islamic Republic from choking off the Middle East’s oil flow to the world. And it’s not just oil. Qatar’s main liquefied natural gas facility, which sends out nearly a fifth of global supply, is closed because of a drone strike. Shipments of helium, which is vital for South Korea’s semiconductor plants, have been blocked. Reduced exports of fertiliser, much of which is made from a byproduct of fossil fuel production, could see farming costs “shoot up”.

The big problem for Trump is that if he ends the war before he breaks the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, it will be an acknowledgement that the mullahs hold a “veto power” over their Gulf neighbours’ trade with the world. Tehran will know it can “threaten a global economic crisis at will”, and will therefore be able to build up the weapons – nuclear or otherwise – that will make its position “unassailable”. America’s power and prestige, not to mention Trump’s presidency, would struggle to survive such a fiasco. That’s the worst case scenario. The best case would be if the US manages to reopen the Gulf, and a new Iranian government, one less hell-bent on dominating the region, somehow emerges. More likely is something in between, in which the Strait of Hormuz is mostly cleared but the current regime stays in place. In that case, Operation Epic Fury would be remembered as the “Mother of All Lawmowers” – solving nothing fundamental but preserving the Middle East’s “fragile balance of power”.

💪🤷 Many in the MAGA world think Trump was bounced into striking Iran by hawkish members of “the old Republican establishment”, says Freddy Gray in The Spectator. When he privately asked the likes of Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn whether he should authorise the attack, they gave him a “resounding yes”, and Senator Lindsey Graham has been “bragging” on the airwaves about his role in starting the war. “Here’s the problem,” says one MAGA insider. “You talk to White House staff, State Department staff, almost everyone, and they’ll quietly go: ‘Yeah we don’t know what the fuck is going on or why we’re doing this…’”

No 10 is “very, very cheesed off” with Britain’s defence chief, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, says Tim Shipman in The Spectator. On the eve of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell asked Knighton whether Britain should send the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean. “We don’t need the carrier,” replied Knighton. “We have an aircraft carrier – it’s called Cyprus.” The failure to send any warships, which are as much about “diplomatic theatre” as military capacity, proved to be a “disastrous political judgement”, enraging Cyprus, Jordan and the UAE. The incident has led to what may prove a “fatal collapse of confidence” in Knighton.

High-end hotels on the lookout for ways to lure in younger customers are embracing the “treat culture” boom in pastries, says Kate Maxwell in the FT. The Berkeley Hotel’s Cédric Grolet café serves stripey croissants and alluring cakes piped with daisy petals. The Connaught’s Nicolas Rouzaud outpost offers a “Trio au Chocolat” pastry threaded with dark, hazelnut and white chocolate, while the more traditional bakery at Claridge’s sells French fancies and a jammy dodger with a smiley face, as well as ham and cheese swirls and sourdough. The pain au chocolat, it seems, is the new Negroni.

When I arrived in Britain aged 11 in 1983, says Fiyaz Mughal on The Daily T, the country was proud of its history, its identity and its direction. Back then, almost no one saw religion as the central, defining feature of identity. People like me looked different, but our Muslim-ness was largely invisible and our communities were “living, breathing, working like anyone else”. That began to change, first with the 1979 Iranian revolution which brought with it a sense that “Islamic identity comes first”, and then with the Salman Rushdie affair, which saw the Satanic Verses author issued with a death warrant and forced into hiding.

Exacerbated by anti-Muslim hatred following the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks, “corrosive” identity politics became more prominent and began “tearing our communities apart”. In some, an extreme, anti-West interpretation of the faith took root – over the past few years MI5 has been monitoring some 45,000 people suspected of extreme Islamist views – while police, social workers and civil servants became so afraid of being branded “racist” for calling out extremism that it led to appalling social failures such as the rape gangs scandal. Politicians are partly to blame. Not since Gordon Brown has a single government put in place an “active, practical and enforceable” plan to make Britain more cohesive. Instead, they have successively championed a “soft, cuddly” anything-goes approach. Avoiding further “ghettoisation” means returning to the fundamental British values of living – and engaging – with one other. A courageous government would be one willing to distinguish between the autocratic, demagogical interpretation of Islam and the one followed by the majority of us moderate Muslims.

A British start-up has triumphed in the Pentagon’s kamikaze drone combat trials, says Charlie Parker in The Times. In the opening round of the US Defence Department’s new procurement process, 27 companies were given just two hours to train American soldiers to use their drones before competing in battle scenarios. The UK-based Skycutter “stunned the US industrial complex” by scoring a whopping 99.3 out of 100, some 12 points ahead of its nearest rival. As the clear winner, the firm will receive the lion’s share of a $150m contract to supply drones to the US military.

To The Knowledge:

In your piece about a call for a doctor at Andrew Roberts’s “Veuve-laden” 2021 launch, I was reminded of a rather older friend of mine who got a PhD in astrophysics from Harvard in the 1950s. He and a couple of colleagues celebrated by going on an afternoon cruise from Boston Harbour. Just after leaving there was an announcement asking for a doctor to attend to a young lady who had hurt her ankle. One of the astrophysicists was off like a shot, returning a few minutes later looking rather crestfallen. “Damn,” he said. “Beaten by a doctor of theology.”

David Jones
Thropton, Northumberland

It’s “snake yoga”, says Deena Prichep in NPR, which sees people practise the ancient Indian discipline in the company of legless reptiles. Inspired by the likes of puppy and kitten yoga, a pet shop in Portland, Oregon called HISSS has hired in a yoga instructor to deliver classes while handlers drape snakes up to seven feet long over students’ shoulders and stomachs. HISSS says the classes tend to be about 80% reptile devotees and 20% fearful types looking for “exposure therapy”. Refunds are not available.