Calls for Keir Starmer to defy Donald Trump are growing. Now that a UN committee has concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, the UK must take firm action against Netanyahu’s government, no matter how much it displeases the dinner guests, writes Rebecca McQuillan

I wonder if Keir Starmer practised his smile before meeting Donald Trump at Windsor yesterday, just to be sure it wouldn’t fail him.

Given everything we know of the Prime Minister, he must have woken on Wednesday morning with a heavy heart. There can be no question that the former human rights lawyer sees the US president clearly for the would-be autocrat that he is. In his Number 10 apartment, alone with wife Victoria, Starmer must surely agree with the London mayor Sadiq Khan that Trump has done more than any other single figure to fan the flames of far-right politics internationally – a phenomenon that’s now threatening to defile Britain.

Even if the presidential visit provides respite from Starmer’s domestic woes for a day or two, it must injure his soul to have to kiss the ring.

Tough. This is a predicament of the Prime Minister’s own making. He put himself and the nation in this position by issuing the invitation in the first place. He judged it would be worth it to avoid humiliation in the Oval Office and keep the ear of the world’s most powerful........

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