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Spain rejects White House comments that it now backs US-Israel war on Iran – Europe live

Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to offer partners in the Middle East its practical support on fighting against Iranian Shahed drones. In a post on X, he said a number of partner countries including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar were “seeking our expertise,” including a further request from Europeans and the US. Oh, how the tables have turned. “Of course any assistance we provide is only on the condition that it does not weaken our own defence in Ukraine and it serves as an investment in our diplomatic capabilities: we help protect against war those who help us, Ukraine, to bring the war to a dignified conclusion,” he added. Zelenskyy also offered an update on the next round of trilateral talks with Russia and the US, which was planned for early March. He said he spoke with the US about potentially postponing the meeting “for a while due to the war in the Middle East,” and moving it to another location.

Middle East crisis live: Israel launches fresh strikes on Tehran; Iran claims to have targeted Kurdish groups in Iraq

Pictures: US-Israeli attacks continue in Iran amid escalating conflict

Globalisation is under threat from Iran war – and Britain is uniquely vulnerable

In retaliation for the US-Israeli missile attacks, Iran has launched what amounts to all-out economic warfare. Should the conflict continue even for another week, its impacts will start to be felt around the world as the third price surge since the pandemic washes through global markets. For Britain, a further turn of the screw on living standards arrives just as political instability mounts at home, with the Labour and Conservative parties facing existential challenges to their left and right. Keir Starmer’s half-cocked response to war reflects a deeper, strategic problem for the UK: an economy built over decades for a globalised world cannot fit into a world where globalisation is falling apart. The creation of a tightly woven, world-spanning economy has also created points of huge stress and tension, where the flows of manufactured goods, people and raw materials that sustain it must pass through the narrow spaces of our globe. These include the 40-mile-wide Malacca strait, a channel for 80% of China’s imported oil flows; the Panama canal, only 91 metres at its narrowest point; the Bab el-Mandeb strait, between Yemen and Eritrea, through which 40% of trade between Asia and Europe passes; and the strait of Hormuz, a route for one-fifth of the world’s oil. Accidental, natural or intended, the effect of a blockage on any of these channels is the same. When, in 2024, the Panama canal was restricted by drought and the Houthis were blockading Bab el-Mandeb, the combined effect was to contribute 0.6 percentage points, or about one fifth of the global inflation over the year as shipping companies diverted away from both routes. The climate crisis has become a force multiplier for asymmetric warfare: extreme weather, such as central America’s multi-year drought, amplifies the disruptive potential of choke-point closures elsewhere. Today, the straits of Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz, narrow apertures either side of the Arabian peninsula, are in effect under a blockade. But now it is the other great, global system of the world economy – its financial network – that multiplies the pure military threat. The decision by major insurers to cancel war-risk cover across the Persian Gulf in effect closes both straits to shipping. Washington, scrambling for a response, has pledged to provide its own insurance, plus navy escorts – but both could take weeks to organise. Those shocks ripple around the world, but few developed countries are as exposed to choke points and raw material pressures as Britain. In a brilliant essay, the political economist Helen Thompson details how the wrenching turn to embrace a globalised world, encompassing the unleashing of the City of London on one side and the deindustrialisation of the north of England, Scotland and Wales on the other, left the UK uniquely vulnerable to the kinds of pressures today being exploited so mercilessly by Iran. Britain buys far more from the rest of the world than it sells to it, which means, in practice, it is reliant, collectively, on the rest of the world to maintain what passes for the standard of living in the UK. This external dependency is in two parts. The first is less serious and has, especially since the 2008 financial crisis, tended to attract more attention. Because Britain has so little to sell to other countries but wants to buy from them, it ends up in effect borrowing from everyone and selling off assets to try to cover the difference. As a result, the UK is dependent on what Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor turned Canadian prime minister, called the “kindness of strangers”. In other words, Britain can carry on running this imbalance for as long as the rest of the world is prepared to finance it. The result, over time, is that the UK has built up extraordinarily large debts, concentrated in its financial institutions. According to Bank of England figures, Britain owes about 550% of UK GDP to the rest of the world, far above any other G7 country. If the kindness of those strangers ever wears thin, the UK could face some combination of rapidly exiting capital, a collapse in the value of the pound and soaring interest rates. In principle, this dependency is solvable because it depends not on real, physical stuff, but on agreements about pieces of paper and numbers in computer systems. Supporters of modern monetary theory take this truth and use it to talk up the ability of the British government to issue money or ignore its debt. Monetary constraints, they argue, are ultimately not a real constraint on economic activity, and at least in principle, it is possible to imagine a world in which the UK agrees to renegotiate its various debts with everyone else and so reduces this overwhelming external exposure. Unfortunately, this hideously complex problem is the easy part of Britain’s external dependency. The hard part, the one that Thompson zeroes in on, is something approaching an intractable issue. The UK is not only dependent on financing from the rest of the world; fundamentally, it is dependent on material resources from other countries to keep people fed, warm and with the lights on. This became dramatically apparent only a few years back, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in a catastrophic spike in Eurasian gas prices. Britain imports about 50% of the natural gas it uses, for electricity and for heating, and this is the “particular vulnerability” that Thompson highlights. It means war at the other end of Europe became, in the space of a few months, a disastrous worsening of living standards for most people as gas prices soared. Britain directly imports about 40% of the food it consumes, a percentage that is steadily rising, leaving it exposed to upsets in food markets around the world – whether from extreme weather disrupting harvests or, as today, geopolitical shocks. Worse, since the UK has to import virtually all the artificial fertiliser its intensive agriculture demands, as well as the energy needed to fuel tractors and warm greenhouses, the true dependency of food consumption on imports in Britain is far higher. Swati Dhingra, a Bank of England rate-setter, estimated the figure was closer to 80%. Defra’s national security report, finally released in January, emphasised the severe vulnerability of Britain’s food systems to climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. We are today in the early stages of a Ukraine-style shock. European spot prices for natural gas have risen 40% in the last few days; in the UK, where the market is inevitably tighter, the price spike is far larger, with spot prices almost doubling since the weekend. For now, households are somewhat protected, thanks to the haphazard mechanism of the energy price cap, introduced in 2019. But the next move in that cap is due in July, and Ofgem, mechanically processing the data and duty-bound to protect privatised profits, is likely to announce a dramatic jump in domestic energy prices. Meanwhile, about 15% of the world’s grain trade moves through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and we can expect hydrocarbon-intensive fertiliser prices to rise closely with fossil fuels. Compounding the risks of poor harvests seen in the Mediterranean, food prices in the UK could soon start to rise. But these prices are not about bits of paper or numbers on a computer screen. They represent a real balance of material resources and consumption, and that makes them incredibly hard to shift. Britain could, over time, try to reduce its dependency on imported oil and gas, and this is a very solid argument for pushing for a China-style transition to renewables – something Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, stresses. The UK could also support a transition of its food system away from its import dependencies, for example, reducing dependency on artificial fertiliser, making greater use of new farming techniques – from drones to vertical farming – and encouraging more home and allotment use. Perversely, climate breakdown, disruptive as it is, may be making some parts of this shift easier in Britain, for a while. The first rice has been grown in Cambridgeshire, for example; the first pressing of olives from Essex took place last summer; populations of at least some sea creatures, such as native oysters, are booming. As the balance of economic activity shifts northwards, including the opening up of Arctic Sea routes to trade, the UK’s deindustrialised northern towns and cities could experience new leases of life. But all of this takes time. And it will take major investment, which is far harder to finance today than before thanks to rising inflation and the increasing costs of borrowing. The “big push” this needs to start with has to be met with redistribution downwards – first in tax terms, via wealth taxes and a broader overhaul of the system, chasing down profiteering and rent-seeking, and second, in shifting market prices. The latter will require breaking the outdated taboo on price regulations and caps – and any surge in energy prices today should be met with controls that protect households while respecting climate ambitions, taxing super-profits in energy and defence. If the situation worsens and the price of basic food surges once more, the demands for government to intervene will also grow louder and more determined. This is the secret that ties rural East Anglia to urban Hackney: a visible environmental crisis in the countryside is linked to a silent food-price crisis in cities, and both are left exposed to geopolitical shocks. The politics that can tie both sides of this equation together are the politics of the future. James Meadway is the host of the Macrodose podcast

UK defence secretary flies to Cyprus amid fallout over RAF base drone strike

John Healey has flown to Cyprus to calm the diplomatic fallout over a drone that evaded detection and hit an RAF base, which has prompted fury from local ministers. UK officials believe a drone that hit an RAF base in Cyprus evaded detection by flying low and slow when it was launched by pro-Iranian militia in Lebanon or western Iraq. But an investigation has been unable to establish conclusively where the Shahed-type drone was launched from. The attack occurred during the Iranian retaliatory bombardment over the weekend after the US and Israel launched a wave of strikes on Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The defence secretary arrived in Cyprus on Wednesday night amid a backlash there over the drone attack on RAF Akrotiri, which has led to the evacuation of families living on the bases and a bolstering of its defences. The attack on Sunday, and the two others intercepted later on Monday morning, are likely to have been launched by the Shia militia group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran. The drone, a cheaply made Iranian design, is used as a one-way attack vehicle. Though there were no injuries and damage was limited, the attack and the failure to stop the drone hitting the base has prompted anger from the Cypriot government. The Cypriot defence minister met Healey on Thursday morning in Nicosia. The drone strike was the first against a British military installation at the bases on the island in 40 years. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has said the drone was launched before the UK announced on Sunday evening that it would allow the US to use two of its bases for defensive action against Iran. No RAF bases on Cyprus are being used by US bombers. The Cypriot high commissioner in the UK, Kyriacos Kouros, said the country was “disappointed” with British failures to warn people on the island of the impending strike. “Let’s say the people are disappointed, the people are scared, the people could expect more,” he told BBC Newsnight. “More cooperation with the government of Cyrus to safeguard that such incidents won’t happen again.” On Monday, Cyprus’ president, Nikos Christodoulides, openly criticised the failure to stop the drone and said the country had no intention of participating in any military operation. “This is something that we must say we view with dissatisfaction,” the president’s spokesperson, Konstantinos Letymbiotis, said on Tuesday, adding that there was “no clear clarification that the British bases in Cyprus would under no circumstances be used for any purpose other than humanitarian reasons in Sunday’s statement by the UK prime minister”. He added: “All necessary steps will be taken to communicate our dissatisfaction, both with the way this message was communicated and the fact that yesterday there was no timely warning to citizens of Cyprus living near the Akrotiri bases.” The UK has sent a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Dragon, which is expected to arrive in Cyprus next week, alongside two Wildcat helicopters with counter-drone capabilities. Defence sources said the Wildcats would improve the ability to spot and intercept the type of low-flying drones which evaded detection on Sunday night. Both France and Greece have deployed military support to the country including F-16 fighter jets and anti-missile and anti-drone systems. Families have been evacuated from RAF Akrotiri and several other areas. They are expected to remain away from the base for some time.

Thursday briefing: Were a generation of students mis-sold the idea of a university degree?

Good morning. In November, Rachel Reeves tucked a freeze to student loan repayment thresholds into her autumn budget, to little fanfare. The threshold, normally expected to rise each tax year to account for inflation, would rise this year, and then stay frozen until 2030, dragging people on lower salaries into repayments earlier. Sadly for her, the change has not gone unnoticed. Backlash against the plans snowballed in recent weeks. Critics point out the 5.8 million students who took on “plan 2” loans between 2012 and 2023 are already drowning in debt, while others argue the changes mean students have been fundamentally mis-sold loans, as the coalition government promised the salary threshold would rise annually in line with earnings when they were first introduced. Now even the Tories, largely responsible for the state that the plan 2 repayments are in now, are arguing for a more just system – and the government has said it will look into making the loans fairer. But what would that look like? And is it likely? I spoke to the Guardian’s money and consumer editor, Hilary Osborne, to find out. But first, the headlines. Five big stories Middle East | A torpedo fired by a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the south coast of Sri Lanka as the Trump administration followed through on its threats to destroy Tehran’s military and political leadership. UK news | A former Labour adviser married to a Labour MP is among three men who have been arrested on suspicion of spying for China. BBC | The BBC is to call for an end to political appointments to its board as part of sweeping changes designed to protect its independence. Jeffrey Epstein | The House oversight committee has voted to subpoena US attorney general Pam Bondi to answer questions over the justice department’s handling of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein. Immigration | Up to 21,000 asylum seekers who have waited for a year for their claims to be processed could be allowed to enter the jobs market so they can support themselves, the Home Office said, as part of a package of measures to be announced on Thursday. In depth: ‘It’s no longer the case that university guarantees a well-paid career’ Hilary Osborne finished university with a £3,000 loan – a lot smaller than the £20,000 debt I left with, and a fraction of someone on a plan 2 loan today, who will pay an average of £56,000 over their lifetime when you account for interest. And yet, she didn’t feel great about it. “I was lucky because the tuition fees were free. I got a maintenance grant as well. But my family weren’t able to give me much money,” says Hilary. “I used to have sleepless nights when I was at university. I worried about money so much.” So she can’t imagine how it must feel for some graduates now, who look at their payslips every month and see the interest added dwarfing the already huge sums they owe. “I found it psychologically very difficult to have debt,” says Hilary. “And we’ve heard the same from readers. One nurse recently told us: ‘I know that I’ll never pay it all off. But when I see the statement and it’s gone up by more than I’ve paid off, I find that really difficult.’” One argument my generation was given to justify increases was that we would all make more money off the back of doing degrees, so it was only fair to pay towards that privilege. Hilary doesn’t think that argument has proved to be correct. “As a country, we’ve moved to a situation where lots of jobs that weren’t graduate jobs, now are. It’s no longer the case that if you’ve gone to university you walk out as a lawyer, or a surgeon – something that’s a guaranteed well-paid career,” she says. Add the current context for students in England, where house prices have shot up, and job prospects for many graduates look bleak, and “it makes it feel doubly unfair,” Hilary says. *** Unfair in so many ways Hilary points out that as a country our loans system is not as punitive as it could be. Repayments are pegged to your earnings rather than being set at a flat rate for every graduate. And failure to repay doesn’t go on your credit file, or trigger debt collection services. “But it all adds up, the worry that’s attached to it. It’s kind of difficult to reassure people,” she says. One of the problems for people on a plan 2 repayment plan is that their loans are likely growing much faster than they can pay off. While students only ever pay a maximum of 9% of their salary towards their student loan, the interest rate varies. Graduates earning over £51,254 are seeing interest added to the loans at a rate of 6.2% a year. “We’ve had a lot of this talk over the past few years, where people said ‘don’t worry about the interest rate. Just focus on the fact that you’re only paying 9% of your salary … It’s not like a mortgage where you have to pay the whole thing off, and the higher interest rate means you’ll end up paying it off forever’. That was a comfort that people were being given,” says Hilary. But while those on plan 2 have their remaining balance wiped after 30 years, many graduates say they are on target to repay something like £100,000 to £150,000 over their lifetimes, when the sum they borrowed was closer to £60,000 to £70,000. It doesn’t help, either, that the rate of interest linked to student loans is linked to a controversial rate of interest – the retail prices index – which fluctuates wildly and tends to run higher than other inflation figures. In August 2024, RPI meant students were paying as much as 8% interest on their loans. The government is moving away from using RPI as its inflation measure for other areas of spending, precisely because of these shortcomings. As the Guardian’s money editor, Hilary often hears from consumers who have been ripped off by retailers, and she says she has sympathy for the idea that students have been ripped off here. “People were told [loans] would go up in line with earnings and actually in the legislation it says that as well, but in the terms and conditions it says the regulations may change from time to time,” she says. “If a high street bank said [that] … I would say that was possibly an unfair contract – because you’re signing up to something that someone might change at any time, and you haven’t got the information to know whether that’s going to be a good or a bad thing. But the only way you can get the loan is to sign it.” *** Worse than the US In swotting up for this, I was surprised to find that the US system of loan forgiveness – even under President Donald Trump – looks far more progressive than the UK. In the US, firefighters, teachers and social workers have had their loans written off; parents will see monthly deductions to their debt; and there exists a rule which means no one should see their loan increase while they’re making repayments. “I do think it is really interesting the way they’ve tackled it and I think there are things we can learn,” says Hilary. She is particularly taken by the idea that students shouldn’t have to see their loans grow while they’re re-paying, and it reminds her of something she was shocked by when first entering the loans system herself. “I naively had this idea that while you were focusing on your studies, when maybe you weren’t working, that you could keep what you borrowed down. But you’re actually already racking up interest on your debt, even then. And that seems really unfair. It just means it feels like you’re always running to catch up,” she says. Other times that graduates continue to accumulate interest, despite not paying, include while parents are on maternity leave – and this is a notoriously expensive time, with the UK offering some of the lowest rates of paid maternity leave relative to earnings in the OECD. *** A possible review Last week, Keir Starmer said the government would look into ways to make the student system fairer. That’s something Hilary thinks is now inevitable. “It’s got such a head of steam,” she says. “There is time to do the sums again and think, ‘is the best thing just to unfreeze the freezing?’” But one thing that makes the system so unfair in England and Wales – that the amount people repay is based on when they were born – might make it harder for the government to do much more. “I suppose if you start being too generous on this loan, then people are going to start calling you to do different things [for their loans] as well, aren’t they?” she says. But she does think something has to give. Hilary’s generation came of age just as the New Labour government was coming into power, promising that 50% of young people would end up at university. As a result, she and her peers became happily accustomed to believing their children would all have the chance to go to university if they wanted. But that may no longer be the case. “It does feel [the level of debt has gone] kind of too far. If, as a country, we want people to have degrees to do some of these jobs, then we should be picking up some of the tab for it.” What else we’ve been reading Is it a truism that as you get older you suddenly find yourself drawn to bird-watching? I really enjoyed Kevin Rushby on bird calls on a North York Moors walk. Martin I often find myself using AI, finding it helpful, then wondering if it’s actually helpful or if I should be using it. Rhik Samadder sums up the conflicts brilliantly in this new Guardian US AI for the People newsletters series, as he tries to replace a therapist with a chatbot. Poppy For Collegetown Magazine, Dylan Alphenaar takes a deep and disturbing dive into a mostly forgotten hostage-taking and shooting situation that unfolded at a college in Iowa in the 1980s. Martin Such is the pluralism of this paper that I was incredibly taken by Rutger Bregman’s call to action in our opinion pages – asking us to quit ChatGPT right now. He says ChatGPT is funding Trump, and assisting his ICE raids. Poppy Shaad D’Souza interviews Robyn for The Face as she prepares to release her first album for eight years. Martin Sport Football | Arsenal seized control of the Premier League title race as Bukayo Saka’s goal secured a priceless 1-0 win at Brighton and Hove Albion and Manchester City could only draw 2-2 at home to relegation-threatened Nottingham Forest. Cricket | New Zealand opener Finn Allen smashed the fastest-ever century in a T20 World Cup game to help the Kiwis defeat favourite South Africa by nine wickets in the first semi-final on Wednesday. Golf | Luke Donald will captain Europe’s Ryder Cup team for a third time and go for a historic three-peat. The front pages “At least 87 dead as US sinks Iranian ship near Sri Lanka,” is the lead story on the Guardian on Thursday. “Warzone widens as US sub torpedoes warship off Sri Lanka,” has the i. “Trump’s war goes global,” says the Metro, while the FT has “US broadens war on Iran to high seas,” and the Telegraph: “Miliband led revolt to Trump’s Iran war.” “Labour ensnared in China spy probe,” says the Mail. “Allies round on ‘weak’ UK,” has the Times. “Greek cops wanted £50k Maguire ‘bribe’” is the splash at the Sun. “Weak, weak, weak!” says the Express. “MP: I’ve never suspected my husband,” is the lead story at the Mirror. Finally, the Star with “The ‘spy’ who loved MP.” Today in Focus Starmer, Trump and the shaky ‘special relationship’ When the US and Israel unleashed coordinated strikes on Iran, Keir Starmer initially held back on allowing the US to use UK military bases. But then, on Sunday evening, the prime minister agreed that the US could use two of its military bases – but maintained that the UK did not believe in “regime change from the skies”. Rafael Behr speaks about why Donald Trump’s war on Iran presents a strategic dilemma for Keir Starmer Cartoon of the day | Nicola Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Ahead of World Book Day on Thursday, Guardian music writers pick out the musicians whose literary references illuminated them and got them reading great works. Katie Hawthorne talks about re-discovering the novel Charlotte Sometimes via the Cure, and it holding a mirror to her increasingly uncertain sense of self. Lindesay Irvine talks of discovering the works of Antonio Gramsci via the work of Green Gartside AKA Scritti Politti, saying the literature the music referenced ultimately “began my route to an MA in continental philosophy”. Saul Bellow, Grace Paley and Joe Orton get namechecks, and Matt Mills reveals that if Iron Maiden hadn’t recorded their 13-minute epic rendition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner he might have failed his English A-level. And they used to say that rock’n’roll was a bad influence. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Martin Belam’s Thursday news quiz Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Social climber: Punch the monkey starts to outgrow his Ikea plushie

Punch, a baby macaque that stole the hearts of animal lovers around the world, is outgrowing his Ikea djungelskog plushie that comforted him after he was initially rejected by his mother and other monkeys at a zoo in Japan. Images of the seven-month-old dragging around a toy bigger than him drew attention to the residents of Ichikawa city zoo near Tokyo. When other monkeys shooed the baby away, Punch rushed back to the toy orangutan, hugging it for comfort. But he has been using the toy less and has even started to mix with other macaques at the zoo, where visitors have been flocking to see him get through his ordeal. On a recent day, Punch was seen climbing on the back of another monkey, sitting with adults and sometimes getting groomed or hugged. “It was good to see him grow, and I’m reassured,” said Sanae Izumi, a 61-year-old fan from Osaka who came to the zoo because she was worried about the baby monkey. “He is adorable!” Other visitors have posted video clips of Punch in which he appears to be mixing with other monkeys. “Helping Punch learn the rules of monkey society and being accepted as a member is our most important task,” said Kosuke Kano, a 24-year-old zookeeper. Punch was abandoned by his mother after his birth, presumably because of exhaustion. Zookeepers nursed him and gave him the toy to train him to cling, an ability newborn macaques need to survive. He was then filmed multiple times being dragged and chased by older Japanese macaques inside the enclosure. Early clips showed him wandering alone with the toy after being pushed away by other monkeys, and clutching it tightly while being harassed. The videos prompted questions about why monkeys abandon their babies. Alison Behie, a primatology expert at Australian National University, said such abandonment is unusual but can occur under certain conditions, citing age, health and inexperience as possible factors. Behie said: “In Punch’s case, their mother was a first-time mother, indicating inexperience. “Zookeepers also suggest Punch was born during a heatwave, which would be a high stress environment. In environments where survival is threatened from outside stress, mothers may prioritise their own health and future reproduction rather than continue to care for an infant whose health may be compromised by those environmental conditions.” When images of him and his toy showed up online last month, Punch became so popular that the zoo had to introduce rules asking visitors stay quiet. It also limited viewing times to 10 minutes to reduce stress among its 50 or so monkeys. Zoo officials have been encouraged by signs that Punch is spending far less time with his cuddly companion. “When he grows out of the plush toy that encourages his independence, and that’s what we are hoping for,” the director, Shigekazu Mizushina, said. Although Punch still sleeps with his toy every night, Mizushina said zookeepers hope they will soon see him sleeping huddled up with other monkeys.

Gen Z men twice as likely as baby boomers to believe wives should obey husbands

Almost a third of generation Z men think a wife should obey her husband, according to a global survey of 23,000 people that found young men hold more traditional views about gender roles than older generations. A third (33%) of gen Z men also said a husband should have the final word on important decisions, according to the 29-country survey which included Great Britain, the US, Brazil, Australia and India. It found that gen Z men (born 1997-2012) were twice as likely as baby boomer men (born 1946-1964) to have traditional views on decision-making within a marriage, with just 13% of men in the older cohort agreeing that a wife should always obey her husband. Among women, 18% of gen Z and 6% of baby boomers agreed. People of both genders in Indonesia (66%) and Malaysia (60%) were most likely to agree with the statement, compared with 23% in the US and 13% in Great Britain. The annual research was conducted by Ipsos and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, and revealed a stark difference in the beliefs of different generations of men when it comes to gender roles: Almost a quarter (24%) of gen Z men think women should not appear too independent or self-sufficient, compared with 12% of baby boomer men. Attitudes toward sexual norms also differed sharply across generations, with 21% of gen Z men thinking a “real woman” should never initiate sex, compared with only 7% of baby boomer men. More than half (59%) of gen Z men said men were expected to do too much to support equality, compared with 45% of baby boomer men. For women, the proportions were 41% and 30% respectively. Despite being the most likely to believe a woman should not appear too independent or self-sufficient, gen Z men were also the group most likely to believe women who have a successful career were more attractive to men – 41% agreed with this statement. Prof Heejung Chung, the director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and the leader of the research, said there were some encouraging signs that support for gender equality remained strong, such as in the agreement there should be more women in government. But when comparable data was available, it suggested views were becoming more traditional. In 2019, 42% of people globally said women’s rights had gone far enough in their country, compared with 52% now. In Britain, this equated to a 12-point increase. “I think there are a lot of grievances, a lot of fear of men losing social positions,” Chung said. “And there’s a vacuum that’s being filled with rhetoric and voices which are trying to pitch young men against gender equality, against young women, against migrants.” The results of the survey also suggested gen Z men have more traditional expectations of their own behaviour and choices, for example: Thirty percent of gen Z men believed men should not say “I love you” to their friends, compared with 20% of baby boomer men and 21% of gen Z women. Twenty-one percent of gen Z men believed that men who took part in caregiving for children were less masculine than those who did not, compared with 8% of baby boomer men and 14% of gen Z women. Both genders felt women had more choice in dating and relationships (22%), household roles (24%) and the clothes they can wear (34%), while men were considered to have more choice in hobbies (18%) and jobs (39%). Julia Gillard, the chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and former Australian prime minister, said the results were troubling. “Not only are many gen Z men putting limiting expectations on women, they are also trapping themselves within restrictive gender norms,” she said. “We must continue to do more to dispel the idea of a zero-sum game in which women are the only beneficiaries of a gender-equal world.” Chung said economic factors may also play a part. “In previous generations men were able to, in sociologist terms, perform masculinity through breadwinning roles, through their financial contributions, things like buying a house, being a provider and protector. “Increasingly for young men across the world, those opportunities are not as easy. So they feel maybe a loss of the opportunities, and they have not been given positive, diverse notions of masculinity.” The data revealed a gap between what people personally thought about gender roles within the home and what they thought society expected. In Britain, only 14% of people personally felt that women should take on most responsibility for childcare, but 43% said women were expected to be mostly or entirely responsible.

US did not share details with the UK before attacking Iran, sources say

The US did not share exact operational details or timings with the UK before the joint strikes with Israel on Iran, sources have told the Guardian. The US decision to cut the UK out of the official loop on the airstrikes came alongside Keir Starmer’s decision to decline permission for the US to use British military bases for the operation. Since then, Donald Trump has attacked Starmer for his refusal to let America use the military sites, saying the special relationship is not what it was and calling him “no Churchill”. The prime minister has since granted permission for the US to use British bases for defensive strikes on Iran to degrade its missile capability, after Tehran hit back at other countries in the Gulf. Government sources said the UK was usually aligned with the US on military matters, so it was not possible to say whether it was unusual for Britain not to have been officially informed well ahead of the strikes. One Whitehall source confirmed that the UK knew action was imminent through the buildup of equipment passing through and intelligence “via the usual channels”, but was not given a tipoff about the exact time and operational details of the attack. The UK made the decision to evacuate its Tehran embassy on Friday, signalling it believed the strikes were coming – but it was not given details about when they were likely to take place over the weekend. Trump’s request to be able to use British military bases for the strikes also gave the UK warning that the White House was serious about proceeding with the operation, which killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as 47 other military leaders. Starmer robustly defended his approach in prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, after Tory MP Gareth Bacon said: “The USA is our most important international, strategic ally. Does the PM believe his dithering and equivocal response to the events in the Middle East this week has made that relationship stronger or weaker?” Starmer said British military deployments had been under way for a number of weeks, in contact with the US, and told MPs British forces were in operation protecting US lives. “The American planes are operating out of British bases,” he said. “That is the special relationship in action. British jets are shooting down drones and missiles to protect American lives in the Middle East on our joint bases. That is the special relationship in action. Sharing intelligence every day to keep our people safe. That is the special relationship in action. Hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship.” The British military resources being deployed included radar systems, ground-based air defences and counter-drone systems as well as fighter jets. “Since Saturday morning multiple F-35s and typhoons have been in operation, not just in the Middle East but across Cyprus,” Starmer added. “Further missions were flown overnight, Typhoons defending in particular Qatar, and F-35s defending other regional parties.” The prime minister’s spokesperson later added: “The PM has been crystal clear on that he will only take decisions that are in Britain’s national interests and which will keep British people safe.”