Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, will be the next prime minister of Canada. The 59-year-old won 86% of the vote in the race to succeed Justin Trudeau as leader of the ruling Liberal party, vowing in his victory speech to maintain retaliatory tariffs on the US “until the Americans show us respect”. People living within half a kilometre of new or upgraded electricity pylons will have up to £2,500 knocked off their electricity bills over the next 10 years. The government discount scheme is aimed at reducing opposition to renewable energy projects and speeding up the construction of vital new grid infrastructure. James Bond will remain male and British despite creative control of the franchise being handed to “woke Hollywood”, says the Daily Mail. A leaked memo circulating at Amazon MGM Studios stipulates that “keeping the spirit of Bond alive” means the spy cannot change gender and must be British “or from the commonwealth”.

Trump is boosting his political foes

When Donald Trump became president, says Kamal Ahmed in The Daily Telegraph, the conventional wisdom was that it would boost parties of the right around the world. Instead the reverse has happened. In Canada, the centrist Liberals cut the Conservative poll lead from 25 percentage points to within the margin of error, and the appointment of former Bank of England governor Mark Carney to replace Justin Trudeau will likely “add to the surge”. Mexico’s left-wing president Claudia Sheinbaum has an approval rating of between 75% and 85%. Even the EU, which is more or less the antithesis of all Donald Trump stands for, has “found a new sense of purpose” with promises to scrap borrowing rules and increase defence spending by as much as €800bn.

Another beneficiary of Trump’s “flamethrower” politics is Keir Starmer. As some smart thinkers in Labour immediately recognised, Trump gave them a get-out-of-jail-free card to jettison unpopular policies – and the US president’s effective abandonment of Europe on defence has only accelerated that process. Blairites have been brought back into the fold. Tax rises, extra borrowing and state largesse have been replaced by announcements on “slashing red tape, extra defence spending, NHS reform, welfare cuts and ridding the country of civil servants”. International aid has been slashed. Major changes to sickness and disability benefits are coming later this month. None of these big reforms guarantees success, of course. Labour remains “ideologically wedded” to bureaucracy – more than 20 quangos have been set up since the election – and productivity remains “anaemic”. But for now, “Starmer has a fair wind”. And he’s got Trump to thank.