Lack of progress leaves PM facing questions at home

It looked like the moment Sir Keir Starmer had reached a turning point after spending his first six months as prime minister tumbling in the polls.

- ARCHIE MITCHELL

He hugged Volodymyr Zelensky close and offered the heroic Ukrainian president support after Donald Trump and JD Vance’s White House ambush. With work underway to establish and lead - alongside Emmanuel Macron - a "coalition of the willing", it looked like European and other Ukrainian allies were preparing to step up where the US was walking away.

For Sir Keir, things finally looked like they were starting to get better and Labour enjoyed a bounce in the polls. But, emerging from the Elysée Palace into the Parisian sun yesterday, the PM once again looked in trouble.

His chancellor Rachel Reeves had just overseen a disastrously planned and executed spring statement, the fallout from which is only growing. And, despite Sir Keir's insistence otherwise, progress on the coalition of the willing looks to have stalled.