The US and Ukraine have signed a long-awaited minerals deal, establishing a “reconstruction investment fund” to finance mining and infrastructure projects in Ukraine. Kyiv will retain ownership of the resources, and the first decade’s worth of profits will be reinvested in the country, but it’s not yet clear whether the deal involves a formal US security guarantee. Polls have opened for today’s local elections in England, with more than 1,600 council seats and six mayoralties up for grabs, along with the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby. Kemi Badenoch’s “gloomy” Conservatives expect to lose hundreds of council seats, says Politico, and Labour is defending some “tricky mayoralties”. All eyes are on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which is leading national polls. Ikea has come to Oxford Street. The Swedish firm’s new three-floor outlet is much brighter than its other stores, says The Times, with walls, display units and products in strikingly vivid colours. “No sad beige here.”

Trump and “The Art of the Kneel”

At what point, asks Marina Hyde in The Guardian, does realpolitik tip over into “nakedly facilitating” corruption? I am wondering this after reading that Keir Starmer’s government has been exploring whether it can push golf bosses into hosting the 2028 Open championship at Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort in Ayrshire. “Sorry, but no.” This is something Trump apparently mentions frequently on his phone calls with Starmer, who for some reason has not replied: “And I’d prefer to be talking to Mickey Mouse, but we’re all making compromises.” It’s almost as if the prime minister is compiling material for a manual on dealing with the president. “Call it The Art of the Kneel.”

One reason Trump is so keen to see the Open return to Turnberry is that the event is “almost as lucrative as it is prestigious”. Turnberry has made a profit precisely once in the past 10 years, losing £1.7m last year alone. Hosting a major championship would surely turn that around, but alas the course was effectively blackballed by the R&A (which organises the Open) over the small matter of the Jan 6 attack on US democracy, “which the club’s owner had, of course, fomented”. Nevertheless, government bureaucrats have been dispatched to plead with the R&A’s new chief executive, Mark Darbon, who is apparently making positive noises. Sinking to Trump’s level like this is not just “humiliatingly post-moral”, it’s also strategically pointless: no world leader has extracted any concessions from Trump, no matter how fawning or obeisant. Starmer might as well go the whole hog and instruct the Treasury to buy a load of $TRUMP meme coins. At least they might be worth something.