THE BIG STORIES
Markets slump again as Trump says: “You have to take the medicine” | Starmer readies support for business

📣 We’re heading for another day of stock market losses if Asian markets are offering a guide: at send time Japan’s Nikkei was down 6.67%, having been down as much as 8% earlier in the day, and expectations for European and US markets are poor. This is the third day of losses after Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced last week. (BBC liveblog) (FT £)

• On a flight back from his golfing weekend in Florida, Donald Trump defended his tariffs to reporters. When a reporter asked about the US “pain threshold” as stock markets slump, he reacted angrily, reports the BBC: “I don't want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.” (BBC)

📣 More tariffs fallout: Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer are expected to make a series of announcements this week “going hell for leather to boost economic growth”. (Sunday Times) What might they announce? Simon Jack has some ideas:

• Relaxed targets for electric vehicle manufacturing, which was already proving a struggle. (BBC) There are suggestions that small (expensive) UK car manufacturers, such as Aston Martin and McLaren, will no longer be required to phase out fossil fuel-powered models by 2030. (Telegraph £)

• Safeguards against the “dumping” in the UK, at a very low price, of goods once destined for the US market.

• Investment into UK industry

• Closer economic ties with other countries, India in particular. That’s been rumbling on for some time, as this House of Lords briefing paper reminds us.

📣 A large forest fire which has been burning in Galloway since Friday evening is now said to be smouldering, rather than burning, after people and properties were evacuated and helicopters used to try and douse the flames. People have been urged to stay away from the area. (BBC)

IDEAS
Three enlightening reads on tariffs, and what happens next

🗣️ The Prime Minister took to the pages of The Sunday Telegraph in an attempt to set the agenda for the week ahead. As widely followed up today, he likened the turmoil unleashed by Trump’s tariffs to similar tumults over defence and national security, saying: “The world as we knew it has gone. We must rise to meet the moment”.

“We are ready for what comes next,” he wrote. “The new world is less governed by established rules and more by deals and alliances. It demands the best of British virtues – cool heads, pragmatism and a clear understanding of our national interest.”

He said he’d pursue a deal with the US - “nobody wins from a trade war” - but only “if it is right for British business and the security of working people.” We’d also have to build stronger trade links with the rest of the world, and use industrial policy to “help shelter British business from the storm”. (The Telegraph)

🗣️Tim Shipman’s long read on the week’s events in The Sunday Times added a lot more colour, if few revelations. The Prime Minister, we learn, sat down in front of his TV like everyone else to find out what tariffs Trump had in store. The priority is getting a trade deal with the US. The government is thinking hard about how to support vulnerable sectors such as food producers and the car industry. Rachel Reeves is thinking about the long term. All that busy reassurance is entirely necessary because Trump has “wrecked the government’s economic calculations just one week after the spring statement”. (The Sunday Times)

🗣️Merryn Somerset Webb offered an interesting analysis of the tariff crisis: it presents, she wrote, the first benefit of Brexit. “If Britain had stayed in the EU, it would be on 20%, too. And odds are that can be negotiated down. So that’s Brexit benefit number one firmly in the bag.”

Tariffs are also the US’s version of Brexit, she suggests, with similar roots: large-scale immigration and China’s use of “a variety of persistent, non-tariff trade and industrial policies to utterly transform the global economy in its favour” which gave last week “an inevitability”.

What follows will be a lot of pain, but “maybe, if everyone stays calm and holds back on retaliation, the world will end up with lower trade barriers all round. Maybe.” (Bloomberg £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Staff at the University of Edinburgh are being balloted on strike action as the University plans to cut £140m from its annual budget. They’ve questioned the need for the cuts, saying the University is one of the richest in the country. (Scotsman)

• Writing in Scotland on Sunday, the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Sir Peter Mathieson, said Scotland’s funding system is “broken and requires a radical re-wiring to survive”. (Scotland on Sunday)

📣 John Swinney joined actor Alan Cumming in leading the Tartan Day parade in New York, with business leaders and other Scottish political figures - Anas Sarwar, Ian Murray and Annabelle Ewing - all in New York to fly the flag. (Daily Record)

📣 Jamie Greene, the Conservative MSP who defected to the Lib Dems last week, said there is “growing disquiet” among his old colleagues about the party moving “increasingly to the right”. (BBC)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Kemi Badenoch won cross-party condemnation after the Conservative leader said she was “not surprised” two Labour MPs were refused entry to Israel, detained and deported. They were accused of planning to “spread anti-Israel hatred”. Badenoch said she was “very concerned” about “rhetoric” on the Middle East from Labour MPs. (Sky News)

📣 Areas that got money from the last government’s “levelling up” fund were less supportive of Reform UK in the subsequent General Election, research has found, suggesting local improvements might reduce support for populists. (Guardian)

📣 The Lady, the “journal for gentlewomen” famous for its small ads seeking domestic staff and discreet liaisons, is going into liquidation. But magazine culture is booming, claim rivals. (The Observer) (The Mail focusses on the small ads, “straight out of a Jilly Cooper bonkbuster”)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza killed at least 32, according to local health officials, including more than a dozen women and children. (AP)

• Israel has “walked back” its account of how 15 medics were killed in Gaza last week after video emerged contradicting its claims that ambulances were “advancing suspiciously” on its troops. The video shows the vehicles clearly marked, with lights on, and medics’ uniforms also obvious. (AP)

🌎 Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Donald Trump later today for “hastily arranged” talks on tariffs and Gaza. (Axios)

🌎 Despite health concerns as he continues treatment for cancer, King Charles embarks on a tour of Italy today with Queen Camilla. (Sky News)

SPORT

⚽️ It was an eventful Sunday in Scottish football: 

• St Johnstone beat Celtic 1-0. The result is likely to be more important in the relegation race than the likely destination of the league title: Rangers’ deserved defeat against Hibs the previous day confirmed that. (🎥 See the Celtic v St Johnstone highlights) (🎥 See the Rangers v Hibs highlights)

• Hearts, meanwhile, suffered a blow in their quest to make the post-split top six: they lost to Dundee United. (🎥 See the highlights)

⚽️ If you decided to get up early to watch the F1 yesterday, the late afternoon Manchester derby was the ideal moment to get some shuteye: there was nothing on screen during the 0-0 draw to keep you awake. United fans sang something unpleasant about Phil Foden’s mum that drew Pep Guardiola’s ire. That was about it. (Daily Mail)

⚽️ It was more exciting earlier as Liverpool tripped up against Fulham in an entertaining 3-2 defeat in London. Southampton were relegated - the earliest any team has gone down - after losing at Spurs. (🎥 See Match of the Day 2)

🏉 In rugby’s Champions Cup, kick-off was delayed after a parachutist got stuck in the roof of Toulouse’s stadium. The fire service rescued the army captain. (Guardian)