There was something of a coordinated hit job attempted by Labour’s loyalist outriders online yesterday.

Whether upset that Kemi Badenoch had described their backbenchers as ‘a sea of orcs and goons’ or that she simply wouldn’t meekly praise the Prime Minister for the inaction and weakness she felt he has shown over Iran, their instructions and mission were far more obvious than anything he might have given our military:

‘Tweet to denigrate her credentials and style as Leader of the Opposition’.

In Tolkein’s works Orcs “yammer and bleat” so if it was a bit of name calling in the midst of a rather serious session it also reflects their regular behaviour towards her when she stands up each Wednesday at PMQs.

The PM has taken weeks of battering by Badenoch and yesterday seemed surprised and horrified that the leader of the official opposition – that’s the one with an actual Shadow cabinet – does her job and opposes him, and does it bluntly.

It’s partly these performances, but also on the airwaves, and in speeches, that the days last year of her being a Leader stuck in the middle order of our Shadow Cabinet League Table are gone. Our Survey responders are clear, she’s leading from the front.

It’s not just that her former rival Robert Jenrick is no longer there. He placed consistently at the top in the middle of last year but didn’t reach the margin of lead she has now. Interesting that his replacement as Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy comes in second, on his debut to this league table.

That lead at 81.6 is 21.7 points higher than Timothy, a margin alone that’s more than 9 of her colleagues score in their own right. But the good news is that compared to ten months ago where Badenoch was on zero, now no member of the shadow team is on zero or in negative numbers, even those who’ve stayed regularly at the bottom. In May last year half of them were in negative territory.

Sir Mel Stride, who has taken flak from some members for his past close association with Rishi Sunak, and support for his government, has actually, if one looks back over time, been consistently in the top three for months. It’s clear to another set of members, those on our panel, that he’s not just doing a good job but he’s seen to be doing that.

Neil O’Brien, Richard Fuller all do creditably given they are relative newcomers to the team. And team is what Badenoch keeps trying to stress and demonstrate. She has a full shadow cabinet, and though she leads, and is quite clearly seen to by members, she likes to stress that this is a team sport, and she likes it that way.

There is of course still a problem, as this site is often at pains to point out. Whilst you cannot renew a brand with a leader who is unpopular in the party and the country, you cannot renew a brand with a popular leader in the party and the country alone. The work to translate the Badenoch bounce into a Tory bounce, is a grinding toil that will have to continue, however high she charts now.

A senior Cypriot official has accused the UK of not doing enough to defend the island from Iranian attacks.

Kyriacos Kouros, the Cypriot high commissioner to the UK, said “the people are disappointed” by Britain’s efforts since the war began last weekend.

The RAF base Akrotiri, which is sovereign British territory, was struck by Iranian drones on Sunday, while further attacks were intercepted on Monday.

And while Greek forces are on the island and France has pledged support, the British warship HMS Dragon is not expected to arrive in the area until next week.

Kouros told the BBC: “The people are disappointed, people are scared, the people could expect more.

“I represent a practical people. We want to see the results.”

Speaking to Sky News, he said: “Already we have the presence of Greek forces on the island. Two frigates arrived, four aircraft arrived, all of them with abilities to combat drones.

“The French are coming. So… the least we expect is the Britons to also be present since, as I said, we are not only defending Cypriots on the island.”

Dr Robert Seely MBE is author of ‘The New Total War’, ConservativeHome’s foreign affairs columnist and a former Conservative MP. 

Exercising power is about making choices, and Sir Kier Starmer’s painful evasions over Iran show what happens when you fail to make the right ones, or even clear ones.

At the heart of Labour’s confusion is the friction between left-wing principles and realpolitik. The trouble is, its principles are questionable whilst its realpolitik is parochial – aimed not at the great questions of war and peace, but at party unity and electoral survivability; party before country.

The result is a mess where Britain’s national interests come last. We appear weak. Churchill’s quote about our leadership in the 1930s: “Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift,” seems apt. US President Donald Trump had his own, biting judgement. “This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with,” is destined to become one of the memorable quotes of the century, and will likely feature heavily and repeatedly in Starmer’s political obituaries.

First, legality; Keir Starmer and his Attorney General, Lord Hermer, a human rights lawyer, think the war is illegal. They initially blocked any bombing from UK-based bases before wriggling, agreeing that missions from US bases on our soil could be used for ‘defensive’ strikes. In taking this course of action, they have angered President Donald Trump, and now, it seems, Gulf allies too.

Aside from the attacks on our Cyprus bases, which is now clearly a cause for war, what grates is the interpretation of international law that damages open societies at the expense of evil ones.

Lord Wolfson, shadow Attorney-General, responded to the Hermer/Starmer position in an excellent post on Twitter/X last weekend. It’s worth a read. “Too many international lawyers,” he wrote, “serenely promote an analysis which ultimately protects tyrants.”

He has a point. The Starmer/Hermer interpretation of international law treats democracies such as Israel as little more than tethered goats waiting to be attacked, or only allow military action when it is too late. Go back to the 7 October 2023 when Hamas attacked; Israel would have only been able to defend itself once the murder of men, women and children had started. If they had pre-emptively struck to save Israeli lives, Starmer and Hermer would no doubt have found Israel in breach of international law.

It’s part of a wider corruption of law in this country that seems to protect the rights of the wretched over the virtuous. Even Friedrich Merz, Chancellor of Germany – Germany, for heaven’s sake – now says that Iran shouldn’t be protected by international law. Hermer and Starmer, and the legal left in Britian, are part of a generation of international law/human rights lawyers that have corrupted justice, not strengthened it, and have used it to piously attack democracies, not to deliver genuine moral or legal value to our country or the world.

Sadly, where they have led, the leftwing intelligentsia have followed.

Moral philosopher Nigel Biggar developed similar ideas to Wolfson’s in The Telegraph. He argued that uncritical compliance to international law risked sacrificing the national interest and allowing evil to flourish. “Because international law is so flawed, blind obedience to it is irresponsible,” he argued. The Iranian regime, let’s remember, is one that executes homosexuals, blinds women for advocating female rights, has killed more than 20,000 protesters in the last two months and has, according to the British security services, plotted more than 20 lethal attacks on British soil in the last 12 months. It is a pariah state. However much a pleading Starmer signals to Iran that he is sitting on the fence, we remain in Iran’s trinity of infamy – along with the US and Israel.

There are, for sure, complexities; the regime may fall, but it may not. The Israeli/US plan may work, it may not. Operation Roaring Lion/Epic Fury is pre-emptive (Israel and the US have different names, and both, from a British point of view, are a bit kitsch, we generally like our military operations named after boring market towns or random words). Regime change from the air is risky, but then in war, all courses of action are. But it can work.

It did in Kosovo in 1999. It did against ISIS (2014-2109) in a campaign that I saw first-hand, and it did a few weeks ago in Venezuela.

What air power does need is ground support. It was provided in Kosovo by the Kosovo Liberation Army, against ISIS by the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga, a good bunch of soldiers in my humble opinion, and against Venezuela by U.S. special forces. When leftwing activists and politicians as well as ill-informed BBC journalists piously insist that air power doesn’t win wars, they are no more correct than their subjective pronouncements about international law.

A clearly nervous Starmer went out of his way to stress that Britain was not taking an active role in this operation. You do have to wonder who he was speaking to and why?

Was it special pleading to the mullahs? Was it to the Pakistani block vote in Britain following the disastrous by election last week? Or was it to his own restless and angry MPs, who fear being told another pack of lies by a Labour leadership about a Middle Eastern war. On that latter point, Labour have a record at making poor foreign policy choices; Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo (which enraged Russia), the vote for military action over Syrian chemical weapons use (when Ed Miliband broke his word), Chagos and now Iran.

Instead of a common-sense driven assessment of the national interest, aligned with morality, aligned with law, we get either crude political calculation or a sanctimonious adoration of international law.

And this returns us to the fundamental problem.

Leftwing morality is predicated on a version of law whose primary purpose is to attack the West, whilst their realpolitik is designed to hold up, in this case, a coalition made-up of the middle class, anti-Israeli protestorati and their sympathisers, and a Pakistani block vote radicalised by the Gaza conflict and with a deep hostility to both Israel and India, the latter due to the divided region of Kashmir.

As to the issue of the operation, I don’t know what will happen, and we may well be right to be cautious. But there are legal, moral and practical grounds to allow the US to use our bases, and to support in a secondary way, helping to protect our allies.

First, the legal case; Israel has a responsibility to protect his people and to prevent a second Holocaust (and no, what Israel is doing in Gaza is not a genocide). Iran and its allies have made no secret of their wish to destroy Israel.

Second, realpolitik; the US is our major military ally and frankly, given how much we have run down our armed forces, we need them more than they need us.

Third, the moral case; the Islamic regime in Iran is barbarous and medieval. As Merz says, Iran should not be protected, Iran should be the international version of an outlaw.

Rather than use this as a basis for understanding and action Starmer, has instead become trapped in a confused world of his own making. He’s accepted an interpretation of international law which aids dictators over democracies. He’s alienating our closest ally. He’s trying to appease Labour’s electoral base as well as its MPs, now staring at their own Armageddon, all be it electoral rather than military.

In this miserable mélange, Britain’s national interest comes last when it should be first.

What a mess.

Dr Reva Gudi is GP and healthcare leader in Hayes, Middlesex, she is also a former Conservative parliamentary candidate, and serves as a local school governor and charity trustee. 

Of late, following on from more scandals, standards rows and ministerial controversy, I asked myself whether the Nolan Principles of public life are still fit for purpose. Perhaps outdated? Too idealistic? Impossible to live up to in modern politics?

And yet, as expected, UK political parties either implicitly or explicitly ask candidates to sign up to the Nolan principles, as the ethical standards of public life.

As a GP working in the NHS, I’m held to the same standards, if not higher.

In 1995, Committee on Standards in Public Life articulated seven principles intended to underpin public office in the United Kingdom: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.

3 decades on trust in politicians is fragile, arguably, the lowest it’s ever been.

After giving this a great deal of thought, I’ve concluded that the problem is not the principles themselves, but us.

Putting myself forward as a parliamentary candidate at the 2024 General Election, on the doorstep, I noticed something telling. When I introduced myself as a GP, there was an immediate assumption of integrity with trust extended almost instinctively. The title itself carried expectations of candour, duty and care. When I then added that I was a political candidate something shifted. The warmth cooled ever so slightly. The scrutiny sharpened, as I expected, and the exchanges were a touch more sceptical.

Doctors consistently rank among the most trusted professionals in the country. Politicians do not. And yet both are bound, at least in theory, by the same ethical framework: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Not radical aspirations but rather the minimum moral standards of public life.

It then struck me that asking whether we should rethink the Nolan Principles in politics, was asking the wrong question.

The real question, I believe, is whether political culture has drifted so far from ethical expectation that the principles now feel aspirational rather than operational.

Because politics today plays out in a relentless media cycle, where statements make headlines and conspiracy theories do the rounds. Social media rewards outrage more than nuance, with AI backed content that is getting more sophisticated by the minute. Tribal loyalty can crowd out independent judgment. In such an environment, compromise can be seen as betrayal, or dithering, all error is framed as incompetence, (understandably, though), and political disagreement is often conflated with moral failure. Add to this the constant pressure to win, to retain authority, self-preservation, all in an unforgiving electoral cycle.

However, none of the above renders the principles obsolete. If anything, it makes them even more necessary.

The world of medicine, where I have spent most of my working life, offers a useful contrast. In clinical practice, honesty is comparatively straightforward. A test result is abnormal, or it is not. Evidence supports a treatment or it does not. The doctor–patient relationship is built on trust, and candour is expected.

On the other hand, politics is more complex. Policies involve trade-offs. Economic forecasts are uncertain. Negotiations require discretion. Honesty is not optional that can be set aside when circumstances become complicated. It must sit alongside judgment. Knowing when to speak, how much to disclose, and how to protect sensitive negotiations is not the same as misleading. There is of course a need to recognise the clear moral line between careful laying out facts in sequence, and intentional falsehood. Transparency at every moment is not always compatible with effective governance, and every decision made, will usually have winners and losers in the electorate.

Let’s take the two-child benefit cap. It was introduced on the grounds of fiscal restraint and fairness to working taxpayers and criticised for its impact on child poverty. Parties, across the spectrum, take different positions, with differences within the party, and you will see positions evolving when moving from opposition to government, when confronted with economic realities. It is where ideology, competing principles, compassion, redistribution, fiscal sustainability and electoral mandate collide head on. It does illustrate how political decision making rarely involves a single moral axis.

It is within this terrain that ethical standards must operate.

One can argue that the Nolan Principles are unrealistic in the rough-and-tumble of modern political life. I disagree. If anything, those who wield power over millions should be held to higher standards, not lower ones. Decisions about taxation, welfare, defence and public services shape lives at scale. But we must also acknowledge that democracy is inherently adversarial. Cross party consensus, which often exists, stays behind closed doors.

I quickly learnt that expecting politics to feel like a consulting room is naïve. Expecting it to be ethical is not.

To me there exists an uncomfortable truth: Signing up to the Nolan Principles, as a doctor, feels intuitive; as a political candidate, can sometimes feel ceremonial.  Ministers affirm them, Councillors sign codes of conduct. Yet public cynicism persists.

So, what can we do?

If left up to me, I would say instead of strengthening the wording of the principles let’s strengthen the culture and consequences surrounding them. Standards must be reinforced by meaningful accountability, by incentives that reward integrity rather than performative outrage, and by a collective refusal to excuse evasiveness when it suits our side. Ethical public life is sustained by consistent application of the principles, alongside signing a code of conduct.

As citizens we too, have a role. If we demand honesty but reward outrage, if we condemn compromise yet expect delivery, if we treat every unpopular decision as evidence of possible corruption, we contribute to the erosion of trust we claim to lament. Trust is reciprocal and cannot be legislated for.

So, should we rethink the Nolan Principles?

No. We should reclaim them, as they are enduring moral standards.

What has changed is the intensity of scrutiny and the speed of judgment. The answer to that pressure is not to dilute our standards but to live them more deliberately. We know that public life will never be flawless; democracy is too human for that. But abandoning shared ethical commitments because they are difficult would be a far greater failure.  To be honest, the real question is whether we have the steadiness across parties and across society, to uphold them, in an environment that tests them relentlessly.

After all, politicians, and medical professionals alike are capable of integrity and of failure.

The principles endure. The question is whether we do.

Cllr Tony Devenish represents Knightsbridge and Belgravia Ward on Westminster City Council. He is a former member of the London Assembly.

I knocked on a front door ahead of the May 7th 2026, Council Elections. A 20-something Gen Z opened the door on a chain lock and shouted:

“I voted for Keir Starmer. I will never EVER bother voting again!“

Then she slammed it shut in my face.

The cost of living is hurting young people, and Starmer is looking increasingly tired and middle-aged.

So Councils and Mayors need to answer this urgent question:

How can we appeal to Gen Z?

How can we serve anyone who is under 30 years of age?

I am now in my 20th year as a Westminster City Councillor and a former London Assembly Member. This demographic isn’t my natural comfort zone.

Opinion polls report that two-thirds of young women are considering voting Green and similar numbers of young men may vote for Reform UK.

I recommend a carrot rather than a stick: offer a 100 per cent rebate on annual council tax for those under-30s who volunteer for community leadership roles. That might mean working a few hours a week as a volunteer in a community-run sports club, a library, a rough sleeper charity or perhaps even becoming a Police Special. With unemployment hitting young people worse than at any time since the 1990s, the more work experience on offer, the better.

And we definitely can afford the loss of council tax income. The Treasury can cap any steep loss in Council tax for Councils with disproportionately large numbers of Gen Z. Participating as community volunteers may save the taxpayer billions of pounds over the medium and long term. An example of joined up budgeting, that the public sector often talks about, but rarely achieves.

Cheaper energy for Gen Z and all of us : Councils must continually pressurise Ed Miliband to honour his manifesto promise to reduce energy bills and ensure that Whitehall passes on the funding to make Gen Z’s (mainly) landlord housing better insulated.

City living: 20 somethings still want to live in our cities. Despite that, at the recent excellent Conservatives Together inaugural graduation, I was concerned to hear that a 2024 Tory parliamentary candidate had moved to Hampshire, even though he worked in Central London. Councils have, with one or two exceptions, an appalling record on building new homes. Labour-run Westminster City Council all but eliminated intermediate housing for young professionals so that they could build more homes for those trapped on welfare. Shamefully, not one single new home has been initiated in the last three years by Westminster Council. So it’s no surprise that supply and demand rental costs continue to crush Gen Z aspiration.

Safe streets : younger people are disproportionately victims of crime. The solution is not the one proposed by Reform UK’s “Vigilante Mum”. The real solution is joined up enforcement between the police and Council local eyes. I-phones enable rapid real time reporting of crime. When the police want to, they are capable of assembling responsive teams to crack down on crime, including masked cyclists snatching phones, watches and handbags. Councils and Mayors must ensure that this is the norm.

On Con Home last year, I outlined how Councils can get young people working. I agree with New Labour’s Alan Milburn that Councils must be at the forefront of the fight to ensure no young person is a NEET (Not In Employment , Education or Training). Successive Governments since Covid: now five years’ ago, have negligently left hundreds of thousands of Gen Z to live their lives as NEETS.

Milburn recently described the existence of NEETS as:

“A moral, social and economic crisis.”

We Conservatives agree.

Councils and Mayors must stop waiting for Government to act. We need to come up with the practical solutions that embrace Gen Z, or else they will turn to the Greens or Reform UK or other radical alternatives.

Finally, a plea to all young people. Please get involved in the May 7th local elections and more widely in our democracy. Our politics is dominated by older generations because they are the ones who always vote. Crime, our Environment , Housing, Jobs and the NHS  are all issues that matter, no matter how young you are.

Don’t let others decide your future.

Postscript : I have completed my three years’ as an elected member of the CCA Councillor Board (London rep). I wanted to thank Con Home, CCHQ, all Conservative Party members , especially our councillors for the honour to serve. Clr John Cope and I hope to see many of you at Harrogate Spring Conference on March 6th-8th. 

On Wednesday 4 March, Metropolitan Police officers arrested three men on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service. Their charge is contrary to section 3 of the National Security Act 2023. Sky News have reported that officers arrested a 39-year-old man in London, a 68-year-old man in Powys, Wales, and a 43-year-old man in Pontyclun, Wales. They are all now being held in custody for the alleged offences. Of particular concern, one of those arrested is David Taylor, husband of Labour MP Joani Reid.

Since, Joani Reid has made a public statement on her husband’s arrest and requests privacy for the sake of her and her children.

“I have never seen anything to make me suspect my husband has broken any law.”
East Kilbride and Strathaven MP Joani Reid has released a statement following the arrest of 3 men on suspicion of spying for China 👇 pic.twitter.com/lILYJwiVn7

— LBC News Scotland (@LBCNewsScot) March 4, 2026

Reid’s statement in full:

“I have never seen anything to make me suspect my husband has broken any law.

I am not part of my husband’s business activities and neither I nor my children are part of this investigation, and we should not be treated by media organisations as though we are. Above all I expect media organisations to respect my children’s privacy.”

The East Kilbride and Strathaven MP said: “I have never been to China. I have never spoken on China or China related matters in the Commons. I have never asked a question on China-related matters.

“As far as I am aware I have never met any Chinese business whilst I have been an MP, any Chinese diplomats or government employees, nor raised any concern with ministers or anyone else on behalf of, even coincidentally, Chinese interests.
“I am a social democrat who believes in freedom of expression, free trade unions and free elections. I am not any sort of admirer or apologist for the Chinese Communist party’s dictatorship.”

Labour — ‘Assisting a foreign intelligence service’

Reid’s husband, Taylor, is listed on the MP’s register of interests as the director of the lobbying firm Earthcott Limited. According to Sky News:

The investigation relates to China, police said, adding that the arrests were supported by the Welsh and Scottish branches of Counter Terrorism Policing.

Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said: “Today’s arrests are part of a proactive investigation and while these are serious matters, we do not believe there to be any imminent or direct threat to the public relating to this.

This has prompted calls from the Liberal Democrats to review the UK governments controversial decision to approve China’s ‘mega embassy’ in the heart of London. Lisa Smart, their Cabinet Office spokeswoman said:

How many times must we all come to this House to hear a report of further rounds of arrests under counter terrorism legislation for this government to take this action?

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said he understood the Liberal Democrats’ concerns. Nevertheless, he tried to reassure them that the government had based its decision regarding China’s embassy on strong national security grounds. Meanwhile, Father of the House and Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh argued that the government should pause the embassy plans until China “learns to behave.” He also called on the British government to summon the Chinese ambassador.

Notably, Speaker Lindsay Hoyle appears to have confirmed that the MP’s husband did not have a pass to access the parliamentary estate. This reassurance came after a question about privileged access came from Tory Ben Obese-Jecty.

Tory MP Greggory Stafford has also insisted on the release of all correspondence relating to China that the Labour MP was privy to. Stafford suggested the MP “sits on a select committee that would have information which is sensitive, maybe even secret”. They also raised concerns that they may have visited defence sites across the UK:

Has there been and will there be an urgent review of what sensitive information that Member of Parliament might have been party to?

And, at the appropriate juncture, would he release any correspondence between his department and that Member of Parliament around things like the Chinese embassy and other matters related to China?

Review into foreign financial interference

Philip Rycroft is currently leading a review into foreign financial interference in the UK’s political and electoral systems. Security minister Jarvis reassured MP’s that Rycroft is independent to the government and will undoubtedly reflect on the events today to inform his review further.

The review itself, of course, is being conducted independently by Philip Rycroft.

He will report by the end of this month which means – and of course, it is independent – that is absolutely time and space for him to reflect on any events that have taken place recently.

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Adding that the review:

will inform government policy, not least in terms of cracking down on some of the foreign money – all of the foreign money – that should not be.

If confirmed, this is a serious national security concern. The arrest of David Taylor, partner of Joani Reid, over suspected spying for China could raise major questions about foreign influence and political security. pic.twitter.com/Qn3nBZpyMb

— Diggy (@Digvija73188705) March 4, 2026

Featured image via twitter

Israel deployed a massive array of cyber warfare technology to kill Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei. The genocidal settler state prepared for years, hacking and penetrating Iranian systems ahead of its assault on the country.

The US and Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.

An investigation by the Financial Times explains the staggering power and reach of the technology involved. A caveat: anything unnamed intelligence sources willingly tell the press must be taken with extreme caution.

The spooks hacked traffic cameras:

Nearly all the traffic cameras in Tehran had been hacked for years, their images encrypted and transmitted to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Once information was gathered:

Complex algorithms added details to dossiers on members of these security guards that included their addresses, hours of duty, routes they took to work and, most importantly, who they were usually assigned to protect and transport — building what intelligence officers call a “pattern of life”.

The years-long operation allowed Mossad and the CIA:

to determine exactly what time 86-year-old Khamenei would be in his offices this fateful Saturday morning and who would be joining him.

Mobile phone towers

Spies took over mobile phone towers. The (presumably Israeli) sources said they were:

able to disrupt single components of roughly a dozen or so mobile phone towers near Pasteur Street, making the phones seem as if they were busy when called and stopping Khamenei’s protection detail from receiving possible warnings.

One bragged:

we knew Tehran like we know Jerusalem.

And when you know [a place] as well as you know the street you grew up on, you notice a single thing that’s out of place.

Israel’s signals intelligence outfit, Unit 8200 were central to the operation:

Israel used a mathematical method known as social network analysis to parse billions of data points to unearth unlikely centres of decision-making gravity and identify fresh targets to surveil and kill, said a person familiar with its use. All this fed an assembly line with a single product: targets.

You can read some of our reporting on this shadowy unit here.

Israel and the US attacked first

The reporting highlighted how Israel and the US were the aggressors in the rapidly expanding war. One section explains:

When the CIA and Israel determined that Khamenei would be holding a meeting on Saturday morning [28 February] at his offices near Pasteur Street, the chance to kill him alongside so much of Iran’s senior leadership was especially opportune.

The report continues:

They assessed that hunting them down after a war had properly begun would have been much harder, since the Iranians would quickly embark on evasive practices, including heading underground to bunkers immune to Israeli bombs.

On 2 March defence secretary Pete Hegseth, who believes Jesus wants him to attack Iran, bizarrely claimed:

We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.

Notwithstanding the fact that claim is chronologically false, the Financial Times reports shows that the attack was the result of a “years”-long process. The US and Israel wanted a regional war. Now they have one. And they seem to have no plan for what to do next.

Featured image via Aljazeera