In your briefing today:

📣 Donald Trump has said he will extend the Iran ceasefire until peace negotiations conclude - although hopes of success in those talks is now fading. The US has killed so many of Iran’s top leaders, Trump himself has acknowledged the regime is fractured: there are real questions about who is in charge, leaving substantive discussions in limbo. (Guardian)

📣 Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s grim week of fallout from the Mandelson affair continues into its third day today, when he faces Prime Ministers Questions at midday.

Yesterday, Sir Olly Robbins gave evidence to MPs at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee: most commentators agree there were no fatal revelations for Starmer in his evidence, but what he said was still damaging. That’s analyzed in depth later in today’s briefing.

There are signs of a weakening of support from key allies, but none of a serious attempt to remove him from his job.

That doesn’t mean many people see him lasting long. Sir Olly Robbins’ sacking over the Mandelson affair has sent a “real chill throughout the Civil Service” according to the head of the civil and public service union, the FDA. Dave Penman told the BBC: “I think the Prime Minister is losing the ability to work with the civil service”. (BBC)

📣 A respected museum leader brought in to sort out the troubled Historic Environment Scotland quango is to quit the role less than a year after being appointed, with a source saying Sir Mark Jones “found it very difficult. There are many people resistant to change”. (The Herald has the exclusive)

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📣 John Swinney has rejected claims of conspiracy to frame Alex Salmond for sexual offences, saying messages published by the Sunday Mail at the weekend “relate to events that happened a long time ago”. (Daily Record)

📣 A man has been arrested in connection with the death of an 82-year-old woman in Glasgow last weekend. (STV)

📣 The CalMac ferry Lord of the Isles is returning to service in the nick of time: it’ll help carry 2,000 festival-goers to Mull tomorrow, and get vital gas supplies to Coll on Friday. (Scotsman)

📣 UK inflation rose to 3.3% in March, up from 3% in February, amid a surge in fuel prices caused by the Iran war. The shift matched City expectations. (Guardian)

📣 Donald Trump’s approval ratings on the US economy have taken a hit, according to new polls, with only 30% of US adults approving of his approach. Support for his leadership on the war with Iran sits stable at 32%. (AP)

📣 Spanish police have seized more than 100 photos from an apartment linked to a Scottish organised crime group which appear to show torture and beatings. (Daily Record)

📣 Two UK ticket-holders have won more than £41 million each in last night’s Euromillions draw. Check your tickets… (Independent)

⚽️ St Johnstone have secured their immediate return to the Scottish Premiership, beating Dunfermline 2-0 away to win the title with two games to spare. They led the division from day one, when they thumped closest rivals Partick Thistle 5-1. (BBC - report and highlights)

⚽️ Few competitions rival the concluding phase of the English Football League for sheer, visceral drama after a gruelling season, and we’re into that moment now. Last night’s busy card saw Coventry anointed champions of the Championship, and Leicester City, 10 years ago about to win the Premier League, relegated to League One.

⚽️ Chelsea’s head coach, Liam Rosenior, committed the cardinal sin of a young manager circling the drain by lambasting his players’ attitude and performance levels, calling them “indefensible” and “unacceptable” after their lost 3-0 to Brighton. He’ll be gone soon, even if he had a point. (BBC - report and highlights)

🗣️ How big a hole is Keir Starmer in? Reports today talk of “white hot” anger in Whitehall among civil servants at the sacking of their colleague Olly Robbins. Front pages talk of opposition leaders banding together to call for the Prime Minister’s resignation.

But, from Labour’s benches… is there any sign of a rebellion yet? Of a real contender doing a Michael Portollo and setting up a war room - metaphorical or not - and preparing to topple the Prime Minister?

There’s almost nothing.

At an event in London last night, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said there was simply “no Labour leadership contest”, and she didn’t think the Prime Minister should resign.

The Mail works hard to claim that the PM’s support is starting to “crack” this morning, but it feels slightly forced at this stage.

The smart money remains on Labour figures moving against Starmer later in the spring, only after what is expected to be a disastrous showing in the English local elections, and national elections in Scotland and Wales.

That the Mandelson story is blowing up now is frustrating to activists, of course: James Tibbitts of LabourList, the Labour grassroots site, shares his readers’ pain: “There are activists, candidates and councillors putting blood, sweat and tears into their local campaigns.

“To them I say, dig in and keep going. This is not your fault,” he writes.

This morning’s cuttings will not make pleasant reading for the Prime Minister. “Call it revenge of the nerd,” says John Crace of Olly Robbins’ evidence to MPs on the foreign affairs select committee yesterday. His evidence, writes Crace, was “quietly damning. Mostly of the government, occasionally – if inadvertently – of himself.

“Throughout, Robbins presented himself as a fundamentally decent man. Someone who lived and breathed public service. The sort of man Starmer believes himself to be yet somehow isn’t. […] Someone crushed by his recent sacking. Heartbroken at losing a job he loved.”

The Telegraph is as unsympathetic to Starmer as you’d expect. “It’s not often one finds oneself quoting Diane Abbott as a fount of sanity,” writes Allison Pearson, “but we live in strange times.

“In the Commons on Monday, the Labour veteran nailed it.” she writes. “‘The Prime Minister has gone on at considerable length about process and procedure,’ she began. ‘Ordinary people don’t care about process and procedure, they want... transparency.’ She mocked Sir Keir for complaining that ‘Nobody told me anything’. The question is, ‘Why didn’t the Prime Minister ask?’”

In the Guardian, meanwhile, Rafael Behr bemoans the “rush to appease Trump” which led Starmer into “this ethical void”. And Marina Hyde has her typically acerbic turn, saying the Prime Minister has nobody left to blame for this “horror show”.

I’ve searched in vain for more sympathetic voices to bring you today. The Independent was somewhat more sympathetic yesterday: “It should not be possible to dismiss a prime minister because, as he himself says, he suffered from a “staggering” failure of the administrative state,” it said in a leader.

But that’s a day late and scant consolation, one suspects, for an embattled Prime Minister, who will have started his preparations for another difficult Commons session - Prime Minister’s Questions - due at noon today.

Yes, there’s no real rebellion against him yet. But also, yes, there’s no real support either. He shouldn’t expect the reviews to be much better tomorrow.

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