European gas prices are up 25% amid escalating tit-for-tat strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure. Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field yesterday, prompting Tehran to strike the world’s largest liquefied natural gas field in Qatar. Donald Trump claimed he knew “nothing about” the Israeli strikes, but threatened to “massively blow up” South Pars if Iran struck the Gulf state again. Plans to double the time migrants already in the UK must wait to qualify for permanent settlement could be watered down after Angela Rayner labelled the policy “un-British”. Downing Street said yesterday “transitional arrangements” could be introduced to soften the impact on those expected to start qualifying this year. King Charles wished guests “Ramadan Mubarak” at last night’s state banquet for Nigerian president Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which fell during the Islamic holy month. Guests at the dinner, which began after sunset, ate quail egg tartlets, turbot with lobster mousse and iced blackcurrant soufflé, and were served an alcohol-free cocktail containing English rose soda, spice, grenadine, and hibiscus and ginger syrup – as well as the usual champagne and English sparkling wine.

Something changed this week, says Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. For 14 months, foreign leaders have bent over backwards to stay in the US president’s good books. Strike a favourable deal or go along with whatever madcap idea he is proposing, went the thinking, and you might just escape the worst of his mercurial impulses down the line. No longer. Despite Trump’s threats that Nato faces a “very bad” future if it doesn’t help him clear the Strait of Hormuz, America’s allies have politely but firmly rejected his requests for military assistance. In the words of German defence minister Boris Pistorius: “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.”

The shift in attitude is, of course, partly because they don’t want to get embroiled in a deeply unpopular and unnecessary Middle East war. And it’s partly because of the offensive way in which Trump has treated them: the Greenland debacle; the economic chaos wrought by his tariff regime; the false and offensive claim that allied troops in Afghanistan “stayed a little back, a little off the front lines”. But it’s also a geopolitical calculation. Allied leaders have realised, belatedly, that all their toadying to Trump has yielded them precisely nothing: no favourable treatment, no exemptions from tariffs, no big shift in his support for Ukraine. They’ve stopped trying to dig out the “hidden logic” behind his actions – Imperialism! Isolationism! The Monroe Doctrine! – and realised that any contribution they make in Iran will “count for nothing”. A few days or weeks from now, Trump will neither remember nor care who pitched in at his hour of need. So why bother?

👅🇺🇦 The “serves him right” narrative must be very satisfying for Trump’s critics, says The Wall Street Journal. But it’ll be Europeans and Asians who’ll be harmed the most if the strait remains closed, because of their reliance on energy imports. And on the biggest issue for Europe – Ukraine – they still depend entirely on US military power. Remember, Trump will be in the White House for another 34 months. His allies “may come to regret their short-term Schadenfreude”.