Trump says he ‘really likes’ Starmer, and world leaders who flatter him are ‘just trying to be nice’
Donald Trump said he “really likes” Keir Starmer in his BBC interview. He said:
I really like the prime minister a lot, even though he’s a liberal.
He did a good trade deal with us, which a lot of countries haven’t been able to do.
Although many Labour MPs and ministers have strong reservations about Trump, and many of them denounced him harshly in public during his first presidency, Starmer has decided to swallow any reservations he has and to treat the president with utmost respect. Other world leaders have adopted a similar approach, and Gary O’Donoghue asked Trump how he felt about his counterparts being “over-obvious in their flattery”. Trump replied:
Well, I think they’re just trying to be nice.
He also acknowledged that other world leaders were not treating him now as they treated him when he became president for the first time in 2017. He said:
I think they think it’s maybe not all luck. When you do it twice, it’s a big difference.
I also think that over the years have gotten to know me.
This is not an easy crowd to break into. You understand? These are smart people heading up very, very successful, generally, countries. Germany and France and Spain – big countries. I’ve gotten [to know them] and I think they’ve come to respect me and my decision making.
Key events
Only 1.5% of people getting universal credit are refugees, DWP figures show
Data showing the immigration status of people claiming universal credit has been published for the first time, PA Media reports. PA says:
Around four in five (83.6%) of those on the benefit as of last month were British and Irish nationals and those who live or work in the UK without any immigration restrictions.
This amounted to 6.6 million of the total 7.9 million people on universal credit (UC) in June.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said it had published the statistics “following a public commitment to investigate and develop breakdowns of the UC caseload by the immigration status of foreign nationals in receipt of UC”.
UC is a payment to help with living costs and is available for people on low incomes or those who are out of work or cannot work.
The next largest group on UC were people with EU Settlement Scheme settled status who have a right to reside in the UK, accounting for 9.7% (770,379), while 2.7% (211,090) of the total had indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Refugees accounted for 1.5% (118,749) of people on UC, while 0.7% (54,156) were people who had come by safe and legal humanitarian routes including under the Ukraine and Afghan resettlement schemes.
A total of 75,267 people – making up 1% of the total on UC – had limited leave to remain in the UK, covering those with temporary immigration status.
The rest – some 65,346 people – were either no longer receiving UC payments or had no immigration status recorded on digital systems, the DWP said.
The total number of people on UC has risen from 6.8 million in June 2024 to 7.9 million a year later.
And here is a chart from the main DWP report. The full DWP figures are here.
Ben Quinn
Ben Quinn is a senior Guardian correspondent.
A candidate for Reform UK in the recent local elections has defended his attendance this month at an annual Summer festival organised by the Far Right group, Patriotic Alternative.
Joe Custodio, who came within 86 voters of becoming a councillor on Reform-controlled Lancashire County Council, said he had no regrets about attending the Far Right event earlier this month. He told the Guardian:
Someone who was attending asked me to go with them and I went there for a couple of hours. What I saw was a bunch of families camping out in a field and listening to music.
Custodio was identified by Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine, as having attended the Patriotic Alternative camp after a picture was posted online by a Far Right activist.
Patriotic Alternative has been regarded as one of the UK’s largest far-right group and has been the focus of calls for it be banned.
Its Nazi-sympathiser founder Mark Collett has previously for its supporters to “infiltrate” Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party to push their own “pro-white” and anti-immigration agenda.
Custodio denied that he was part of any Patriotic Alternative attempt to infiltrate Reform UK. He said that he believed the friend who he attended with is a member of Patriotic Alternative. Custodio said he saw no contradiction in attending the event and intended to continue being involved with Reform.
A spokesperson for Reform UK said: “Joe Custodio is not a candidate for Reform UK in any forthcoming election and is not a member of the party.”
Politicians needs to ‘level with voters’ about full extent of budget problems UK faces, new IFS director says
Helen Miller is taking over as director of the Insitute for Fiscal Studies thinktank this week, taking over from Paul Johnson, who established himself as the nation’s leading budget commentator.
Budget commentary tends to focus on the Treasury’s fiscal rules, on how much “headroom” is available to Rachel Reeves (spare cash in the budget – based on spending plans and anticipated tax revenue, based on the OBR’s growth assumptions), and whether tax or spending plans need to change because the OBR’s forecasts have shifted.
Miller says we’re all missing the big point (the long-term problems facing the public finances, as set out by the OBR last week) and that the debate should focus on bigger issues. In a speech she is giving this morning, she is saying:
Labour came to office with the promise of a ‘mission-driven’ government – a commitment to long-term thinking and systemic reform. The ambition that we should be ‘raising our sights as a nation’ and finding ways to tackle the big challenges we face is the right one.
Despite this, we continue to limp from fiscal event to fiscal event, obsessed with whether run of the mill revisions to the economic and fiscal outlook have reduced the fiscal headroom and whether tax or spend takeaways will follow. We need to break out of this cycle.
I think it’s safe to assume that the chancellor will stick to her fiscal rules. But that alone doesn’t automatically equate to sustainable public finances. As the Office for Budget Responsibility reminded us all last week, there is a long list of adverse fiscal risks – put more bluntly, there are lots of reasons that demands for government spending could run far ahead of tax revenues …
Politicians need to level with voters about the scale of the challenges and to make the case for bold reforms …
The rest of us should ask better questions of government. In the run up to this autumn’s budget, the key questions should not be simply how much taxes might need to rise and which ones the chancellor might turn to. It should be how the government can reform taxes so that they achieve their objectives while doing less damage to growth.
Buyers of new EVs under £37,000 can get discount under UK scheme
Buyers of new electric cars priced at less than £37,000 will be able to get a discount of up to 10% under a new UK government scheme, Mark Sweney reports.
The Department for Transport has published details of the announcement in a news release here.
FTSE 100 breaks through the 9,000-point barrier to reach new record high
Britain’s blue-chip stock index has risen through the 9,000-point mark to touch a new record high, Graeme Wearden reports. Analysts said the London stock market had benefited from a range of factors this year, including a move by some investors to diversify away from US shares due to concerns over Donald Trump’s economic policies.
Reeves claims cuts to City red tape will bring trickle-down benefits to households
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is announcing plans to cut red tape for the City, which she claims will have trickle-down benefits for households across Britain. Here is our overnight story on this from Kalyeena Makortoff and Heather Stewart.
And Graeme Wearden has the latest on the announcement, which is being made now, on his business live blog.
Trump claims he isn’t bothered by King Charles siding with Canada in annexation dispute, saying ‘he has no choice’
Donald Trump praised King Charles in his BBC interview. (See 8.36am.) Quite what the king thinks of Trump, we will probably never know for sure. But he do know that he does not seem to approve of Trump’s repeated suggestions that the US should annex Canada (where Charles is head of state). His decision to fly to Canada in May, where he became the first monarch to give a speech opening parliament since 1957, was seen seen as a show of support for Canadians in their dispute with Trump – and about as blatant a political intervention as the modern monarchy will countenance, given its determination to remain neutral on almost everything.
In the interview, after Trump said Charles was a “great gentleman” (see 8.36am), Gary O’Donoghue asked him how he regarded the king’s recent visit to Ottawa, given that it was seen as an endorsement of Canadian independence. Trump replied:
Well, I didn’t view it as anything.
Look, they’re wrapped up with Canada. So what’s he going to do? He has no choice.
But we’re we’re negotiating with Canada right now, and we’ll see how that all works out. I think it’s going to work out very well.
Trump says UK’s handling of Brexit has been ‘on the sloppy side’, but he claims it’s ‘getting straight now’
Donald Trump was a big supporter of Brexit, not least because the surprise vote to leave the EU in 2016 was in some respects a precursor for his victory in the presidential election later that year. But he told the BBC that he thought Brexit had been mishandled.
Asked if he thought that Britain had “made the most of Brexit”, he replied:
No, I think it’s been on the sloppy side, but I think it’s getting straight now.
It is true that Keir Starmer is proposing some modest changes to the post-Brexit trade deal agreed with the EU. But, in so far as Brexit is “getting straight now”, it is because Starmer is trying to ameliorate some of the worst aspects of the deal agreed by Boris Johnson, who was much admired by Trump when he was PM.
Trump on Britain: ‘It’s a great place – I have property there’
Donald Trump did not just praise the UK for being willing to fight with the US. (See 9.01am.) Asked how he saw Britain’s role in the world, Trump replied:
Well, I think it’s a great place. I have property there. You know, I own Turnberry [his golf course in Scotland].
Trump says he ‘really likes’ Starmer, and world leaders who flatter him are ‘just trying to be nice’
Donald Trump said he “really likes” Keir Starmer in his BBC interview. He said:
I really like the prime minister a lot, even though he’s a liberal.
He did a good trade deal with us, which a lot of countries haven’t been able to do.
Although many Labour MPs and ministers have strong reservations about Trump, and many of them denounced him harshly in public during his first presidency, Starmer has decided to swallow any reservations he has and to treat the president with utmost respect. Other world leaders have adopted a similar approach, and Gary O’Donoghue asked Trump how he felt about his counterparts being “over-obvious in their flattery”. Trump replied:
Well, I think they’re just trying to be nice.
He also acknowledged that other world leaders were not treating him now as they treated him when he became president for the first time in 2017. He said:
I think they think it’s maybe not all luck. When you do it twice, it’s a big difference.
I also think that over the years have gotten to know me.
This is not an easy crowd to break into. You understand? These are smart people heading up very, very successful, generally, countries. Germany and France and Spain – big countries. I’ve gotten [to know them] and I think they’ve come to respect me and my decision making.
Trump says he is confident UK would fight with US in a war – but he’s not sure if other Nato allies would
Donald Trump said in his BBC interview that he regards the US’s relationship with Britain as special because he thinks Britain would fight with America if it came to a war. Whether or not other countries would, he does not seem so sure.
The comments are interesting because they help to explain why he has reservations about Nato – and why, even though he has repeatedly said in public he supports Nato’s article 5 commitment to collective defence (saying that if one member is attacked, all Nato countries should come to their defence), some Nato leaders are not 100% confident he means it.
Asked if he still thought Nato was “obsolete”, Trump said:
I think Nato is now becoming, the opposite of that. I do think it was [in the] past and it was very unfair because the United States paid for almost 100% of it.
But now they’re paying their own bills. And I think that’s much better.
And asked if he believed in the doctrine of collective defence, he replied:
I do yeah, I think collective defense is fine.
But later in the interview, when the topic came up again, he adopted a slightly different tone.
Asked if he thought there really was a special relationship between the UK and the US, he replied:
I do. I think one of the problems with Nato is, we have to fight for them, but will they actually fight for us if we had a war? And I’m not sure I can say it.
But I will say this; I believe that the UK would fight with us.
There’s something about it. It’s just been so many years, and I really think the relationship is just a really great one.
I think that they would be with us. I’m not sure that a lot of the other countries would be – which is unfair because we pay far more than anybody else.
Trump went on to to say the “special relationship” was why he had made a deal on trade with Britain.
I made a deal with them, and I haven’t made … I’ve made some other deals but, for the most part, in terms of your competitors and in terms of the European Union, I haven’t made a deal.
But the UK is very special, and it’s been there for a long time.
Yeah, they have been a really true ally.
Trump declines to back Nigel Farage’s call for parliament to be recalled so he can address MPs during state visit
Good morning. Donald Trump has given an interview to the BBC’s chief North America correspondent, Gary O’Donoghue, and, while the most important lines are about Russia, it contains some interesting snippets about the UK. Trump is making an unprecedented second state visit in September and yesterday a mini Westminster row broke out about the timing of the trip (starting just after the Commons starts its conference season recess), and the fact this means Trump isn’t being invited to give a speech to MPs and peers.
No 10 implied yesterday that this was just a scheduling coincidence – and nothing to do with the fact that some parliamentarians are bitterly opposed to hosting Trump, who is widely reviled as a threat to American democracy.
Yesterday Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said (to GB News, of course) that parliament should be recalled so that Trump could get the chance to speak in the Royal Gallery or Westminster Hall (the venues normally used for these events).
But, when O’Donoghue asked Trump about this, he discovered that the US president doesn’t agree with Farage, and isn’t bothered about the prospect of not getting the President Macron treatment.
Asked if he would like parliament to be recalled so he could make a speech there, Trump replied:
I think let them go and have a good time [ie, let MPs have their recess]. I don’t want that to …
Asked what he wanted to achieve from the state visit, Trump said:
I think just, I want to have a good time and respect King Charles, because he’s a great gentleman.
We have not heard Farage’s reaction yet. His X feed still has this video near the top, featuring the Reform UK leader calling for the recall of parliament.
Trump’s response suggests Farage might be less in touch with the views of the president, and the Maga movement, than he sometimes claims. And, given Trump’s unpopularity in the UK generally, it is probably not wise for Farage to appear even more sensitive to any slights to Trump’s dignity than the man himself.
I will post more from the interview soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
9.30am: Rachel Reeves, chancellor, announces a package of reforms to financial services in Leeds.
9.30am: James Cleverly, the former Tory home secretary, gives a speech to the IPPR thinktank.
9.30am: The Department for Work and Pensions publishes universal credit claim figures, including for the first time details of foreign nationals getting UC.
10am: Sir Adrian Montague, chair of Thames Water, and Chris Weston, its chief executive, give evidence to the Commons environment committee.
10.15am: Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and colleagues give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the OBR’s fiscal risks report.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 12.30pm: MPs start debates on two Tory opposition day motions. The first one calls for the two-child benefit cap to stay, and the second one calls on the government to commit to uprating tax thresholds in line with inflation and to rule out new taxes on savings, homes and pensions.
Also today, the Department for Education is publishing new guidance on sex education.
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