LinkedIn: the social network for CVs, apparently motivational corporate messages and – as of late last night – transatlantic diplomatic spats.

When Sofia Patel, the Labour Party’s head of operations, posted on the site last week that she was coordinating nearly 100 current and former party officials to campaign in battleground states in the final weeks of the US presidential election, she surely could not have imagined that she would provoke a legal complaint filed in Florida.

In a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Trump presidential campaign’s deputy general counsel declared: “When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them.”

Last week, he noted, was the 243rd anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown – a military victory which ensured the United States’ enduring independence from “Great Britian” [sic].

Bombastic as that may sound, it’s hardly of trivial interest that a Labour Party that has conspicuously sought to improve its ties to Trump and his team is now being formally accused of “blatant foreign interference” on behalf of his opponent, Kamala Harris.

So what’s behind all this?

Under the FEC rules, foreign volunteers on US campaigns are permissible, as long as they are just that – volunteers – and are not compensated for their work.

That is exactly what Labour says these operatives were: volunteers. While Patel’s LinkedIn post told those interested in campaigning that “we will sort your housing”, it is being argued that this was imprecise language.

Sir Keir Starmer told reporters last night that Labour officials going to the US to campaign are “doing it as volunteers, they’re staying I think with other volunteers over there”.

There is a question over what exactly Patel meant by saying she had “10 spots available” for people willing to campaign in North Carolina.

Did that entail travel costs to get there being covered? Even if it did, Labour are adamant that they did not pay.

But arguably the more pertinent charge, diplomatically at least, is the allegation that the Labour Party as an institution is formally coming to the aid of the Democrats.

This is being denied too. Labour sources say that Ms Patel was, in her spare time, organising party officials to go out to the US in their spare time.

That was the argument from Steve Reed, the environment secretary, this morning: “It’s up to private citizens how they use their time and their money”.

And of course, it’s not surprising that those on the left of politics here would want the Democratic candidate to win the US election, just as at least one recent former Conservative special adviser is currently in a swing state campaigning for Trump.

There’s another element to this, too. The British political world is utterly obsessed with American politics, even if it is an almost totally unrequited passion.

Every four years, British politicos stream across the Atlantic for a taste of campaigning on a far bigger canvas.

There are numerous examples. Earlier this summer Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, was at the Republican convention just days after his election as an MP, as was Liz Truss, the former prime minister, just days after she lost her seat.

Penny Mordaunt, the former Conservative cabinet minister, worked for George W Bush before she became an MP. Liam Fox, another ex-Conservative MP, has had ties with senior figures in the Republicans for a number of years.

Not that the parties on either side of the Atlantic always match up neatly.

In January 2020, I was shadowing a small group of canvassers for Joe Biden in the New Hampshire presidential primary, when I realised that one of them was Sir Simon Burns, the former Conservative MP for Chelmsford.

In recent weeks Sir Robert Buckland, who lost his seat as a Conservative at the general election, has been in the US campaigning for Harris.

Be all that as it may, it’s undeniable that this is a seriously awkward spot for the Labour government to find itself in, exactly two weeks before Starmer could well be placing a phone call congratulating President-Elect Trump.

In opposition and in government, Labour officials have invested significant energy in trying to forge links to Trump and his allies.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, spent time with JD Vance, the senator from Ohio who then became Trump’s candidate for vice-president.

Diplomats were delighted with how quickly Starmer managed to speak on the phone to Trump after the failed assassination attempt on him in July, and just a few weeks ago they met for the first time over dinner at Trump Tower in New York.

Senior Labour figures believe that this legal wrangle is not really a rebuke of that approach, but instead just straightforward politicking from the Trump campaign, who are eager to use the Labour volunteers as a way to bash the Harris campaign in the crucial final stretch.

They need to be right.

Because if they are wrong, then this may not be a mere passing awkwardness, but a dispute threatening the most important diplomatic relationship any British prime minister has.

Britain and Germany will sign what the UK government is calling a “landmark defence agreement” aimed at boosting security, investment and jobs.

Under the agreement, German defence company Rheinmetall will open a new factory in the UK to manufacture barrels for artillery guns – supporting 400 jobs.

Both countries will work together to develop drones and a new long-range missile.

German maritime surveillance aircraft will also periodically fly patrols of the North Atlantic from RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.

Labour promised to build closer military ties with Germany while in opposition and this is part of a wider push by this government to reset relations with key European allies post Brexit.

The German Ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, said the European Commission will have a very strong focus on defence in the next five years, and there is space for the UK to be involved.

“Obviously the question is – what can the role of the British defence industry and of the capacities of the United Kingdom be in this joint endeavour?” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The UK already has a defence pact with France – the Lancaster House Treaty signed in 2010 by David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy – but this is the first with Germany.

Germany and the UK are the two largest defence spenders in Europe and the biggest European military donors to Ukraine.

Defence Secretary John Healey said it was a “milestone moment”, bringing the two countries’ militaries and defence industries closer.

In reality the two nations already co-operate as members of the Nato alliance.

In a joint venture, they are also building new tanks and armoured vehicles for the British Army, Germany’s Rheinmetall and the UK’s BAE Systems-formed RBSL to manufacture the Boxer armoured fighting vehicle and the latest Challenger 3 tank in Telford, Shropshire.

Under the new Trinity House Agreement, Rheinmetall will build a factory in the UK to produce barrels for artillery guns – something the UK stopped doing more than a decade ago.

The site for the factory has not yet been announced, but the Ministry of Defence (MOD) says it will support more than 400 jobs and use British steel produced by Sheffield Forgemasters.

The steelmaker was recently acquired by the UK Government. The first artillery gun barrels are expected to roll off the production line in 2027.

The Trinity House Agreement also includes a commitment to develop a new long-range missile, which the MOD says will be more precise and can be fired further than any current systems – the UK’s Storm Shadow and Germany’s Taurus. Unlike the UK, Germany has refused to supply Ukraine with its Taurus cruise missile.

The UK and Germany will further co-operate on developing drones that might be able to fly alongside Typhoon jets operated by both countries.

German P8 maritime surveillance aircraft will periodically operate out of RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland to help patrol the North Atlantic. Other Nato allies have been doing the same for a number of years.

There is also a promise to bolster the defence of Nato’s eastern flank; both the UK and Germany have already sent hundreds of troops to the Baltic states as part of Nato’s enhanced defence plans following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the agreement would strengthen Europe and Nato.

“We must not take security in Europe for granted,” he said, adding the projects being undertaken would be open to other partners.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she has now reached spending settlements with all government departments ahead of her much-anticipated Budget on 30 October.

It comes after reports of Treasury rows with multiple departments over the expected scale of spending cuts.

Reeves told BBC Radio 5’s Matt Chorley she had struck deals with all her cabinet colleagues – and in line with tradition, popped all balloons put up in the Treasury to represent each department’s funding agreement.

While sympathising with “the mess” her colleagues had inherited, Reeves insisted departments needed to find savings to balance the budget.

In recent Budgets, chancellors have adopted the tradition of hanging balloons in the office of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to represent spending deals that must be negotiated with government departments.

As settlements are reached, the balloons are popped.

In the exclusive interview, Reeves said: “There are no balloons left in the Chief Secretary’s office – the balloons have been burst.”

In the run-up to the Budget there have been growing reports of unease in the Cabinet over the spending cuts needed to meet the Treasury’s target of finding £40bn of savings.

Sky News reported that the Treasury missed its initial 16 October deadline to finalise all major Budget measures for submission to spending watchdog the Office of Budget Responsibility ahead of the Budget.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who runs the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Transport Secretary Louise Haigh have all been reported as writing to Sir Keir Starmer to complain about the scale of cuts their departments were facing.

Haigh has since told the BBC she did not write a letter, but had been having Budget negotiations with the Treasury “in the normal way”.

Addressing reports colleagues had gone over her head to take their concerns about budget cuts directly to the prime minister, Reeves said, “I wouldn’t believe everything you read” in the media.

But she went on to say it was “perfectly reasonable that Cabinet colleagues set out their case – both to me as chancellor and to the prime minister, about the scale of the challenges that they find in their departments”.

“I’m very sympathetic towards the mess that my colleagues have inherited”, Reeves said.

“But any additional money, in the end, it has to be paid for either by taking money from other departments or raising taxes.”

The Labour manifesto promised not to raise income tax rates, national insurance or VAT to protect “working people”.

Labour also campaigned on a pledge not to “return to austerity” – the programme of deep spending cuts and tax hikes aimed at reducing the UK’s budget deficit pursued by the 2010 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

“All of those things mean that we do need to find additional money,” Reeves said.

Reeves admitted this meant she was considering tweaks to “other taxes to ensure the sums add up”.

“We were clear during the election campaign, you can’t undo 14 years of damage in one Budget or in just a few months,” she said.

“It is going to take time to rebuild our public services to ensure that working people are better off and to fix the foundations of our economy and our society as well.”

As she looks to balance the first Labour Budget in 14 years, Reeves admitted she speaks to several major political figures.

“I speak to Gordon regularly – I also speak to Tony Blair regularly,” she said.

She also maintains a “good relationship” with her predecessor Jeremy Hunt, regularly messaging the Conservative shadow chancellor.

“I may not be particularly impressed with the state of the public finances that he left me, but I do recognise that after Kwasi Kwarteng, he had a tough job to do as well,” she said.

The one person she wishes she could “pick up the phone to now” is Alistair Darling, the last Labour chancellor to deliver a Budget – who died last year aged 70.

Lord Darling served in cabinet for 13 years under both Blair and Brown, and was best known as the chancellor who steered the UK through the 2008 financial crisis.

“I hope that he would be proud of what I’m doing as the next Labour chancellor after him,” she said.

Reeves spoke about her pride at being the first female chancellor in the role’s 800-year history.

Becoming chancellor was “beyond what a girl like me, from the ordinary background that I came from, could have ever dreamed of,” Reeves said.

Now in her “dream job”, Reeves said, “one of the wonderful things in the first few months of doing this job is to meet female finance ministers from around the world” – such as US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian finance minister.

“I take a lot of inspiration from those amazing women and so many others,” Reeves said.