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Morning Press | Spectator Daily
By William Atkinson
Good morning.
The US warned firepower is ‘about to surge dramatically’ in Iran – thanks to Britain. Donald Trump said he will help choose the next Supreme Leader, while Israel launched more strikes on Tehran and Beirut.
The first government-chartered repatriation flight from the Middle East finally landed in the UK and Labour warned that leaks from a national security meeting had crossed a ‘red line’. In other news, the Tory faithful are heading up to Yorkshire, Reform is mulling bringing back grammar schools and the Labour MP whose husband was arrested on suspicion of spying has suspended herself from the party. President Trump has sacked Kristi Noem, dentists are being investigated and scientists are preparing to make hummus on the Moon. You’re reading Spectator Daily, here is everything you need to know today.
STRIKES ON IRAN TO ‘SURGE DRAMATICALLY’
The seven-day fires of war show no sign of being put out in the Middle East. Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of War, warned that ‘firepower over Iran… is about to surge dramatically’ as strikes ramp up. The reason, he claimed, was partly because of Britain which has finally allowed the US to use its military bases in Diego Garcia and Fairford, Gloucestershire. Asked about the Special Relationship, which (to put it mildly) has come under strain in recent days, Hegseth said: ‘It was unfortunate that the Brits didn’t say, “Hey, go ahead and have access [to the bases]” from day one. But we got there. And that’s now part of the way we’re operationalising bomber runs.’
Do they need more bomber runs?
Israel launched another wave of strikes at Tehran and Beirut overnight – having sparked panic in Lebanon’s capital earlier when it issued evacuation orders to 500,000 people. Israeli strikes have killed more than 120 people across Lebanon since Monday, according to the country’s health ministry. In Iran, the death toll has now reached 1,230. As if to hammer the point home, Donald Trump claimed the US had also been striking Iranian drone and missile systems ‘every single hour’.
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Smoke rises after an airstrike in southern Beirut.
And that’s not all. The US President has said he must help pick Iran’s next Supreme Leader. Trump told NBC News he wanted to ‘clean out’ Tehran’s ruling hierarchy and had some names in mind for a ‘good leader’. He also claimed that a US ground invasion would be ‘a waste of time’, adding: ‘[Iran’s] lost everything. They’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost everything they can lose.’ Not lost so much, however, for strikes to stop any time soon.
Trump went further in an interview with Axios in which he said he must be personally ‘involved’ in picking the late ayatollah’s successor. He branded Mojtaba Khamenei, Ali Khamenei’s son and expected replacement, ‘unacceptable’ as he will not ‘bring harmony and peace’. Within Iran, Khamanei is viewed as the perfect continuity candidate – possessing the same hardline views as his father and popular with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But, in Trump’s eyes, he is a ‘lightweight’. If Iran picks a leader with similar views to the late Khamenei, Trump warned, America would be back at war ‘in five years’.
None of which will make easy reading for Sir Keir Starmer. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was urging Trump to ‘de-escalate’ the conflict and negotiate with Iran. Attempting to defend against criticism over his response, Starmer told a press conference that he stood by his initial decision not to have the UK join strikes on Iran. He also announced he had dispatched four additional jets to Qatar to bolster their defences. Fat lot of good that’s done on Fleet Street: this morning’s Star accuses Starmer of reaching ‘Dithering Heights’ while the Mail brands the PM ‘desperate and deluded’ and proclaims he takes ‘the great out of Britain’.
Still, in happier news, the first government repatriation flight finally landed back in Britain overnight. The flight was due to leave Oman on Wednesday but failed to take off following technical issues. The Titan Airways plane finally touched down at London Stansted shortly before 1 this morning. Starmer has said there will be more government-chartered flights from the Middle East in the coming days and that 4,000 people have already returned on commercial jets. That, at least, is one repatriation mission ticked off.
Speaking of ticking off, our Tim Shipman has caused quite a stir with his piece about the dysfunctional National Security Council meeting before the Iran strikes. Now, Harriet Harman has told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that the leak crossed a ‘red line’. In case you missed all the fuss, Tim’s piece is well worth a read here.
But if any Brit can be said to be having a good war so far, it is this F-35 pilot who shot down two Iranian drones in the skies over Jordan. When he landed back at base in Cyprus, he celebrated with a local Keo beer, watching the sunrise. Maybe Britain isn’t quite finished yet.
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Coming up today
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It’s quiet in the Commons but the Lords will hold an International Women’s Day debate from 10 a.m.
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The Tory spring conference kicks off from 1 p.m. in Harrogate. More below.
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If you’re missing your snow sport fix, the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games begin in Milan.
FROM HARROGATE TO MAR-A-LAGO
Feeling blue? The Tory faithful are up in Harrogate this weekend for the party’s spring conference. Kemi Badenoch will be buoyed by the latest ConservativeHome shadow cabinet league table, which has her top of the polls with a net satisfaction rating of 81.6. Less welcome will be the news that Reform UK has become Britain’s best-funded political party. Nigel Farage raised more than £5.4 million in the final quarter of 2025 – more than double the £2.4 million donated to the Conservatives. Reform’s donations included £100,000 from property magnates and former Tory backers, the Reuben brothers.
Still, if Badenoch is worried about losing members to Farage, she should take a look at today’s i Paper. It reports that Reform is ‘mulling rolling out new grammar schools’ if it wins the next election. The party’s leaders and activists are ‘wildly supportive’ of selective education and do not believe in ‘banning things for the sake of banning things’, a ‘senior source’ told the paper. Farage and new recruits Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman have all backed overturning the ban.
Farage will be far from North Yorkshire today and is instead jetting off to Mar-a-Lago. Speaking at a Guido Fawkes party about the Chagos deal – over which Mauritius now plans to sue – the Reform leader said he was dining with Donald Trump in Florida tonight. He made the comments during a brief stop-off in London after a day in sunny Newport, launching Reform’s Welsh manifesto for the upcoming Senedd elections. He branded the contest a ‘referendum’ on Sir Keir Starmer’s future – but hacks in the principality have been scathing about Reform’s nominal plans for office.
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Packed and ready for Florida.
Meanwhile, the Labour MP whose husband was arrested on suspicion of spying for China has voluntarily resigned the party whip. In a statement last night, Joani Reid denied any wrongdoing and said this week ‘has been the worst of [her] life’. Her intervention came after Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said she had been referred to the party’s governance and legal unit for investigation. David Taylor, the spouse under suspicion, has been released on bail after being held under the National Security Act.
In other Labour news, the party will appoint a ‘dementia tsar’ as part of its social care overhaul. Baroness Casey of Blackstock, overseer of the government’s review into the sector, has called to immediately scale up investment in dementia care and bring in a ‘fast-track passport’ for motor neurone disease patients to access care. She also warned that elderly people are being failed by Britain’s ‘cobbled together’ system and that the NHS has ‘withdrawn from the community’, becoming a ‘national hospital service, not a National Health Service’.
But before ministers can tackle anything as grand as social care reform, they will have to deal with the backbench grumbling triggered by Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms. The Home Secretary’s plans to end permanent refugee status, remove government support from law-breakers and pilot a scheme of paying failed asylum seekers up to £40,000 to leave have been compared to Donald Trump’s policies by Labour MPs. Stella Creasy suggested they could result in a ‘Windrush-style scandal’ and called for ‘True Labour’ not ‘Blue Labour’ in the Guardian.
Of course, the Labour faithful will be worrying about the appeal of the Greens. Still riding high from his by-election success, Zack Polanski has returned to his day job in the London Assembly, voting against Conservative motions welcoming the ‘removal’ of Iran’s Supreme Leader and condemning the vandalism of Sir Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square. Your humble author recently wondered what life might look like under a Polanski government. He is perhaps one of the few people for whom Starmer not being like Churchill is a plus.
‘Prepare to drop incendiary Green party policies!’
JUST SAY NOEM
Kristi Noem has been removed from her post as US homeland security secretary. Her sacking comes as funding for her department sits in limbo due to public outcry over the administration’s handling of immigration operations – particularly in Minneapolis where two US citizens were shot dead in January. Noem will become the ‘special envoy for the shield of the Americas’, which Donald Trump described as a ‘new security initiative in the Western hemisphere’ to be unveiled tomorrow. It’s not only ayatollahs he likes to hire!
Announcing her departure, Trump praised Noem for her ‘spectacular results’ in the role – ‘especially on the border’. She is being replaced by Markwayne Mullin, a Republican senator from Oklahoma. According to the Wall Street Journal, the final push was a combative hearing in the Senate that, ‘according to advisers familiar with [Trump’s] thinking’, highlighted ‘bipartisan frustration’. Trump had begun to suspect she had been using her role as America’s Top Sheriff to burnish her profile. There’s only one sheriff in his D.C.
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This far and Noem further.
Over in China, Beijing has set its lowest target for GDP growth in decades – 4.5 to 5 per cent. While that seems heady from British standards, that is the first time since 1991 that the figure announced at the National People’s Congress has dropped below 5 per cent. It is attributed to a shifting economic strategy that wants to prioritise building up domestic resilience rather than focusing on export-led rapid growth. But China’s growth is also being slowed down by an ageing population, a difficult property sector and the ongoing energy crisis.
Watch and listen
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Daniel McCarthy and Freddy Gray assess whether the Iran crisis is the end of neoconservatism on the latest episode of Americano.
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Pete Hegseth has given a speech where he outlines the ‘Donroe Doctrine’. Watch his speech here.
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From the other side… here is the deputy commander of Iran’s forces claiming the United States is responsible for the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz.
BBC, NATIONWIDE AND OPEN WIDE
The BBC has made clear how it hopes to stave off the threat of ‘managed decline’ with a series of ‘bold choices’. In response to a government green paper about its future, executives proposed that the government introduces a requirement for those who stream from services such as Amazon Prime, Disney, Netflix and YouTube to have a TV licence. ‘Industry insiders’ told the Times the proposals were ‘desperate’.
Hey, big lender! Coventry, HSBC and Nationwide building societies have become the first large UK lenders to announce a hike in mortgage interest rates because of the crisis in the Middle East. With experts predicting an inflation-spiking energy price shock, the Bank of England may be forced to increase interest rates. Broker Trinity Financial said these increases were the first ‘brought on by the chaos in the Middle East’. More are expected so, if you are looking for a mortgage, it’s better ‘locking into a new deal now’.
The tooth hurts. The Competition and Markets Authority has launched a review into the UK’s private dentistry market – worth around £8 billion – after consultation prices increased by almost 25 per cent in two years. A fifth of Brits opted for private dental care in 2024 due to NHS delays but, between 2022 and 2024, the price of an initial consultation spiked by more than 23 per cent to £80. Rachel Reeves urged a review of the sector in November. For those worried about dentistry costs, you could always follow Bob Mortimer and do your own.
What we’re reading
Does the Iran war put America first? – New York Times
The dry and the wet burn together – London Review of Books
Donald Trump must stop soon – Economist
London’s investment halo is dimmed by war – Financial Times
America’s dating crisis is getting worse – Washington Post
And another thing...
Mars in their eyes. If you thought last night’s sunset looked unusually red, there’s a perfectly good scientific explanation. On what was the warmest day of the year so far – with temperatures reaching a tropical 19.2C at Northolt yesterday – strong southerly winds brought dust from the Sahara desert across Europe. This caused vivid red and orange sunsets and may leave a coating of crimson dust in its wake. So, if your car looks like it’s been to Mars overnight, you know why.
England fell only seven runs short of beating India in yesterday’s T20 world cup semi-final, despite having to chase a massive total of 254. Jacob Bethell struck 105 crisp runs, making him the youngest Englishman to ever have made a century in each international format – and before he has even done so at a domestic level. Having met him in Dublin last summer, I can confirm that he is a talented, gregarious and generous young man. India will square off against New Zealand at 1.30 p.m. UK time on Sunday.
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I still owe him a pint.
Good news! Hummus enthusiasts considering a career in space travel may have just found the perfect opportunity. Scientists have successfully grown chickpeas in simulated Moon soil for the first time. Researchers in Texas cultivated harvestable chickpeas in soil mixtures containing up to 75 per cent simulated lunar regolith: the glassy dust and rock that makes up the surface of the Moon. It means that future lunar bases may be able to feed themselves using their own produce rather than supply missions from Earth. Over to you, Artemis.
With thanks to John Power for additional reporting.
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