If there was one thing Keir Starmer might have hoped the UK media would support him over, it was his refusal to follow a US president blindly into war in the Middle East. After all, his Labour predecessor Tony Blair only really got hammered in the press over warmongering in Iraq. Those hopes must now be dashed.

On Sunday, three major newspaper groups led with dire warnings from the Israeli Defense Force about Iran’s ability to hit London. Leaving aside the lack of official evidence or impartiality of the source, the tone of attack against the prime minister was striking. The Telegraph gave the floor to Starmer’s conservative rivals, mainly Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, who accused him of cowardice and presiding over a party “moving to a very extreme hard-left, Islamist-allied position”. The Express was equally dismissive (“Donald Trump brutally mocks Keir Starmer by sharing skit showing ‘scared’ Prime Minister”). And even the Sunday Times repeated the Israeli scaremongering, before adding far lower down that “it is not known for certain that Iran possesses a missile capable of reaching Diego Garcia”. Let alone London, 400 miles further.

Echoing a US president who sees fit to belittle a once close ally with abuse and video clips, the picture presented of Starmer is rarely of a former human rights lawyer struggling to support a war he considers illegal, but that of an indecisive coward. Despite more supportive coverage in papers such as the Independent and the Observer, the housing secretary, Steve Reed, was forced to defend the........

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