'Trump mocks Starmer' and 'Middle East energy shock for markets'
Many of the Wednesday editions of the papers focus on the relationship between Donald Trump and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, following the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East. In what the Daily Telegraph calls his "harshest rebuke of the prime minister yet", Trump said Sir Keir was "not Winston Churchill" and he "ruins relationships". The paper suggests that the prime minister's "lack of support for the Iran war" is responsible for the "increasingly fraught state of the special relationship".
Trump's Churchill remark also leads the Times, which says the president's "unprompted attack" came as he answered his first questions from reporters since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran.
The i Paper reports that the White House is upping the pressure on Sir Keir, using Trump's Churchill comment as evidence that the president's "personal dislike" of the prime minister has grown. The paper adds that the UK is deploying HMS Dragon to Cyprus, following "political outcry" in the aftermath of Iran's attack on RAF Akrotiri.
The Daily Mail makes a similar assessment, with an all-encompassing headline: "A prime minister who Trump mocks as 'no Churchill' and a Navy fleet stranded in port". The front page is dominated by a comment piece, which declares that Starmer has "wrecked Britain's relationship with our oldest ally" and calls him a "national embarrassment".
The deployment of HMS Dragon to Cyprus is being described as "defensive" by the government, but the Daily Mirror suggests it could be related to fears of an increased risk of terror attacks on home soil.
"Ship happens" writes the Sun, reporting that HMS Dragon's new orders only came after French President Emmanuel Macron ordered a "major" French naval deployment.
The Financial Times details the ways in which the war in the Middle East has "rattled global markets", noting a 3% fall in European stock markets and the closure of Iraq's oilfields due to Iran's threats against tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The paper quotes Peter Schaffrik, a global macro strategist at RBC Capital Markets, who said that the market seems to be "mentally transitioning from a short war to a long war".
Mourners at a funeral for victims killed in an airstrike on a school in Iran are pictured on the front page of the Guardian, which reports that US and Israeli attacks on the nation intensified through Tuesday. The paper says that despite "acute international fears", there seems to be "little chance of any de-escalation of the conflict".
Trump's posts on Truth Social have made the front page of Metro, after he wrote that Iran's leaders wanted to "talk" but he told them it was "too late". The paper says that despite the president's insistence "everything's been knocked out", the conflict "still threatens to spiral out of control".
"Panic at the pumps" reads the Star, describing "forecourts chaos" amid surging fuel prices.
The Daily Express is the only paper that isn't leading on the crisis in the Middle East, instead focusing on Chancellor Rachel Reeves' Spring Statement. A million more pensioners will be expected to pay income tax following a threshold freeze, the paper reports, adding that Reeves "hugely underestimated" the number of people who would be affected.
