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In response to President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: ‘This is not just a short-term tactical exercise. It is the beginning of a new era.’ He wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: ‘We stand ready to use industrial policy to help shelter British business from the storm.’ The FTSE100 fell by 4.9 per cent in a day, its biggest such fall since 27 March 2020. The government published a 417-page list of US products upon which Britain could impose retaliatory tariffs after 1 May. Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that, although in 2023 the UK imported £57.9 billion of goods from the US (10 per cent of all goods imports) and exported £60.4 billion’s worth (15.3 per cent of all goods exports), it exported £126.3 billion of services (27 per cent of all service exports) to the US, compared with service imports of £57.4 billion (19.5 per cent of all service imports). The Coventry-based Jaguar Land Rover said it would ‘pause’ all shipments to the US. The government tinkered with net-zero rules for vehicle-makers, whose import tariffs to the US had been put at 25 per cent. It also approved the expansion of London Luton airport, including a new terminal, and the Prime Minister signed a £50 billion agreement for Universal to build a theme park on an old brickworks near Bedford.
Russell Brand was charged with rape, indecent assault and sexual assault, charges relating to four women between 1999 and 2005. Dan Norris MP was arrested on suspicion of rape, child sex offences, child abduction and misconduct in a public office; he was suspended from the Labour party. Dion Arnold, a Metropolitan police constable, was charged with sexual offences including rape, allegedly committed while off-duty. Livia Tossici-Bolt, 64, was given a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £20,000 after being convicted of breaching an abortion clinic protection zone in Bournemouth by holding a sign saying: ‘Here to talk, if you want.’ Her case had caught the attention of J.D. Vance, the US Vice-President.
Two Labour MPs, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang, on a trip to visit the occupied West Bank, were denied entry to Israel. In the seven days to 7 April, 154 migrants arrived in England in small boats. Birmingham sank deeper under rubbish and rats during its dustmen’s strike. Nick Rockett won the Grand National at 33-1, ridden by the amateur Paddy Mullins, whose father Willie trained the first three past the post.
Abroad
China, against which President Trump had announced a rise in tariffs to 84 per cent, itself announced a 34 per cent tariff on US goods. So Mr Trump confronted China with an extra 50 per cent tariff, provoking the reply: ‘China will fight to the end.’ Asian stock exchanges experienced falls. Shares in Asian banks and car-makers were down. Elon Musk said that President Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, was ‘dumber than a sack of bricks’. Australian farmers claimed that a 10 per cent tariff on their $3 billion beef exports to America would make Big Macs there more expensive. Among Australian territories landed with a 10 per cent tariff were the uninhabited McDonald Islands, 1,000 miles north of the Antarctic.
Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home city, was twice attacked by Russian missiles, leaving at least 20 dead, including nine children. Ukraine reportedly struck the only plant in Russia that produces fibre-optic cables for drones. Two Chinese citizens were captured fighting for Russia in eastern Ukraine, Mr Zelensky said. During a visit by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, against whom an International Criminal Court arrest warrant has been issued, Hungary announced its withdrawal from the ICC. Israel’s army admitted mistakes in an account by its soldiers of the killing of 15 emergency workers in southern Gaza on 23 March. Israel bombed military targets in Syria.
Yoon Suk Yeol was deposed as President of South Korea by the Constitutional Court, which upheld his impeachment by parliament after his attempt to impose martial law. Wisconsin elected Susan Crawford, a Democrat-backed judge, to serve on the state’s Supreme Court, despite huge spending by Republican opponents. The earthquake in central Myanmar on 28 March was said to have killed more than 3,500 people, with hundreds more missing. Eggs laid by a Galapagos tortoise held by Philadelphia Zoo since 1932 hatched for the first time. CSH
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