Politics
Legally Blonde: As Elle Debuts, 21 Facts You Didn’t Know About The Original Film
It’s been 25 years since Elle Woods got into Harvard, introduced the world to the bend and snap and taught us all to never judge a book by its cover.
Legally Blonde premiered in 2001, becoming an instant hit with fans, inspiring viewers all around the globe and catapulting Reese Witherspoon to the A-list.
After Elle first donned her pink courtsuit, Legally Blonde became a global phenomenon, spawning a 2003 sequel, a Broadway musical and countless memes.
Now, the iconic character is back on our screens in the new prequel series Elle, which explores the iconic character’s life as a 16-year-old in Seattle in the 1990s.
To commemorate 25 years since the release of Legally Blonde, and the premiere of Elle on Prime Video, here are 21 behind-the-scenes facts you might not have known about the cult classic…
Elle Woods was loosely inspired by the author of Legally Blonde novel, and her real-life experiences at law school
The Reese Witherspoon film is based on a 2001 novel by Amanda Brown – also called Legally Blonde – which itself was inspired by her own life at Stanford.
The author shares more than a passing resemblance to Elle, admitting to the San Francisco Chronicle: “I wanted to go to Stanford when I saw the mall.”
During her first week at Stanford Law, she realised how difficult it was to find another woman who shared her interests in fashion and shopping. So, she started writing letters home, lampooning her lecturers and students. These 300 pages became the basis of her book.
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“I was sitting in tort class when the novel popped into my head,” recalled Amanda Brown to Stanford Magazine. “I wanted to do a parody of law school.”
“I wrote it all on pink paper, with my pink furry pen,” Amanda told the SF Gate in 2003, claiming she “finally found an agent” when they picked out of a pile of manuscripts solely “because it was on pink paper”.
Amanda self-published her book, but it soon found its way onto the desks of a production company, who then sent it to the team who would go on to write the Legally Blonde film.
“It immediately struck us as one of the greatest movie ideas ever, and we pitched it as ‘Clueless meets The Paper Chase’, one of those law school movies from the 1970s. I might have worn a lot of pink in the meeting,” writer Kirsten Smith said, as reported by The News Daily in an oral history article.
The original script for Legally Blonde had a very different message
Legally Blonde has become known as a modern-day feminist classic, addressing topics like misogyny, sexual harassment in the workplace and power dynamics between men and women. But, the original script was much raunchier and had far less of a positive female-empowerment message.
“The first script was very raunchy, to be honest, in the vein of American Pie,” Jessica Cauffiel, who plays Margot, told The New York Post in 2021.
“What we know now as Legally Blonde, and what it began as are two completely different films. It transformed from nonstop zingers that were very adult in nature to this universal story of overcoming adversity by being oneself.”
The writers also explained there were a few other differences between the original manuscript and the final product.
“It wasn’t a murder trial, and she ended up with a professor, so we made some changes. It was a matter of finessing the details and adding a few characters, like Paulette and her friendship,” screenwriter Karen McCullah explained in that same interview.
There’s a reason that Elle Woods attended Harvard rather than Stanford
In the Legally Blonde book, Elle attended Stanford, like its author. However, this was changed in the film adaptation, for the simple reason that the university wouldn’t let filming take place there.
The university has long implemented a no-filming rule due to “year-round campus activity” and in order to protect “the privacy and safety of its students, faculty and staff.”
After being turned down by Stanford – where, ironically, Reese Witherspoon also studied – the producers approached USC, which rejected the offer, telling Vulture that there was “too much stereotyping going on” in the script for their liking. The team then reached out to UCLA, Yale, and the University of Chicago — all of whom also wanted nothing to do with Elle Woods.
Finally, Harvard agreed to being mentioned in the film, although they didn’t want the movie filmed there.
If you think the film’s campus looks sunny for Massachusetts, where Harvard is actually situated, that’s because the movie they filmed at institutes in California.
While USC and UCLA didn’t want to be associated with Elle, they were happy for the filming to take place on their campuses all the same.
Reese Witherspoon and Jessica Cauffield spent time with a sorority to prepare for their roles
“We [talked] an entire sorority into going out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Reese offered to buy them free margaritas all night,” Jessica recalled to the New York Post.
“She leans over to me as the drinks are on the way and goes, ‘We’re not drinking anything. We’re drinking water’. We stayed sober as they got tanked, and we took notes.”
In a 2001 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Reese called her time with the sorority girls “an anthropological study”.
“You learn what they eat, how they behave, how they take care of their young, that sort of thing,” she quipped. “Seriously, though, I’ve learned that people don’t know what their worst characteristics are.”
She added: “It’s inherent to our nature that we don’t know what, in ourselves, is abhorrent to other people. So it’s really easy to infiltrate people’s lives. They showed all sides of themselves. Sometimes I’m shocked, like, I can’t believe they just said that to me!”
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The infamous bend and snap move was created on a whim
Jennifer Coolidge co-starred in the movie as Elle’s manicurist turned BFF Paulette.
In one of the decade’s most iconic film moments, she tries the infamous “bend and snap”, a move which “has a 98 percent success rate of getting a man’s attention”, according to her trainee lawyer friend.
Legally Blonde’s writing team have revealed to Entertainment Weekly that they invented the famous move at the L’ermitage Hotel bar in Beverly Hills over some drinks.
“We were in between meetings and working on the script,” writer Karen McCullah recalled. “And we were trying to come up with a B-plot that happened in the nail salon and we were working in weird directions. Like, maybe it gets robbed, all sorts of crazy stuff.”
The writing duo then realised that they were overthinking the moment, which is when the “bend and snap” was invented.
“Kirsten jumped off her barstool and was like, ‘Like this?’ And then she did that move,” Karen said, revealing that the team came up with the “bend and snap” name the spot.
“It just cracks us up that that’s become such a lasting thing that people remember. It’s literally the silliest thing in the movie,” Karen added.
Legally Blonde’s bend and snap scene had a very famous choreographer behind it
The now-iconic move was choreographed by 80s icon and Mickey singer Toni Basil.
“I choreographed iconic things for David Bowie and Tina Turner,” Toni told The New York Times in 2021. “People interview me and they go, ‘You did the bend and snap?’ It’s like, ‘what, a one-and-a-half-minute number in the movie?’. But it was such an integral part.”
The original idea was for the bend and snap to be a full-length musical number, but this was eventually shortened for the final cut.
Ultimately, Reese explained, “it just felt odd” to have a full bend and snap number, “because there was just one musical sequence”.
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Legally Blonde was not written with any specific actor in mind to play Elle
Screenwriters Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith didn’t picture any specific star in mind when adapting Amanda Brown’s book.
However, they were delighted when Reese Witherspoon signed on to play the lead, as she was a rising star at the time, having already appeared in Election and Cruel Intentions.
“We loved her in Freeway. She had so much moxie in that,” Kirsten told Business Insider. “She had the perfect balance of comedic ability, the intellectual vibes, and the real dramatic chops, too. She’s the entire package.”
Reese Witherspoon admitted the auditioning process for Legally Blonde was not the most positive experience
Reese doesn’t look back too fondly on her Legally Blonde audition, explaining to The Hollywood Reporter in 2019 that her manager told her to dress sexy, to differentiate her from her “shrew” character from Election.
After a string of failed auditions and missed roles, her team had an idea.
“My manager finally called and said: ‘You’ve got to go meet with the studio head because he will not approve you. He thinks you really are your character from Election and that you’re repellent,’” she explained.
During the audition process to play Elle, Reese had to speak to studio execs while in full glam.
“I remember a room full of men who were asking me questions about being a coed and being in a sorority, even though I had dropped out of college four years earlier and I have never been inside a sorority house,” she recalled.
Another A-lister was almost cast as Elle Woods before Reese Witherspoon, but turned it down
Dead To Me star Christina Applegate admitted she rejected the lead role in Legally Blonde, calling the decision a “big fucking mistake”.
In a 2023 interview with Vanity Fair, Christina said she turned it down as the role was too similar to her famous sitcom character in Married With… Children.
“I wouldn’t toy with the idea of Legally Blonde because it felt too fresh getting out of Married…With Children,” she explained, referring to her dumb blonde character Kelly Bundy in the family comedy. “It was very similar on paper.”
She joked that she would have “Witherspoon money” now if she had signed on to the role, but conceded: “You can’t imagine anyone playing Elle Woods other than Reese Witherspoon? I would have completely screwed it up.”
Interestingly, both Christina and Reese went on to play sisters of Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel in Friends, although they never shared the screen in the award-winning sitcom.
Meanwhile, a famous pop star was also considered by the producers
Producer Marc Platt put Britney Spears’ name forward as a suggestion when Christina Applegate turned down the part.
“Marc once [mentioned] Britney Spears, and I was like, ‘No, that’s not a good idea’,” writer Kirsten Smith revealed. “I think she hosted SNL the night before, and his kids were into her, so he threw her name out there.”
While Britney writes about being offered roles in Chicago and The Notebook in her autobiography, The Woman In Me, she never mentions Legally Blonde, so it could be that the pop diva was unaware her name was ever on the table.
Chloe Sevigny was among the stars who turned down a part in in Legally Blonde, too
Selma Blair’s performance as the “frigid bitch” Vivian Kensington is now considered iconic, but another actor almost wore those infamous pearls.
“I remember talk about getting Chloë Sevigny to play Vivian,” screenwriter Kirsten recalled to The New York Times. “That didn’t work out, and we ended up with our queen Selma Blair.”
She noted that “Selma and Reese were close, because they had done Cruel Intentions together”, meaning their friendship served as a “great anchor for everything” on screen.
“I was the last person cast, and I remember Chloe Sevigny passed,” Selma also told Entertainment Weekly.
“Her fingers are much too elegant; they needed someone with a bony little finger,” the actor joked.
Jennifer Coolidge apparently thought she was auditioning for the role of Elle
Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Coolidge recently reunited for a 25th anniversary catch-up, where they shared their experiences of working on the film.
During this chat, they spilled some gossip, including why Jennifer auditioned for the movie.
“I thought this was the funniest thing. I was so lucky to get cast in this movie, and it is one of my favourite jobs of all time,” she recalled, joking: “But I stupidly thought that when I was auditioning, I thought I was gonna be Elle.”
Before Jennifer Coolidge was cast in Legally Blonde, a rock legend was apparently in consideration for her role
Jennifer Coolidge’s gives an iconic performance as Elle’s beautician, but she wasn’t their first choice.
In The New York Times’ piece on Legally Blonde, Jennifer shared some of the other actors she’d heard were in the line-up to play Paulette.
“I don’t know if they’re true [but I heard] that Courtney Love was up for [my] role,” she claimed. “I heard Kathy Najimy was up for it, [too].”
Alanna Ubach had a creative way of impressing casting directors to land the part of Serena
Future Euphoria star Alanna Ubach used an unusual tactic to land the role of Elle’s sorority sister.
Jessica Cauffiel had already been cast as fellow Delta Nu Margot when she met Alanna in the bathroom during a chemistry read.
“She’s like, ‘Hey, hey, are you in this movie?’” Jessica recalled during the virtual 20th anniversary reunion.
Jessica then claimed that Alanna begged for help booking the job, telling her: “I don’t have any money, I need to make rent, will you help me make rent?”
“She was so funny and so ballsy, I said, ‘Okay’,” Jessica continued.
From there, the two put their heads together and “choreographed simultaneous moves”, which Jessica made the casting directors think they were naturally in sync.
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The Legally Blonde writing team only had one actor in mind for the role of Emmett, Elle’s love interest
“We spent a lot of time faxing the casting director, like ′Luke Wilson, Luke Wilson!’” Kristen explained.
“And then, finally, after the table read where a different actor played Emmett, we were like ‘Luke Wilson, Luke Wilson!’. And he was like, ‘That’s a really good idea.’ We were like, ‘We’ve been telling you!’”
Luke was subsequently offered the role without even needing to audition.
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The actors added their own flourishes to the script
While the Legally Blonde script didn’t leave a lot of room for improvisation, the screenwriters recalled to Business Insider that the cat still found room to add a personal touch to their characters.
During rehearsals, Jason Christopher came up with the line “you bitch!” – which his character shouts after his boyfriend Enrique denies their relationship in his testimony.
The screenwriters also revealed that it was Alanna Ubach’s idea to speak fluent Vietnamese at the nail salon.
“I thought, ‘How funny would it be if we frequent this nail salon so much that I’ve been immersed in Vietnamese and I’ve picked up the language?’” the actor said.
Life as a new mum took was taking its toll on Reese Witherspoon while shooting Legally Blonde
Reese took on the role of Elle Woods just months after welcoming her daughter Ava in September 1999. As a result, while she looked fresh and bright on camera, she didn’t always feel that way.
“Some nights Ava would wake up screaming because she had the flu, and I would spend most of the night trying to rock her back to sleep and then have to be on the set at seven in the morning for make-up!” she explained to Cinema.com in 2001.
“And then you throw in the fact that I’m supposed to be playing a very bubbly and energetic California preppy who is smiling all the time!”
“I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to kill myself! I’m never going to make it!’” she joked.
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Another famous face was supposed to make a scene-stealing cameo
While putting Legally Blonde together, screenwriter Kirsten had read an article which said that video applications were the done thing when trying to impress professors at places like Harvard – and they wanted Elle’s to be extra special.
“We wanted to shoot [Elle, Serena and Margot] chasing Judge Judy wherever she tapes her show and them being like, ‘Judge Judy! Judge Judy! Can we get an autograph?’ Kirsten said. Unfortunately, the team couldn’t get the real-life judge on board, so the idea was ditched.
Alanna Ubach’s alternative idea was also cut.
“I thought, ‘Reese, what if Ryan Phillippe played a really famous judge who had his own show, and we have him on billboards’,” the actor said of Reese’s then-husband.
Reese wasn’t keen on the idea of adding her partner to the film, though, reportedly telling her: “Alanna, no one’s going to believe that my husband’s a judge. Are you kidding me?”
Matthew Davis, who plays Warner, admitted he had a major crush on Reese Witherspoon, which affected his performance somewhat
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In a 2001 interview with Movieline, Matthew admitted he acted like a “bumbling idiot” around his co-star because of his crush – despite her being married to Ryan Phillippe at the time.
“At first I was such a bumbling idiot with her, the producers pulled me aside one day to see if I was OK,” he revealed.
When the actor later confessed his feelings to the Election star, she let him down gently.
“She was like, ‘That’s so sweet!’,” he explained. “OK, let’s work on the scene…’.”
In hindsight, Matthew admits his behaviour on the set of Legally Blonde wasn’t always the most professional.
“I felt starstruck by all this because it happened so quickly and I hadn’t adjusted,” he told Teen Vogue in 2017. “I definitely wasn’t cool. At the first table read, I just kept going on and on about how much I loved her work, fawning all over her.”
Matthew told News.com.au that he also “adored” his on-screen girlfriend, Selma Blair, during filming.
“I developed a crush on her at the time but she was with someone else — I think she was dating the guy from Rushmore [actor Jason Schwartzman] but he was coming around and I was kind of like ‘who is this guy?!’” Matthew shared.
Legally Blonde almost had a sapphic happy ending
Legally Blonde famously ends with Elle freeing her client, graduating at the top of her class, becoming best friends with her former nemesis and staying with doting boyfriend Emmett.
However, the cast told The New York Times that the ending in the script was markedly different.
“The first ending was Elle and Vivian in Hawaii in beach chairs, drinking margaritas and holding hands,” said Jessica Cauffiel. “The insinuation was either they were best friends or they had gotten together romantically.”
Another alternative ending for Legally Blonde didn’t go down too well with test audiences
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At the 2015 Vulture Festival, the screenwriters revealed that their original script wrapped at the courthouse right after Elle won the case, with her and Emmett kissing on the steps.
“It was just kind of a weak ending,” Karen McCullah admitted. “The kiss didn’t feel right because it’s not a rom-com — it wasn’t about their relationship.
“So test audiences were saying, ‘We want to see what happens – we want to see her succeed.’ So that’s why we rewrote for graduation.”
“We screened the movie two or three times, and every time people didn’t want to end it with a kiss,” she also explained to the New York Times.
“They thought it wasn’t a story about [Elle] getting a boyfriend, which was really cool to have people say that.”
An interesting part of this axed ending would have fast-forwarded to a year later, with Elle and a now-blonde Vivian starting their own Blonde Legal Defence Club at Harvard Law School.
“There was an ending that Vivian was blonde, and I did [go blonde],” Selma admitted to the podcast Shut Up Evan. “I have the Polaroids. I looked just like Faye Dunaway in Bonnie And Clyde – the beret was on and the blonde.”
Legally Blonde is now streaming on Prime Video, as are the first episodes of Elle.
Harry Styles took a moment to pay tribute to his former One Direction bandmates after wrapping up his epic, record-breaking run of shows at Wembley Stadium over the weekend.
On Sunday night, the chart-topping star delivered the 12th and final Wembley Stadium gigon his Together, Together world tour, off the back of his hit album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.
During his London shows, Harry has been taking a moment to reflect on the early stages of his career, which was also the case during Sunday night’s concert.
“I wouldn’t be on this stage if it wasn’t for four friends of mine that were a massive part of this journey,” he told the crowd, before publicly thanking Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and his “dear friend”, the late Liam Payne “for these nights and everything that I learned in this time, the friendship, everything”.
“None of this would be possible, I wouldn’t be here without you, thank you so much,” he added.
Liam died in October 2024 at the age of 31, after falling from the balcony of a hotel where he was staying in Argentina, while under the influence of numerous substances.
In the days that followed, the four remaining members of One Direction issued a joint statement, which read: “The memories we shared with [Liam] will be treasured forever. For now, our thoughts are with his family, his friends, and the fans who loved him alongside us. We will miss him terribly. We love you Liam.”
They then posted more personal tributes on their individual social media accounts, with Harry remembering his “lovely friend” as “warm, supportive and incredibly loving”.
Harry lamented: “The years we spent together will forever remain among the most cherished years of my life. I will miss him always.”
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More recently, Harry admitted that Liam’s death was something he has “struggled” to address over the last two years.
“There was a period when he passed away where I really struggled with kind of acknowledging how strange it is to have people kind of own part of your grief, in a way,” the Sign Of The Times singer shared.
“I [had] such strong feelings around my friend passing away, and then suddenly, being aware [that] there [was] maybe a desire from other people [for] you to convey that in some way – or it means you’re not feeling what you’re feeling or something.”
The Grammy winner added: “It’s so difficult to lose a friend. It’s difficult to lose any friend, but it’s so difficult to lose a friend who is so like you in so many ways. It’s like, I saw [in Liam] someone with the kindest heart, who just wanted to be great.”
The news that Andy Burnham has appointed James Purnell as his chief of staff has been greeted with horror by the likes of Owen Jones and Zack Polanski.
This is usually a good sign. Purnell’s past as a Blairite minister, pro-market stance and failure to despise Israel cast doubt, for them, on Burnham’s claim to be radical. Others might see this as a cause for relief. And what’s not to like about a man who once proposed, as Purnell did, lie detector-tests to weed out benefits cheats?
But just because the whiniest elements of the hard left loathe Purnell doesn’t mean his appointment is a good thing. For as smiley and reasonable as he appears, he embodies a problem with the modern left that’s every bit as pernicious as its economic incompetence. This is its obsession with imposing its fringe woke values on the rest of us.
If you want to know what makes Burnham’s new Svengali tick, forget the nearly two years he served as CEO of a global consultancy firm. Instead, look at what he did during his stint as one of the BBC’s top executives between 2013 and 2020, as both director of strategy and director of radio and education, when he championed the worst excesses of the diversity and inclusion agenda.
The climax of this stint was the publication in 2018 of an extraordinary report, ‘LGBT Culture and Progression’. It set out a detailed plan to transform the corporation and to force it to comply with the diktats of the LGBTQ+ lobby. Purnell oversaw the report and wrote the foreword. He applauded its recommendations, which he openly acknowledged were written with ‘support from Stonewall’. What could possibly go wrong?
The goal of this madcap project, believe it or not, was to stamp out ‘heteronormativity’ at the BBC. Apparently, it was a problem that the national broadcaster assumed heterosexuality is the default setting of human sexual orientation – even though it is. Where did Purnell imagine the BBC’s viewers came from?
In his foreword, Purnell argued ‘an organisation that appears to have a heteronormative culture’ would fail to attract 18- to 24-year-olds. What he failed to realise was that coming over all kinky and queer wouldn’t attract young people to the BBC either.
The joke is that the average age of a BBC One viewer at the time of Purnell’s report was 61. For BBC Two it was 62. Did he bother to ask viewers in their sixties if they fancied less heteronormativity with their BBC soaps? Did he heck.
In fact, the team behind the report didn’t canvass the opinion of anyone outside the BBC’s own buildings. Its recommendations were based exclusively on staff surveys run by the corporation’s in-house Pride group – which, as the report helpfully explained, represents anyone who is ‘genderqueer, bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, nonbinary, pansexual, intersex, asexual, queer, questioning or an ally’. The dinner party from hell, in other words.
With the blessing of Purnell, the demands of this tiny, unrepresentative bunch ricocheted through the BBC’s editorial output. One of the demands, for example, was for LGBT characters to feature more frequently and prominently in shows. If you want to complain about the endless succession of drag queens on your TV screen, Andy Burnham’s new chief of staff is your man.
Another demand was that staff should use preferred pronouns. This was taken by journalists as an instruction to respect the delusions of any crossdresser – even in news reports. Male rapists who claimed to be female would now routinely be referred to as ‘she / her’ by the BBC.
If you thought the age of the left imposing its fringe cultural obsessions on society might be coming to an end, then think again. Burnham’s most important hire is one of the worst kinds of cultural warriors. Let’s just hope James Purnell doesn’t get to do to Britain what he did to the BBC.
Malcolm Clark was LGB Alliance’s head of research from 2019 to 2022. Visit his Substack, The Secret Gender Files, here.
The prime minister of Australia has apologised for comments he recently made about one of the country’s most famous residents, Kylie Minogue, on a podcast.
Last week, Anthony Albanese was interviewed by comedian Nikki Osborne on the podcast Bush Deep, where the host asked if he would “shag, marry or date” the famous Australian entertainers Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman or Rhonda Burchmore.
Initially, Albanese tried to swerve the question, but eventually said “oh, Kylie, clearly” as a response to “all of the above”.
“She’s terrific,” he then enthused.
His responses were met with immediate backlash, with senator Sarah Henderson describing them as “disrespectful to women, embarrassing to Australians and demean the office of prime minister”.
Australian MP Zali Steggall also said the comments were “entirely inappropriate”, saying that Albanese “needs to learn to push back” and should have led “by example” and “call[ed the question] out as sexist”.
Responding to the controversy in a statement on Monday, Albanese said (as reported by BBC News): “I apologise unequivocally for the comments.”
Albanese is presently out of the country on an official visit, with Richard Marles acting as prime minister in his absence.
Speaking to Australia’s ABC Radio National about the media furore surrounding Albanese’s remarks, Marles said: “From time to time, we obviously do different interviews to the one we are doing now. But I think the other point to make here is that the government that the PM leads is the first in history that has had equality in terms of the number of men and women in cabinet.”
HuffPost UK has contacted Kylie Minogue’s representatives for additional comment.
Keir Starmer is preparing for a dressing down from Donald Trump at his last Nato summit as prime minister over the government’s underwhelming defence spending plans.
The PM will fly to Ankara in Turkey a week after unveiling the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan (DIP).
Although it contained an extra £15 billion for the armed forces over the next four years, nearly one-third of it is unfunded, while there was no pathway for how the government plans to hit its target of spending 3.5% of national income on defence by 2035.
Starmer insisted that, once security spending is added, Britain will be spending 4.2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence by then.
But that would still fall short of Trump’s demand that all Nato allies increase defence-related spending to 5% of GDP by the middle of the next decade.
It’s therefore no surprise that, judging by his social media posts, the US president may already sharpening his knives as he prepares to meet the outgoing prime minister.
Trump reposted a tweet on his platform, Truth Social, over the weekend which attacked England’s supposed decline.
“Just 100 years ago, England was the greatest empire the world had ever seen,” the post, from an account called Geiger Capital, read.
“A few generations later, they are a deindustrialized welfare zone unable to stop third-world men from invading on rubber boats.
“Decline happens fast. Weak leaders and suicidal empathy.”
The same post also pointed out that Britain is on the cusp of appointing its seventh prime minister in a decade, with Andy Burnham preparing to replace Starmer in two weeks’ time.
Trump’s dig comes after months of turmoil in the UK-US relationship, triggered by Starmer’s refusal to let American troops use British military base to launch attacks on Iran.
Trump has already criticised the incoming PM too, describing Burnham – the former mayor of Greater Manchester – as “the mayor of a town” and “extremely liberal”.
The US ambassador to Nato Matthew Whitaker, has already hinted that the US president will be cracking the whip on his allies at the summit in Turkey this week.
In a thinly-veiled threat, he said: “Some allies are doing more than others.
“Poland, the North countries, the Baltic countries lead the way and Germany is on track for the 5%, reaching it in 2029, but many allies are lagging behind and President Trump expects all allies to step up immediately.
“We expect all allies to demonstrate meaningful upward trajectories both quantitively and qualitatively in defence spending that results in fairer burden sharing.”
Britain was Nato’s third largest defence spender in 2015 after the US and Greece, but last year it slipped down to 12th.
Burnham has vowed to “take my responsibilities fully” to fund the DIP if he gets into office.
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Proposed cuts to the parliamentary education and outreach team risk reducing access to Parliament and increasing disengagement with politics
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the UK Parliament Teacher Ambassador Programme, an initiative that gives teachers across the country a chance to experience Parliament beyond a screen or textbook. This knowledge is brought home to inspire pupils, colleagues, and their wider community, and spark interest in our political system.
Yet, against the backdrop of this anniversary, there has been a proposal to cut the UK Parliament education outreach service and move toward more online provision – a move that risks reducing access to parliamentary education for rural and coastal areas like Cornwall.
For constituencies like mine in Truro and Falmouth, this outreach provision is vital. Some schools cannot get to Parliament – and those that can often struggle to secure places. Not long ago, students from King Charles Primary School in Falmouth were in London but were unable to get a slot for a tour of Parliament. I ended up meeting them at Millbank Pizza Express, which was not quite the visit I hoped the pupils from Year 6 would have.
This is not an uncommon experience for my area. If children from Cornwall are rejected for their parliamentary visit, then the six hour journey, minimum two night trip to the capital becomes simply unaffordable. And those children, many of whom will have never been to London, will miss out.
Currently, the South West has a regional outreach officer who plays an important role in connecting people with Parliament. Last year alone, they worked with 20,000 children and 780 adult learners, including Youth Parliament members, SEND learners, English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) learners, young people not in education, employment or training (Neets), and other communities often underrepresented in democratic participation.
For constituencies like mine in Truro and Falmouth, this outreach provision is vital
The team has helped facilitate several non-partisan politics summer schools for MPs across the region, including my own in 2025, and they will support me again this summer. At my last politics summer school, the outreach officer taught 23 young people from Truro and Falmouth about how Parliament works, how laws are made and the traditions and procedures that underpin our democracy. This sort of outreach feels more important than ever as discussions around votes at 16 continue and efforts are made to engage those who might otherwise feel disengaged.
Having worked in schools, I know that online provision doesn’t effectively replace in-person engagement. The outreach team already delivers digital sessions, yet in-person engagement is categorically favoured, with digital uptake accounting for less than five per cent of total delivery. This work requires a unique skill set, and I have seen how much it helps young people to participate in an objective and helpful way – something of great value in a politically divisive time.
Communities closer to Westminster already benefit from greater access to Parliament, so it seems counterproductive to cut regional staff while retaining a small Westminster-based team. Those of us who are more than 200 miles away are not only physically distant but often socially disconnected too. It risks creating more unequal opportunity, something rural communities know all too well. The education team are changing the rules this summer so that schools from remote areas will be able to apply early for visit places and this cannot come soon enough. But if there is also any way of increasing visit capacity I know it would be immediately filled.
This is about protecting democracy and ensuring access and opportunity wherever people live. I am concerned how areas situated far from Parliament will be considered and how the loss of in-person services will affect SEND schools, those with disabilities, and those facing digital exclusion. Parliament belongs to everyone, and everyone should have the opportunity to properly engage with it, whether that’s through a visit to Westminster or outreach in their own community. I understand the limitations of cost – but I would hate to see this diminished.
Jayne Kirkham is Labour MP for Truro and Falmouth
To the surprise of no one, it has been revealed that the UK is unable to deport 50 per cent of illegal migrants due to human-rights claims. A government document leaked to The Times found that, of the 400,000 illegal immigrants identified by the Home Office as living in the UK, more than half could not be deported as they awaited the outcomes of various tribunal decisions.
But it is not just failed refugees we cannot deport. The UK is also unable to deport criminal monsters, even if they have been found guilty of the most heinous crimes.
Last week, we discovered that Shabir Ahmed, the infamous ringleader of a Rochdale rape gang, cannot be deported to Pakistan. Ahmed was convicted in 2012 of 30 child-rape offences, with some of his victims as young as 12. The girls he raped were ‘plied’ with alcohol and drugs, gang-raped in rooms above take-away shops, and sent to other men in taxis to be abused.
Ahmed – who, in a bleak twist of irony, was a ‘welfare officer’ for Oldham Council at the time of his offences – was released on Thursday after serving 14 years of a 19-year sentence. Incredibly, he is protected from deportation by a provision in the 1971 Immigration Act, which exempts Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK before 1973 from removal. This sadistic paedophile was stripped of his British citizenship at the time of his conviction, but will nonetheless be free to roam the streets here for as long as he pleases.
Another similarly outrageous case is that of Dwight Merrick. The 45-year-old Jamaican ‘asylum seeker’, also known as ‘Yardy’, who committed a brutal murder in Camden, north London.
On 27 September 2025, Merrick ‘came to blows’ with 44-year-old Shaun Latimer-Kayser, beating him with a plank of wood before fatally stabbing him. It was a crime that Merrick should never have been able to commit. In 2010, he was deported to Jamaica for firearm offences. He then returned to the UK in 2014, claiming that he was an asylum seeker. This surely bogus claim was still being mulled over by the sclerotic British state when he carried out the murder, 11 years later.
This week, Merrick was jailed for life. Shaun’s cousin Sarah Whaley told the Camden New Journal:
‘Our family adored him. Shaun had a big family and many siblings who loved him. He did not have the easiest start in life, but he never let that define him. He was a true gentleman – polite, moralistic, loyal and very family-oriented.’
Merrick now begins a life sentence in Britain, many thousands of miles from the island where he was born. What possible reason can someone have for claiming asylum from Jamaica – a country which 230,000 British tourists visit each year? If you were to create a horror story of how asylum has gone wrong in Britain, Merrick’s case would be it.
We currently have no clue why Merrick was still here 15 years after he was initially deported for gun crimes, but we do know that the British public needed protection from him. Yet the state failed to provide this most basic duty.
The Home Office has made no statement on the failure to deport Merrick. But for soon-to-be-released serial rapist Shabir Ahmed, it said:
‘On his release [Ahmed] will be on the sex offender’s register for life, ordered to stay away from his victims and banned from contacting any child or young person. As well as facing strict curfews and restriction zones, his every movement will be tracked, forced to wear an electronic tag. Should he breach his conditions, he will be immediately locked up.’
Needless to say, this is totally inadequate. The financial cost of these failures to deport is eye-watering. Daily monitoring of known violent offenders, 24-hour surveillance tracking their every move, and endless checks that they aren’t roaming or applying for work near children are just some of the expenses.
Then the human cost is unfathomable. Imagine being the victim of this rapist, knowing you could bump into him at any time, or – in the horrendous and completely avoidable case of Shaun Latimer-Kayser – be stabbed to death in the street by a known violent offender who should have been removed from Britain, once and for all, a decade-and-a-half ago
Without a government that actively protects us, Britons are merely left to hope that these men – who seemingly have no morals, have never obeyed the law, and have never respected Britain’s borders since they arrived here – will somehow suddenly obey such whimsical ideas as ‘curfews’ and ‘restriction zones’ in their newly released, free lives. This is delusional.
The cases of Shabir Ahmed and Dwight Merrick must be a wake-up call. Britain’s uncontrolled borders are literally lethal.
Andy Jones is a journalist and broadcaster.
Anyone with even a passing interest in celebrity culture will surely be aware that chart-topping musician Taylor Swift and NFL star Travis Kelce have officially tied the knot.
Over the last few weeks, whispers about the pair’s planned big day turned to very loud rumours about them getting hitched in a lavish 1,000-strong ceremony at New York’s iconic arena Madison Square Garden – which turned out to be very much true.
The worst-kept secret in showbiz was confirmed to be the case on Friday when the screens outside the venue flashed up a message reading “JUST&T MARRIED”, with a similar slogan popping up on the licence plate of a car spotted leaving the venue shortly afterwards.
Since then, it’s emerged that the couple went all out for the ceremony, which included the creation of a European-style castle inside the arena, as well as an outside-inside garden theme and wedding looks designed by Jonathan Anderson, the creative director of Dior’s Haute Couture Collections “in close collaboration” with both Taylor and Travis.
Of course, what we all want now is more details, and with the wedding dominating pretty much every entertainment news outlet right now, it may well be hard to keep up with what actually went down at the Swift-Kelce wedding.
Here are some of the biggest celebrity moments you might have missed…
Adam Sandler was the officiant at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding
One detail that Taylor’s spokesperson was happy to confirm once the singer was hitched was the fact that Adam Sandler was the one to do the honours, marrying the Grammy winner and her new husband.
Adam and Travis first crossed paths when the latter made a cameo in the Happy Gilmore sequel last year, while the comedy actor has apparently known Taylor for years through his daughters.
He was also a guest on Travis’ New Heights podcast last year, where he told the Kansas City Chiefs star: “When you guys first started dating, my family was like, ‘Yes. Look how good they are together. He’s a gentleman and she’s having so much fun’.”
According to TMZ, Adam was anything but a traditional officiant, delivering a specially-written original song for Taylor and Travis’ big day.
Stevie Knicks and Paul McCartney are also thought to have performed at the wedding reception
When Madison Square Garden emerged as a potential venue for Taylor’s big day, fans pointed out that the last time she made an appearance there, she sported a Stevie Nicks t-shirt, which may have been an Easter egg for the Fleetwood Mac singer performing at the bash.
According to People magazine, Stevie was, indeed, one of the A-list performers at Taylor and Travis’ wedding reception, where Sir Paul McCartney apparently gave a rendition of the Beatles classic I Want To Hold Your Hand.
TMZ also indicated that Haim might have performed at the event, while Page Six claimed that Tim McGraw, one of Taylor’s earliest musical inspirations, was booked to perform.
Speaking of music, Taylor Swift apparently walked down the aisle to one of her own songs at her wedding
Music was always going to be one of the talking points at Taylor Swift’s wedding, and since it was suggested in a TMZ report that the You Belong With Me star had walked down the aisle to a Bridgerton-esque orchestral reimagining of one of her own songs, fans have been speculating about which it could have been.
One we can probably rule out is Blank Space, her 2014 hit about her past bad luck when it came to romance, although a line from this song was embossed on handkerchiefs given to guests on their arrivals.
Suffice to say, the wedding guestlist was absolutely enormous
Days before the wedding, it was reported that the guestlist could reach numbers as high as 1,000, with Taylor even joking that “anyone I’ve ever talked to” would be getting an invite.
Indeed, the list of celebrities in attendance is an especially long one.
Joining the bride and groom’s respective families were some of Taylor’s famous friends, including Selena Gomez, the Haim sisters, Gigi Hadid (who apparently attended with boyfriend Bradley Cooper), Ed Sheeran, Gracie Abrams, Karlie Kloss (and her husband Joshua Kushner), Ice Spice and Lena Dunham.
It seems that Taylor also made good on her promise to invite presenters Greg James and Graham Norton, while Hugh Grant – who previously enjoyed a night of partying with Travis when his now-wife’s Eras Tour landed in London – also put in an appearance.
Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence, Tom Cruise were reported to be there, too, as were Lana Del Rey and Sabrina Carpenter, both of whom have appeared on Taylor’s albums Midnights and The Life Of A Showgirl.
Taylor Swift seemingly avoided having to choose between her infamous ‘squad’ by not having bridesmaids
Instead, the singer’s representative confirmed that, in lieu of bridesmaids, she had a single “man of honour” in the form of her brother, Austin.
Similarly, Travis didn’t have groomsmen, but his brother Jason Kelce served as best man, while Jason’s daughters were reportedly on flower girl duties.
Lena Dunham apparently caused quite the stir with her speech at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding
One of our favourite stories to come out of the wedding so far is that Girls creator Lena Dunham, a long-time friend of Taylor’s, was tasked with performing a speech at the reception.
Per the Daily Mail, true to form, Lena held nothing back with a speech the outlet described as “shockingly rude”, eliciting “gasps” from the crowd, but thankfully plenty of “laughs” too.
Fortunately, it seemed Taylor was a fan, with a supposed “insider” claiming she hailed her friend as a “genius” afterwards.
Come on then… who wasn’t at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding?
With a guestlist as big as this one, sometimes the story is who didn’t make the cut.
Among the most notable absentees were Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, which at one point would have been unthinkable, but the couple’s relationship with the bride is reported to have turned frosty in recent history.
It should be noted, though, that they were watching their six-year-old daughter competing in a horse show on the day of the wedding, so it could just be that they couldn’t get out of a prior commitment.
While Zoë Kravitz was in attendance, her rumoured fiancé Harry Styles was not.
Harry, of course, once dated Taylor, and is rumoured to be the inspiration for numerous songs on her hit album 1989, including Out Of The Woods and, indeed, Style.
Pop fans will know, however, that Harry was performing his last of 12 record-breaking nights at London’s Wembley Stadium on the night of Taylor’s nuptials, with Variety claiming he was invited to the event, but couldn’t make it due to this previous booking.
The former One Direction star wasn’t the only famous +1 to miss out on the Swift-Kelce wedding, as the Daily Mail claimed that Jack Antonoff’s wife Margaret Qualley was also not in attendance.
Vladimir Putin snubbed Donald Trump’s latest attempts at ending the war in Ukraine by launching a brutal attack on Kyiv just hours after the two leaders spoke.
The US president spoke to the Russian autocrat over the phone for nearly 90 minutes on Saturday while America was celebrating the 250th anniversary of its independence.
The Kremlin claimed their conversation was “business-like and quite constructive”.
But Russia was back to bombing Ukraine by Sunday night.
At least 11 people were killed overnight and a further 46 others injured as Putin’s missile and drone strikes targeted the capital.
It was the second set of strikes on Kyiv in a week.
Trump’s phone call with Putin came after previous US-brokered peace talks between Ukraine and Russia stalled while the White House was focused on its war in Iran.
The US president has also shifted away from his sympathy for Putin in recent weeks and instead acknowledged that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “holding his own” on the battlefield.
Even so, the Kremlin described Putin and Trump’s conversation as “business-like and quite constructive”.
Russian aide Yuri Ushakov said early on Sunday: “The American president once again confirmed his readiness to work towards a rapid end to the fighting and find solutions to overcome the crisis.”
He said Putin was pushing for a “political-diplomatic resolution of the conflict, with due account of Russia’s fundamental approach”.
Ushakov then accused both Ukraine and its European allies of “counting on extending and even escalating the conflict and on terrorism against civilians”, referring to Ukraine’s long-range missile strikes on Russian targets.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy also revealed he spoke to Trump over the weekend.
He said they had “very good” discussions about the war, including its 1,200-kilometre front line.
He said: “There is a real prospect to end this war and American resolve will have a crucial meaning.”
Zelenskyy and Trump are set to attend this week’s Nato summit in Ankara, where member states are expected to reaffirm support for Ukraine and offer more financial support.
The US is not expected to contribute to any further funding.
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Critics have pointed to the glaring irony of Donald Trump’s intervention in the 2026 FIFA World Cup to help get US star Folarin Balogun’s red-card suspension overturned ahead of Monday’s Round of 16 clash with Belgium.
They noted on social media that Balogun is only eligible to play for the US men’s national team because he is a birthright citizen, after an airline in 2001 denied his British citizen mother from boarding a flight home because she was too close to giving birth to him, and then gave birth in Brooklyn.
The constitutional right that Balogun enjoys is the very same one that Trump has spent years trying to end and whose attempts to do so were struck down by the US Supreme Court this month.
Balogun, who plays his club soccer for Monaco in France’s Ligue 1, was sent off during the United States’ Round of 32 victory over Bosnia & Herzegovina, triggering an automatic one-match suspension.
After many fans and pundits argued the red card was unjust, Trump reportedly called FIFA’s Peace Prize-awarding President Gianni Infantino to request a review.
FIFA announced on Sunday that the suspension had been overturned.
“Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
While Balogun’s reincorporation into the team was celebrated by many, critics pointed out the hypocrisy of Trump’s move and also suggested that America’s run in the competition had now been tainted.
President Donald Trump took another social media potshot at Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni on Sunday.
As part of a flurry of dozens of posts and reposts on Truth Social, Trump shared a pic of himself with Meloni ― who is about a foot shorter ― looking up at him during the recent G7 summit in France.
“RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED” he wrote:
Trump, who last year called Meloni “a beautiful young woman” while also complaining he’s “not allowed to say it,” started a feud with the world leader in June when he claimed she “begged” him for a photo at the summit.
“She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her,” Trump said.
In a video on social media, Meloni hit back, saying Trump’s story was “completely fabricated.”
“Italy and I do not beg,” she declared.
Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani then cancelled his trip to the United States in protest of Trump’s claim, which he called “serious and offensive.”
Before long, a moment between Meloni and Trump at the summit went viral, and it was footage the image-conscious U.S. president likely wasn’t happy about:
Trump hit back days later, saying Meloni had asked for a pic “over and over.” He also told NBC News that Meloni “was a big fan” of his.
“But I don’t want her as a fan because she was not there ― along with the NATO group ― having to do with the strait,” he said, referring to the Strait of Hormuz, which has been a sticking point in Trump’s negotiations to end his war on Iran.
Trump also said Meloni needed the photo because “she is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity.”
“My popularity is none of your concern,” she fired back. “I suggest you focus on yours.”
Things seemed to quiet between the two leaders for a couple of weeks until Trump made his “restraining order” post on Sunday. Meloni has not yet responded, but Trump’s critics on X blasted him for the post:
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