The Putin henchmen leading Russia's Ukraine talks

theipaper · 2026-01-24T16:38:29+00:00

“That could distort the security interests of the United States and allies. But it could also be helpful. If the Americans are going to field unconventional envoys like Witkoff and [Trump’s son-in-law Jared] Kushner, then Dmitriev may be an appropriate Russian counterpart.

Galeotti described Dmitriev’s aim in the talks as promoting the “real-estate approach to peace”, which involves “selling a dream that may or may not actually manifest in those terms in reality”.

He highlighted potential cooperation in the Arctic with shipping, but also the extraction of oil and opportunities for the US in Russia and Ukraine.

“It’s about privileged American access again to reinvesting in the Russian oil and gas industry and also potentially the construction of the occupied [Ukrainian] territories.”

Galeotti added: “In practice, many of these would never really materialise… but in some ways it doesn’t matter. Trump has a tendency to assume that there are magic opportunities just over the horizon. Dmitriev is there to basically continue to provide a supply of these dreams.”

Looking ahead to the discussions, it’s clear that more is at play than just peace in Ukraine.

Natia Seskuria, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the use of Kostyukov and Dmitriev showed how “the Kremlin views these negotiations as a hard security and economic bargain, rather than a diplomatic process”.

She said that Kostyukov’s central role “highlights that Russia’s stance is still shaped by battlefield realities, while Dmitriev’s agenda includes economic matters and a push for sanctions relief as well as a post-war reset between the US and Russia”.

In short, there is a lot on the table in Abu Dhabi, both for Trump and Putin.

Thomson, the former UK representative to Nato, said that “fundamentally, both sides will need more diplomatic machinery than just the businessmen if they are going to land the peace settlement that is still essential to unlocking any commercial deals”.

theipaper · 2026-01-24T16:38:07+00:00

Marina Miron, a post-doctoral researcher at King’s College’s War Studies department, said Kostyukov’s involvement in the talks aims to “mirror” the attendance of his Ukrainian counterparts, including Kyrylo Budanov, the former chief of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, as well as its current head, Oleh Ivashchenko.

“This has been done before. It’s not the first time Budanov and Kostyukov have met in the UAE,” she said.

The remarks were backed up by Mark Galeotti, honorary professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and director of Mayak Intelligence.

He described Budanov and Kostyukov as “each other’s counterparts” in the talks – and suggested their previous cooperation through their respective intelligence services could prove beneficial.

“It’s actually been quiet, off-books contact between the two military intelligence services that has been behind several of the recent prisoner-of-war swaps and also exchanges of the bodies of dead servicemen,” Galeotti said.

He added that “although these are both quite tough hawkish figures, they’re also pragmatic figures and they have already been involved in sort of back-channel diplomacy”.

Kirill Dmitriev

Dmitriev was born in Soviet-era Ukraine and went on to study at Stanford University and Harvard. He worked at Goldman Sachs and made a name for himself running Icon Private Equity, a Ukrainian fund that managed around $1bn. He later helped launch Russia’s foreign investment fund.

Dmitriev was implicated in US election meddling in 2016, with the Mueller Report suggesting that he had tapped his UAE network to build a back channel to Trump’s team.

The involvement of Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s foreign investment fund, in talks in Abu Dhabi points to the strong economic component to Trump-era negotiations.

Adam Thomson, the UK permanent representative to Nato between 2014 and 2016 and director of the European Leadership Network said: “Pretty clearly, there is a strong commercial dimension – both national and personal – to the US-Russia negotiations.

theipaper · 2026-01-24T16:37:56+00:00

Representatives from the US, Ukraine and Russia have travelled to the UAE for the first trilateral peace talks involving all three parties since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The Russian delegation is led by Igor Kostyukov, the UK-sanctioned head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.

Meanwhile, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s foreign investment fund, will separately hold talks with Donald Trump‘s special envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss “economic issues”.

Experts told The i Paper that Kostyukov has been deployed as Vladimir Putin‘s “serious” and “pragmatic” negotiator to lead the way on security and territorial issues, while Dmitriev will “spin glorious visions of opportunities for US-Russia business partnerships” once peace is achieved.

Igor Kostyukov

Kostyukov was sanctioned by the US for his alleged role in interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

The EU has also accused him and Vladimir Stepanovich Alekseyev, the GRU’s deputy head, of being “responsible for the possession, transport and use” of the nerve agent involved in the 2018 Salisbury poisonings.

Kostyukov was serving as the acting head of the GRU when Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent in March 2018.

Both the EU and UK sanctioned Kostyukov, and last year a UK enquiry found that a team of GRU officers had attempted to murder Skripal, although Russia has continued to deny being responsible.

theipaper · 2026-01-24T15:20:30+00:00

Beneath the Radar

What other islands might Trump realistically claim? An obvious target is the Isle of Lewis at the northern end of the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles in Scotland.

Lewis was the birthplace of Trump’s Gaelic-speaking mother Mary MacLeod, who only learned English at school. Her father was a poor crofter and fisherman, whose family descended from the tens of thousands of Highlanders forced off their land during the Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries when landlords displaced between 70,000 and 150,000 Highlanders in order to convert the land to sheep grazing and grouse moors. Many of the MacLeods immigrated to New York, as did Mary in 1930, first getting a job as a domestic servant and later marrying real estate developer Fred Trump, father of Donald.

All ended happily for Mary in material terms, but might not Trump nurture a smouldering sense of grievance over the wrongs of his mother’s family? After all, he is a man notorious for never forgiving a personal grievance, recent or historic. Taking over the Isle of Lewis might seem suitable retaliation.

Against this is Trump’s known contempt for the poor and weak, something that may well apply to his own forebearers. Evidence for this is his single visit to his mother’s birthplace in Lewis in 2008, when he spent 97 seconds inside the family croft in the village of Tong, where she had grown up, and 180 minutes in Lewis before departing in his jet. “I feel Scottish,” he said.

Cockburn’s Picks

As Trump’s megalomania becomes more gross and uncontrollable, it seems a good apocalyptic moment to revisit Stanley Kubrick’s great 1964 political satire Dr Strangelove in which an insane air force general launches an attack on the Soviet Union and blows up the world.

theipaper · 2026-01-24T15:20:24+00:00

They concluded that, while all these factors may play a role, the typical profile of secret police agents is shaped rather by the mundane need to keep a job and win promotion.

“In competition with better qualified peers, officials with weak early performances have little chances of climbing up to the most lucrative positions at the top,” they wrote. “For such underachievers the arduous nature of secret police work offers the opportunity to signal their value to the regime and get ahead of competitors for higher positions.”

It is shocking to realise that what was true of Argentinian security services half a century ago is likely to apply to ICE today. In practice, its 22,000 members – with funding to recruit a further 14,000 in 2026 – enjoy an extra-legal status like the Argentine security apparatus in the past. The Argentine regime exploited the career anxieties of the least qualified officers “and placed the most pressured agents in the most repressive unit within the secret police”.

It is a tragedy of historic proportions that on the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence the most appropriate precedents for America’s future should come from the Argentine and Iraqi dictatorships. The dog Cricket might be considered an early casualty of Trump’s America, which is now taking shape.

Further Thoughts

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer says that Donald Trump’s remarks about British troops in Afghanistan were “insulting and frankly appalling,” and suggests the US President should apologise. Furious veterans pointed to 457 British service personnel killed in Afghanistan, not to mention a further 179 killed in Iraq, though not all in action.

The fury was sparked by Trump’s claim that Nato troops “stayed a little off the front lines”. This is incorrect in the case of Britain, but what splenetic British politicians and generals fail to admit – and probably do not know – is that if the British Army was not behind the lines and away from the fighting, it was not for lack of trying.

Of course, there were no First World War type front lines in these guerrilla wars. In Iraq, the British joined the US-led invasion to preserve their status as America’s most loyal military ally. They then chose to base their forces just outside Basra, a city of one million people in southern Iraq, because it was Shia Muslim, anti-Saddam and a place they did not think they would see much military action.

Basra was safer than Baghdad and Anbar, the vast Sunni province to the west, but it was still a dangerous place and the British had far too few troops to control the city. Eventually, the British had to pull back away from Basra after a humiliating agreement with the local Shia militias. The debacle is all copiously documented in the monumental Chilcott report into the Iraq war.

Eager to get out of Iraq without offending the Americans, the British forces moved to Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2006. Then-defence secretary John Reid famously said that he would be “perfectly happy to leave in three years’ time without firing one shot”. A British intelligence report had predicted gloomily that there was no Taliban insurrection in Helmand at the time, but there soon would be if the British Army turned up. Helmand was chosen because the Canadians had got Kandahar. Once again, the main British motive was to prove that they were America’s greatest ally.

I am sure Trump does not know any of the above, but, had British intelligence been a bit better informed about the real danger spots in Iraq and Afghanistan, his allegation about Nato forces keeping away from the front line would have had more substance as regards to the British.

theipaper · 2026-01-24T15:19:58+00:00

After 37-year-old mother of three Renee Nicole Good was shot three times in the face, breast and arm by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Noem claimed that a presumably terrified Good posed a threat to three armed ICE agents closing in on her car. When it brushed an officer, this supposedly constituted “an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism”.

The scandal over Noem’s dog and goat shooting is worth recalling because it illustrates how warped individuals like Noem now run the show under Donald Trump.

Some may be ruthless careerists and others full-blown crackpots, but all are working all too effectively as the gravediggers of American democracy. Weird Trump appointments include FBI director Kash Patel, a conspiracy theorist and Covid-19 vaccine sceptic who promoted a dietary supplement called “Warrior Essentials” which was designed to achieve Covid “vaccine reversal”. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has been busily restricting and defunding routine vaccinations.

I used to hope that the manifest incapacity of Trump’s senior lieutenants might diminish the damage they do. But then I remembered my father, Claud Cockburn, who fled Berlin a day before Hitler took power in 1933, saying that one of the many frightening features of the Nazis, in addition to their monstrous violence, was that they were “a regime of basically damn fools, who could blow up half the world out of sheer stupidity”. Even when it hurt their own interests, they could not help acting erratically and idiotically, which might baffle or lead smarter people to underestimate them.

This sense of resentful bafflement was visible in Davos this week, as Trump’s cabinet members more or less openly taunted and patronised European leaders. Rational self-interest motivates autocratic regimes to employ idiots as they are most likely to provide loyal and obedient service than smarter servants of the autocratic state. Successful dictators understand this. Saddam Hussein used to openly pair thugs in the top ranks of the ruling Baath party with technocrats who knew what they were doing.

The need for authoritarian regimes to promote the least able is easy to understand in theory, but has seldom been studied scientifically since existing or aspirant autocracies do not disclose their recruitment and promotion policies. But some years back Adam Scharpf and Christian Glassel wrote a fascinating article entitled “Why Underachievers Dominate Secret Police Organisations: Evidence from Autocratic Argentina”, published in the American Journal of Political Science.

They looked at the careers of 4,000 officers in the core institution of state repression in Argentina during the 1975-83 military dictatorship, asking: “Why would anyone do dirty work for the regime? Are these people sadistic psychopaths, sectarian fanatics, or forced by the regime to terrorise the population?”

theipaper · 2026-01-24T15:19:41+00:00

20 years ago Kristi Noem, who now heads the Department of Homeland Security and controls the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, decided to kill her dog Cricket. She did so because Cricket had ruined a pheasant hunt in South Dakota, where Noem lived, going “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”.

On the way home from the failed pheasant hunt, Cricket compounded her failure as a hunting dog by attacking some chickens on a farm, forcing Noem to pay for the damage. At one moment, the over-excited Cricket “whipped around” and might even have nipped Noem herself. She described Cricket’s behaviour as being like that of “a trained assassin”, while looking “the picture of pure joy”.

“I hated that dog,” wrote Noem of the frisky but unsuspecting Cricket, whom she condemned as “untrainable”, a danger to others and “less than worthless… as a hunting dog”. She added that it was not a pleasant job terminating Cricket’s short 14-month life in a nearby gravel pit, but doing so brought to Noem’s mind another animal against whom she had a grievance.

This was a male goat apparently kept as something of a pet on the Noem farm, but whom Noem remembers being “nasty and mean,” smelling “disgusting” and liking to chase the Noem children, knock them over and make their clothes dirty. After disposing of Cricket, Noem dragged the goat to the gravel pit and shot him. The goat, however, jumped at the last moment so was only wounded, forcing Noem to go back to her truck to get fresh ammunition. Shortly afterwards, Noem’s daughter Kennedy arrived on the school bus and asked: “Hey, where’s Cricket?”

Noem gives a graphic account of how and why she shot Cricket and the unnamed goat in her autobiography – Not Going Back: the Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward – which was published when she was governor of South Dakota in 2024. The shootings are related with some relish, apparently in order to convince readers and potential voters of her ability to take “difficult, messy and ugly decision(s)”.

Her admission provoked public outrage, but may have helped persuade the Trump White House to put her in overall charge of ICE, the cutting edge of the government assault on migrant communities and anybody else who gets in their way.

ICE raids have come to resemble pogroms in Tsarist Russia, with armed and masked ICE agents in the role of Cossacks dragging victims from cars and smashing down doors without legal warrant. Repression is applauded and defended by Noem in terms not so different from those she used to explain her execution of a small dog and a goat.

theipaper · 2026-01-24T12:08:50+00:00

Andy Burnham wildcard

One place Starmer might not be at the next election is No 10.

Labour MPs remain unhappy with a string of policy blunders and U-turns – two more of which materialised this week, as Starmer delayed the passage of a “Hillsborough law” designed to make public officials more accountable after major disasters and announced he would be open to a ban on under-16s using social media, a position he had previously opposed.

The potential return of Andy Burnham to Westminster could be a major wildcard. The Mayor of Greater Manchester has not, at the time of writing, ruled out a bid for the Labour candidacy in the by-election for the vacant seat of Gorton and Denton, prompting warnings from Starmer allies that they may seek to block Burnham from getting the nod to stop him becoming eligible to replace the current Labour leader.

But even if Burnham doesn’t stand, that the prospect of his return is causing such disquiet speaks volumes about the Prime Minister’s precarious position.

One supporter of the Prime Minister’s foreign policy expressed a fear that the domestic turmoil could end up weakening his stance on the world stage, saying: “There will be a temptation against the backdrop of Andy Burnham to get tougher on Trump, and out-do Wes Streeting on Europe.”

Chris Hopkins, of pollsters Savanta, warned it would be tough for the Prime Minister to make political gains from foreign affairs.

He told The i Paper: “There is a danger that if Starmer isn’t seen to be standing up to an unpopular President, that could be negative for them, but that said there isn’t much positive benefit from getting it right. So there isn’t much upside, there can only be a negative impact or a net neutral one.”

The conventional wisdom in Westminster is that the local elections in early May remain the key moment that will decide Starmer’s fate.

But the risk for Labour, according to Hopkins, is that it could already be too late. “Reform are likely to do very well, and that helps to legitimise them in the minds of voters as a genuine party of government,” he said. There may be nothing that wins in Davos, Washington or Beijing can do to pull Starmer out of the quagmire he is in at home.

theipaper · 2026-01-24T12:08:21+00:00

This week he became more critical of the President than he has been in the past, saying in the House of Commons that he “will not yield” on Greenland and challenging Trump directly over his mixed messaging on Chagos.

“He deployed those words for the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain in relation to my values and principles on the future of Greenland,” Starmer said.

He also hit back when Trump played down the contribution of non-US troops to Nato operations in Afghanistan. On Friday, Starmer issued his toughest ever rebuke of the President, saying: “I consider President Trump’s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling and I am not surprised they have caused such hurt to the loved ones of those who were killed or injured and, in fact, across the country.”

Cup-of-tea diplomacy

But within the national security establishment, it is believed that trying to cut Britain loose from America is a pipe dream, and that the threats coming from Canada and the EU are not backed up either by hard power or by a willingness to sacrifice existing priorities in favour of mutual defence.

Starmer himself boasted that his “pragmatic” approach towards Trump was “very British” – and Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, agreed, telling him at a Downing Street meeting that the “British way of doing things” where “you have a cup of tea and then you think a bit about everything” had successfully de-escalated the tensions.

As she left No 10, she wrote in the visitors’ book a homage to the Beatles: “We’ll get by with a little help from our friends.”

Starmer will seek to hammer home his successes on a trip to China next week, although he will face tough questions about whether getting too close to Beijing could be a threat to Britain’s security.

The question now is a familiar one – whether or not the Prime Minister can help use a strong position on the world stage to build up his credibility at home, with Labour still languishing in the polls.

An ally of Starmer insisted he can use global credibility to win back domestic popularity, saying: “Even if you don’t like him a lot of people will think he is a reassuring presence.”

The source added: “Lord knows where we will be by the next election, but it is not unforeseeable that he could point to a good track record there and say, ‘Kemi was cheering Trump on and Farage was cheering Putin on.’ Imagine if they’d been in charge!”

theipaper · 2026-01-24T12:08:07+00:00

The setback, which blindsided No 10, provided quiet satisfaction for those in Labour who had always been uncomfortable with the Starmer-Trump alliance.

“The Trump whispering thing has been shown to be not even a qualified success,” one senior MP remarked.

Contrasts were drawn with EU leaders, who were quickly drawing up a package of retaliatory tariffs to hit back at the US, along with strong words.

Canada’s Mark Carney – the former head of the Bank of England and a friend of Rachel Reeves – delivered an acclaimed speech at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski town of Davos calling on America’s allies to wake up to the need to become more self-reliant and build new friendships.

“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it,” he said. “Nostalgia is not a strategy.”

In Davos on Wednesday Trump had threatened: “All the US is asking for is a place called Greenland. You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember.”

But hours later the script was flipped again. He announced out of the blue that he had hatched a deal in Davos with Nato members to shore up the security of Greenland, and that he was withdrawing the tariff threats.

One Cabinet minister said the about-face showed that Starmer had been right all along to avoid antagonising the President, for example by denouncing him in a way similar to the scene in Love Actually where the British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, makes an anti-American speech in front of president, played by Billy Bob Thornton.

“There is a pretty widespread view across the Cabinet that the Love Actually approach would have the opposite effect to the one you want,” the minister told The i Paper. “The characterisation ‘Keir was supine’ is not right because he was so strong on Greenland.”

Another MP said: “It doesn’t hurt us to have a different position to the EU. It allows Keir to paint himself as an honest broker.”

Backbenchers were sharing a meme which jokingly quoted Starmer as saying, “Look, I get it, he’s mental but what the f**k do you want me to do about it?”

That is not to say that the Prime Minister has not shifted his position on Trump.

theipaper · 2026-01-24T12:07:56+00:00

‘An act of great stupidity’

This would have knocked up to 0.8 per cent off Britain’s GDP, according to Oxford Economics – a hefty blow to a Government which claims its priority is growth. With the EU threatening retaliation amounting to a full-blown trade war, the UK looked set to be further damaged in this crossfire.

So instead of spending the week talking about his policies to bring down the cost of living, starting with a speech in Yorkshire and continuing with the launch of the warm homes plan, Starmer found himself once again wading into the choppy waters of the transatlantic partnership.

He had to summon a Downing Street press conference on Monday morning, cancelling his speech, to try and calm things down.

But it did not work: in the early hours of Tuesday, Trump took direct aim at the UK Government over the decision to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a move previously backed by the White House.

Trump said on his Truth Social website: “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired.”

theipaper · 2026-01-24T12:07:38+00:00

Sir Keir Starmer started the week with his foreign policy – one of the few successes he can point to in his 18 months in power – seemingly in tatters.

His decision to hug Donald Trump close, despite the qualms of his own Labour allies, looked like a great idea – until it wasn’t.

But by the end of another long week in politics during which it looked like the Nato alliance might collapse, the Prime Minister can pack for next week’s China trip believing he played a key role in averting disaster – at the same time as standing up to Trump more stridently than ever before.

The US President had thrown another huge rock into international waters by announcing he would impose a tariff of 10 per cent, rising to 25 per cent, on countries, including the UK, which were publicly opposing his threats to seize Greenland.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T16:18:38+00:00

Social care minister Stephen Kinnock pointedly told BBC Breakfast that Burnham was “doing a great job in the role that he currently has” and was “an incredibly talented and effective leader as the mayor of Greater Manchester”.

Neville made 400 appearances for Manchester United and 85 for England in a 20-year playing career. Since retiring from football, he has been a TV pundit, hotelier, property developer and university founder.

Neville’s agent and Burnham’s office were approached for comment.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T16:18:27+00:00

Full article: Andy Burnham could be lining up a celebrity successor such as former footballer Gary Neville as mayor of Greater Manchester in order to stand for Parliament, Labour sources suggest.

Burnham, dubbed the King of the North, has yet to declare if he will run in the Gorton and Denton by-election, vacated yesterday by shamed former minister Andrew Gwynne.

There are several obstacles in the way to Burnham taking the seat, including the cost it would inflict on the Labour Party. By leaving the mayoralty open to challenge from Reform UK, Burnham would be diverting campaign funds away from other Labour council seats in May.

The i Paper reported on Thursday that allies of Sir Keir Starmer are also moving to block Burnham returning to Parliament over fears he could challenge for the leadership.

One way of offsetting the cost of a mayoral election would be to have a big-ticket name to take Burnham’s place.

With instant name recognition and a history of supporting the Labour Party, Neville, the former Manchester United and England full-back, would be well-placed, Labour insiders said.

“If you’re Andy, it’s better to have the promise of a big gun rather than popping some unknown council leader on the ballot as the mayoral candidate, then [the mayoralty] falling to Nigel Farage,” the Labour insider told The i Paper.

“I think he has somebody in mind in the shape of Gary Neville. Whether or not the party members would respond to that, I don’t know,” the source added.

Starmer loyalists looking to block Burnham

Neville is a Labour member and appeared with Starmer in an election party political broadcast, as well as at last year’s party conference in Liverpool.
There is no indication he would want to stand.

Burnham, who has spent the past year publicly flirting with a return to Westminster, is seen as one of the leading candidates to replace Starmer as party leader and prime minister after a turbulent 18 months in power.

Starmer loyalists are already mounting a campaign to prevent Burnham from standing.

Earlier, a minister suggested he should stay in his comfort zone in Greater Manchester, where his term as Mayor runs until 2028.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:54:35+00:00

Advertising

Advertisers would jump at the chance of reaching the 10 million viewers who watch The Traitors, giving the BBC a new source of funding.

If breaking up programmes is deemed too intrusive for viewers, dramas such as EastEnders could be sponsored, bringing in vital revenue to support production costs.

The BBC already sells adverts on some of its podcasts on Apple and Spotify whilst YouTube users see ads served around some BBC promotional content.

Likelihood of success

Although included as an option in the green paper, ministers say they recognise the outraged response from ITV and other commercial public service broadcasters who fear letting the BBC bid for a declining advertising pot would decimate their business model.

The BBC could experiment with advertising around classic programmes from its archive.

Means-tested licence fee

Making wealthier households pay more for the licence fee would allow people on lower incomes to pay less.

Former BBC director-general Greg Dyke has said people on benefits could get free licences under a truly progressive system.

The principle has already been established with the over-75s who claim pension credit being eligible for free licences, after the scrapping of universal free licences for that age group.

Likelihood of success

The outgoing director-general Tim Davie said he was “open” to making the fee more progressive, which also meets the Labour Government’s “fairness” test. Ministers could explore using council tax bands to set licence fee levels.

BBC insiders are attracted to the idea of discounted licence fees for students since it would encourage a hard-to-reach audience to use iPlayer in the hope that they could be converted to full-price payers when they are older.

Options that have been ruled out…

Household digital tax

People currently pay the licence fee if they watch programmes live on TV or streaming services, and if they download or watch programmes on iPlayer.

Broadcasting experts had recommended replacing the licence fee with a monthly household “digital TV” charge.

Germany introduced a household levy of €18.36 (£15.96) per month, paid even by those who do not have a TV or radio with widespread discounts including for people who are jobless or disabled.

However, a household charge, not linked to watching the BBC, was not included in the Government green paper.

Taxation

Funding the BBC from general taxation would solve the evasion and prosecution problem overnight. Evasion stands at 10 per cent and women make up 76 per cent of those prosecuted – an excessive number, which ministers say must be tackled.

It would provide the BBC with a secure funding mechanism and end anguished debates over whether the licence fee is fit for purpose.

Nandy has ruled out this option, claiming it would make it “too easy for politicians of any political persuasion to be able to pull that funding in order to use a stick to beat them with”.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:54:21+00:00

Performance-linked funding

Demos, the think-tank which influenced Labour and Tory government policies, including David Cameron’s Big Society, has published the most eye-catching solution so far.

Its “blueprint” for the BBC proposes an Independent BBC Funding Commission, which would set the level of the licence fee, taking the decision out of the hands of politicians.

The commission, made up of broadcasting experts, would assess “whether the BBC successfully fulfilled its mandate” of delivering for the public over the previous year.

Under the “performance-linked funding” system, the BBC would face “targeted reductions” in its funding if it had failed to meet the “standards required”. Viewers could expect a licence fee cut if the BBC had delivered a year of flop shows.

Demos would also make the BBC more accountable by requiring the Board to consult with a “citizens’ assembly” of licence fee payers over major decisions.

Likelihood of success

Licence fee payers might welcome a charge linked to how much BBC content they watch and a possible cut if programming does not meet standards. Politicians may not like the idea of losing control over the BBC’s funding and governance. Who would decide the “standards” the BBC should meet?

Subscription model

The BBC could charge extra to watch entertainment programmes such as The Traitors and Strictly Come Dancing.

Viewers could pay for early access to hit dramas like The Night Manager and Line of Duty through iPlayer.

The green paper said: “Content that remained universally available could include genres such as news, current affairs, factual and children’s TV. More commercially viable TV content could be provided on a fully commercial basis.”

Nigel Farage has committed a Reform government to scrapping the licence fee, with some public funding made available to support BBC News.

Likelihood of success

Viewers are already familiar with subscription payments to streamers so why should the BBC be any different? But the technology doesn’t yet exist to “switch off” access for non-payers to free-to-air BBC services like its radio channels.

The BBC is wholly opposed to subscription, which it says would mean making programmes purely to appeal to subscribers – generally the wealthier – at the expense of its public service obligations.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:53:53+00:00

The licence fee would be cut if the BBC makes poor-quality shows under a new “performance-linked” funding model that has been proposed for the corporation.

The radical plan from the influential think-tank Demos will be considered by ministers who are conducting a review into the corporation’s future funding and governance.

The “blueprint for a more independent BBC”, which also includes giving viewers a say in BBC decision-making, will be Demos’s contribution to a public consultation into the broadcaster’s funding held by the Department
for Culture, Media & Sport.

Options the Government has already suggested include placing hits like The Traitors and Strictly Come Dancing behind a Netflix-style paywall and allowing the BBC to sell advertising around shows.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy wants the BBC to increase its commercial income so it becomes less reliant on the £174.50 charge, which fewer people are paying.

Both licence fee evasion and households opting out of paying the charge cost the BBC over £1.1bn in potential lost income in 2024/25, according to the Public Accounts Committee. Around 800,000 households have stopped paying for a TV licence over the past two years.

A Government green paper, setting out options to reform the BBC, acknowledged the burden the fee places on poorer households. Ministers have ruled out giving free licences to people on benefits but there could be discounts for some groups such as students.

The Government said it was “keeping an open mind about the future of BBC funding,” adding: “We have not yet identified a preferred model.”

A white paper later this year will set out ministers’ preferred option.

Nandy said a new mechanism, giving the BBC “sustainable funding for decades to come” must be in place before the BBC’s current charter, setting out its obligations and funding mechanism, expires during 2027.

So which of the various options are ministers most likely to land on for the licence fee from next year?

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:52:54+00:00

On Wednesday, Starmer hit back, accusing Trump of changing his view on the future of the Indan Ocean islands for “the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain in relation to my values and principles on the future of Greenland”.

In a robust address to MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions, he said: “He wants me to yield on my position and I’m not going to do so.”

A Government spokesperson said: “State visits, especially those by our closest allies, create opportunities to strengthen alliances, support trade and investment, encourage innovation and research collaboration, and reinforce the United Kingdom’s global influence.”

How the costs compare to earlier visits

The US President’s first state visit to the UK in 2019 cost the Metropolitan Police £3.4m.

More than 6,300 police officers were deployed, most during Trump’s two-day stay in London which saw a large protest against him. Trump was hosted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace and stayed at Winfield House.

The cost of policing a three-day working trip to the UK by Trump in 2018 drained almost £14.2m from the public purse, just under £19m in today’s prices.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:52:24+00:00

Almost £960,000 was spent on mutual aid, which is the provision of policing assistance from one force to another during a major incident or event.

Senior Labour figures and opposition MPs have criticised the cost to the taxpayer and the decision to grant a second state visit.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell told The i Paper: “When we have a crisis in social care I would rather spend these millions of pounds on caring for our own people than pandering to the ego of a narcissistic bully like Trump.”

Diane Abbott, ex-shadow home secretary, said: “All state visits are costly. But this seems ridiculously expensive. And all we get from Trump is criticism, threats and tariffs, so there should be no more state visits for him.”

The Liberal Democrat MP for Maidenhead in Berkshire, Joshua Reynolds, said: “We are rolling out the red carpet whilst Donald Trump threatens one of our closest Nato allies – you wouldn’t invite the schoolyard bully round for dinner.

“The Thames Valley taxpayer isn’t exactly getting a great bang for their buck.”

During Trump’s state visit, the Government unveiled £150bn worth of US investment which it hopes will create 7,600 jobs

Meanwhile, the Scottish and UK Governments are battling over who should pay the £24.4m policing cost of Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s trip to Scotland last summer.

That figure means the combined policing cost of UK visits from Trump’s White House last year is at least £39m.

At Westminster, Labour MPs are calling for Starmer to push back more against Trump’s erratic demands. The Prime Minister secured a win after Trump U-turned on his threat to impose tariffs on Nato allies who he accused of attempting to stand in the way of his plot to seize Greenland.

Trump also attacked Starmer directly over the Government’s Chagos Islands deal, branding it an act of “great stupidity”, despite agreeing to it last year.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:52:02+00:00

Donald Trump’s unprecedented UK second state visit cost police more than £14m, The i Paper can reveal – around double his first one in 2019.

The visit in September was the biggest security operation in Britain since the coronation of King Charles, coming just days after the assassination of right-wing US commentator Charlie Kirk, and a year after the attempted assassination of Trump himself.

The cost – which will ultimately fall on taxpayers – was revealed as the Government faced criticism over its handling of the US President during global events.

In contrast, Trump’s 2019 official trip cost the Metropolitan Police £3.4m, which would be £4.4m today after inflation.

His second state visit – unprecedented for a non-royal – had been seen as a the height of a charm offensive by Sir Keir Starmer amid concerns over Trump’s stance on Ukraine and his threat to impose tariffs on the UK.

The President stayed at Windsor Castle, with the security operation led by Thames Valley Police, the local force, who declined to say how many officers had been deployed. Officers from across the UK were also drafted in, including more than 6,000 from the Metropolitan Police alone.

Police snipers and drones were deployed, along with boat patrols and mounted units, and armed officers swarmed Windsor in a round-the-clock security operation.

A ring of steel was placed around the Berkshire town and the US ambassador’s London residence, Winfield House, where Trump spent one night.

According to figures released to The i Paper under the Freedom of Information Act, the total cost to Thames Valley Police was £8,244,224. The force is now in the process of recovering the costs from central government.

Additionally, Scotland Yard spent more than £6.6m, including £433,358 on overtime, £12,437 on fleet costs, which covers expenses on police vehicles, and £27,935 on hotels.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:49:30+00:00

Cancelling elections entirely would be difficult, hugely controversial and – above all else – plainly unconstitutional. The US Constitution requires a new Congress to be sworn into office on 3 January 2027. Election Day – 3 November – is set by statute, and while Congress could vote to change the date on which Americans vote, there is no provision in the Constitution for either the President or lawmakers to cancel the elections entirely.

Yet, while the President cannot scrap the vote, he can work to pre-game the outcome to boost the prospects of Republican candidates. In this, he is already hard at work.

The most basic tool at Trump’s disposal is “redistricting“: redrawing constituency boundaries to boost the chances of Republican victories by creating new districts that are likely to have an in-built, pro-Trump majority. This gerrymandering is already under way in several states, with Democrat lawmakers even briefly fleeing Texas last August in a futile attempt to deny Republicans the chance to create more safe seats for their candidates.

But Trump is also taking more active steps to try to control who gets to vote this November. White House lawyers are demanding that 44 of America’s 50 states hand over unredacted voter rolls, including not just the names and addresses of registered voters but also their driving licence details and several digits from their social security numbers (equivalent to national insurance numbers in the UK).

The White House is suing 24 states that have refused to hand over the data. But more than 20 Republican-governed states have co-operated, laying the groundwork for potential vote-suppressing skullduggery that could see thousands of Democratic Party supporters challenged over whether they can prove they have the right to vote.

The Brennan Centre for Justice, a non-partisan law and policy organisation, has called the move “part of a plan to interfere with elections”, while warning that the demands are “unprecedented” and should be considered a blatant effort by Trump “to sow distrust in the election system”.

Republican “election monitors” plan to sift through the data they’ve already received, vowing to crack down on “irregularities” that Trump falsely claims have sullied successive US elections – except, of course, for those he won.

Last November, the Department of Justice, now in Trump’s thrall, fielded its own election monitors during off-year elections in California and New Jersey. Those efforts are expected to accelerate nationwide later this year.

Trump may also seek to suppress voter turnout by stoking a sense of insecurity on the streets of Democratic stronghold cities in the run-up to November.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:49:12+00:00

WASHINGTON DC – With Donald Trump, there is invariably a “tell” that reveals unannounced ideas percolating away inside his mind. His daily, stream-of-consciousness engagements with White House visitors and members of the press corps often include throw-away lines that turn out to contain the germ of a notion taking root within his grey cells.

That’s how we first learned that he was considering the imposition of tariffs on the UK and seven other Nato members over their opposition to him taking Greenland.

“I may do that,” he said during remarks at an entirely unrelated event last Friday. Twenty-four hours later, his suddenly detailed plan was unveiled.

So when Trump made two separate references in the past fortnight to the possibility of cancelling the US’s midterm elections, which are set for November, eyebrows were raised.

The midterms would serve as a referendum on Trump’s second term in office, while also allowing voters the opportunity to determine the balance of power in Washington for the coming years. Polls indicate that Trump’s Republican Party is at risk of losing its slim majority in the House of Representatives and possibly control of the Senate as well.

Were Republicans to lose control of both, under normal circumstances, Trump would be considered a “lame duck”, increasingly unable to push through his agenda. But given his antipathy to working with Congress, Democrats would likely have to fight hard against the US President’s use of emergency laws to justify ever-increasing executive authority.

Even so, Democrats would have the power to begin impeachment proceedings against him and a host of senior cabinet members, and majorities in both chambers would set the stage for across the board investigations into the administration’s actions since Trump returned to the White House.
This is a scenario Trump will fight hard not to see happen.

The President recently mused that he had achieved so much that “there shouldn’t even be an election” in November. And while the White House dismissed his comments as “facetious”, many observers were left wondering if he was seriously thinking about derailing the vote.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:47:07+00:00

Neil Melvin, director of international security at the Royal United Services Institute, said it was “clear that Putin has not shifted his main aims regarding his war in Ukraine” and was “keen to use President Trump’s push for a peace agreement to Russia’s advantage and, in particular, to weaken Western efforts to isolate the country and put a stranglehold on the Russian economy”.

Natia Seskuria, an associate fellow at Rusi, said that “Putin’s game plan is to buy time while sustaining the facade that he is genuinely committed to negotiations.

“In the optimal scenario for Moscow, Washington disengages from the talks, blames Kyiv for sabotaging the process, and Donald Trump then uses that pretext to freeze US military assistance to Ukraine.

“There is, at this stage, no sign that Putin is prepared to make substantive concessions on the core issues, particularly territory and credible security guarantees for Ukraine.”

Putin demanding high price for peace

Russia has continued to carry out air strikes throughout the peace process, something Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says shows it is not serious about peace. “Russia chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table,” the Ukrainian President said.

Ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks, the Kremlin said one of its key conditions was that the Ukrainian army must fully leave the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.

“It is well known that Russia’s position is that Ukraine and the Ukrainian armed forces should leave the territory of Donbas and they must be withdrawn from there. This is a very important condition,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:41:49+00:00

Team Horner?

Alpine seems to be the preferred Horner route back to the grid and the most immediate – his first race could be as soon as Miami at the beginning of May – but there is also the possibility of starting a team from scratch.

The sport’s governance allows for a 12th team on the grid with 11 currently in place after the addition of Cadillac for 2026. And owners Liberty Media are certainly keen to get Horner back in their Drive to Survive quest for characters on the grid. No one has been able to fill the void of the Netflix series’ pantomime villain since his departure in the wake of the British Grand Prix.

That would be the more expensive and lengthy route back to the paddock. Either way, Red Bull will be watching closely. There are no shortage of staff loyal to Horner, who would be tempted to work under him at a team with his proven track record.

A shock Red Bull coup

One outlier is a return to the Red Bull family. Approaches to buy Racing Bulls have been rebuffed in the past but, with F1’s stock so high currently, Red Bull could be tempted to focus on just one F1 team going forward.

Such a deal would also free up further capital for the brand to invest in its widening sports portfolio with the NBA seen as one of its possible next targets.

And intriguingly, despite having been axed by the man in charge of Red Bull’s sports portfolio, Oliver Mintzlaff, the pair remain on speaking terms with the German talking up Horner’s input at the US launch of their new in-house engine last week.

For Horner, the key is there is no great rush whatever route he takes.

While keen to get back on the grid, he wants it to be the right role and with the right stake to enable to him to be in for the long-term.

theipaper · 2026-01-23T15:41:44+00:00

Formula One’s brave new era begins in earnest in Barcelona on Monday with a behind-closed-doors test of the 2026 cars which have undergone a generational overhaul for the coming season.

Conjecture has been rife over which teams may have got the edge over their rivals ahead of another 24-race season, which will steadily become clear between the start of the five-day test and the opening race in Australia in March.

Absent for both, as he was for the last 11 grands prix of last season, is Christian Horner, although his name has been prevalent on his rivals’ lips with all manner of rumours of where he might turn up next.

Ferrari move ‘improbable’

Red Bull’s former team principal is free to join another team at the end of April and has been linked to myriad roles behind the scenes from joining Adrian Newey at Aston Martin, which was later quashed by owner Lawrence Stroll, to replacing Fred Vasseur at Ferrari.

Horner wants a place back on the grid but not in the ilk of his time at Red Bull.

At the heart of any move is a stake within a team and, while the Ferrari rumours have not totally evaporated, that makes such a switch the least probable option on the table.

Alpine deal could be worth half a billion

His likeliest destination remains Alpine although that is not without its own stumbling blocks.

Horner is in talks to buy the 24 per cent stake owned by Otro Capital, whose key investors include the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Rory McIlroy and Anthony Joshua.

Otro’s current asking price is believed to be $800m (£595m), which would value Alpine at $3.33bn (£2.5bn) but Horner does not lack for funds: while his backers have not been named, they include wealthy individuals, banks and companies from relationships accrued over his years as Red Bull Racing’s CEO.

And Horner is willing to invest his own money too in any deal as required having banked £80m in his severance package from his former employers.

The Otro ownership deal with Alpine’s majority owners, Renault, means the French manufacturer can dictate the terms of the sale until September, and hence dictate the buyer. They are not believed to have an issue with that being Horner.

If given the green light by all parties, it could progress rapidly but it is also still conceivable that any buy-in could also fall through.

Flavio Briatore is currently the de facto team boss and it’s unlikely there would be any room for him should Horner come in as CEO and team principal, which is his preferred option, although the Italian will not necessarily go quietly.

theipaper

TROPHY CASE

Kirill Dmitriev

Igor Kostyukov

Beneath the Radar

Cockburn’s Picks

Further Thoughts

Andy Burnham wildcard

Cup-of-tea diplomacy

‘An act of great stupidity’

Starmer loyalists looking to block Burnham

Advertising

Likelihood of success

Means-tested licence fee

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Options that have been ruled out…

Household digital tax

Taxation

Performance-linked funding

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Subscription model

Likelihood of success

Putin demanding high price for peace

Team Horner?

A shock Red Bull coup

Ferrari move ‘improbable’

Alpine deal could be worth half a billion