Francesca Hirsch

Starmer's authority is now crumbling. But even those most committed to a new Prime Minister should pause for thought about what it means for Britain in the world. For all his many, many domestic missteps, Keir Starmer has genuinely led on Ukraine, make tough calls with Trump and rebuilt relations with Europe by working intensely with President Macron and Chancellor Merz. Labour in government was shocked at how quickly it was swamped by foreign affairs from Gaza and Ukraine, to Trump and Iran. This isn't going to change. However Starmer's challengers have no foreign policy experience, no geopolitical worldviews, no foreign affairs teams and no experience in explaining our place in the world and its tumult to the public. But if they succeed that will be half their job. What's the plan for a geopolitical pivot to Europe? What's the strategy to deal with Trump and our fragmenting Western alliance as China's Axis of Authoritarians deepens? What's next for Britain's extensive diplomatic and security role when it comes to Ukraine? Who will be maintaining key connections to the White House? Changes at the top are often necessary. But they are delicate and not cost free internationally. In diplomacy so much is bound up in personal connections and trust built up over time. Building since 2016, these musical chairs at the top have now become so intense, with Prime Ministers lasting roughly two years and Foreign Secretaries now annuals, our allies and partners are frustrated. I've heard from European and Gulf leaderships first hand it is hardly worth investing diplomatically in a counterpart who's suddenly gone and thus hardly worth investing in Britain.

Everything that leads us to diagnoses and prescriptions is real and deeply human—the despair, self-doubt, loneliness, shame, obsession, alienation, fear, angst, and grief that shape our lives in so many different ways. Questioning the medicalized response to this suffering does not deny the suffering exists, nor the short-term relief some find in psychiatric drugs. It simply refuses to let our culture transform these varied, deeply human experiences into incurable brain pathology that demands lifelong medication, especially for our young people. (Video: our founder, Laura Delano, at the MAHA Mental Health & Overmedicalization Summit, May 4, 2026)

Saiqa Ali has just been elected in Lambeth Ali’s Instagram: a picture of the Earth suffocated by a giant serpent with the Star of David on its skin. She thinks that the British government includes too many ‘Zionists Jews’, and that Trump is ‘owned by Jews’ Shame on Lambeth

SHAME: The Islamic Republic of Iran has just been nominated to the U.N. Committee for Program and Coordination, which meets soon to shape policy on women's rights, human rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention. ECOSOC members who backed this include: 🇬🇧🇪🇸🇨🇦🇫🇷🇩🇪🇳🇴🇳🇱🇦🇺🇨🇭🇦🇹🇫🇮

Tomorrow we can make history I’ll be speaking at 10am to prioritise Motion E12 “Zionism is Racism” at Green Party conference. Then for the motion if it moves to vote It would make Greens first major anti-Zionist party in UK history Green members make sure you attend and vote