Good morning. The British government, like the rest of the world, is still preoccupied with trying to absorb the consequences of Donald Trump’s decision to obliterate global free trade with a blizzard of tariffs. In London, the stock market has opened, and shares are still heading down. Graeme Wearden has the latest on that on his business live blog.
James Murray, a Treasury minister, has been giving interviews this morning. In terms of explaining the government’s policy, he did not have anything that went beyond what Keir Starmer and Jonathan Reynolds were saying yesterday. While not ruling out retaliatory tariffs, the government views them as a last resort and hopes that the trade deal it is negotiating with Washington will lead to the UK tariffs being reduced, or removed completely.
But Murray did have to answer a question about whether Donald Trump was right when he told reporters on Air Force One yesterday that Starmer was “very happy about how we treated them with tariffs”. It is rare to hear anyone from the UK government say anything negative about Trump in public, but even the ultra-loyalist, fourth-most-senior Treasury minister drew the line at pretending Trump was right about this. In response to the question, Murray told Times Radio:
We’re disappointed at tariffs being imposed globally. We are in a better position than many other economies moving forward because we’re on the lowest band of tariffs. But our focus is to get that economic deal.
There is not much formally in the diary today (parliament is not sitting), but politics never stops, and there is bound to be news, on the Trump tariffs and other matters. There will be a lobby briefing at 11.30am.
I’m afraid that, for the next few weeks or months, on most days staff shortages mean that comments will only be open on the blog between 10am and 3pm.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line, when comments are open, or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.