This common-sense view has for too long been deemed bigoted and has meant women losing the right to single-sex spaces (in sports, in prisons, in refuges) which have been increasingly contested by trans activists. Sex means biology – did we need a court to tell us this? That it has taken a sober Supreme Court judgment to do so is kind of incredible.

Once more the courts have spelled out what our politicians have been too scared to say. Starmer, take note. We do know what a woman is and it is not a guy waving a certificate about. Some of us have always known this. Biology wins, science wins, freedom of association wins. This is a brilliant victory and a lesson to all. If you think you can talk over women, take away their rights and protections in the name of fetishistic, gender-dysphoric men, think again. Real women won’t stand for it. Nor will the law.

Previously, trans women were given the same rights as biological women, allowing them access to female-only spaces and groups. Although the judges said that trans women could not be discriminated against, the ruling means they will no longer be treated the same as people born female.

On Wednesday night, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the government watchdog, promised to rewrite its guidance to public bodies by the summer. The NHS, National Police Chiefs Council and other bodies are also expected to update guidance soon. The Supreme Court’s judgment was welcomed by JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author and prominent women’s rights campaigner, who said it would “protect the rights of women and girls across the UK”.

JD Vance was, of course, talking about a trade deal. And making it clear that President Trump is offering a once-in-a generation chance to forge a seriously bright future for Brexit Britain on the world stage, with potentially enormous economic and political benefits.

In 2016 the British people voted to leave an EU that trampled upon their sovereignty for nearly half a century. And it is because Britons are free of the shackles of Brussels that the United States is offering this economic lifeboat at a time it is so desperately needed. This is a moment for the UK to seize the day and embrace an agreement that can only enhance prosperity in both the world’s largest and sixth-largest economies.

Keir Starmer must be smart in these circumstances and get this deal over the line – and be aware, too, that he must give something in return. And that includes a fully opened British market for US exports. For too long, he has flirted with both the US and the EU, previously stating he is ‘not choosing’ between the two. He now must pick a side – and, with this offer of a deal, that side must be the United States.

If a penniless and backward China was willing to face down America at the zenith of its global power in 1950, China is hardly likely to roll over today now that it is the world’s industrial hegemon and financial creditor – with some $6 trillion (£4.5 trillion) of foreign exchange assets, once you include the opaque holdings of state-owned banks. “How has it ever been possible in history that the world’s largest creditor would be defeated by the world’s largest debtor?” asks Uncle Ming.

So who suffers most political stress from a total and violent economic decoupling? Xi’s tightly controlled China; or Trump’s febrile, restless America, where 100 million consumers live on maxed-out credit cards and zero savings, acutely vulnerable to a price spike in day-to-day goods, with no safety margin if they lose their jobs?

This is not to do with so-called “industrial strategy”, or the hope that the mighty state will step in to reorder the nation’s productive capabilities around national priorities. Instead, it relates to the reasons why the plant was not economically viable anymore, and why even the Chinese were no longer willing to absorb the losses, despite the obvious tactical advantage of a foot-hold in the UK.

British Steel was not a victim of unfettered free trade, or being undercut by unscrupulous foreign suppliers. There is a huge premium in the market for virgin steel whose provenance is indisputably in a top-tier country, especially from the aerospace and defence industries. The plant’s prospects were ruined by policies that successive British governments have imposed willingly, mainly in the realm of energy policy. There have been damaging regulations specific to steel production, such as the coking coal ban, but it’s what has been done to British Steel’s domestic market that should now be the government’s focus.

Britain’s exceptionally high commercial electricity prices have recently gained media attention, but this has been a chronic problem over many years. This is not merely an unfortunate overhead that makes firms less profitable; year after year it has seen entire sectors rendered completely uncompetitive in Britain.

The government will now be forced to reckon with the enormity of the costs it has imposed on British industry. Perhaps, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or one of her successors, will have the motivation to face down the renewables lobby, and speak up for the bits of the British economy onto which the burden of decarbonisation has been forced.

“People didn’t really understand in July 2020 when Klaus Schwab announced ‘The Great Reset’ what a pandemic had to do with climate change. But we’re starting to see that ‘climate change’ is just the next crisis they want to leverage as an opportunity to not just get richer but to construct systems of tyrannical control.” The systems of tyrannical control, Bruner explained, include food control, energy control, electric vehicles, cell or mobile phones, the Internet of Things, smart cities and financial control.

Bill Gates suggested that they find an umbrella cause that they could unite their resources around to solve. They could have picked, for example, malaria, poverty, starvation or climate change as causes to unite their resources around. But “this meeting was all about solving the problem, in their minds, of overpopulation,” Bruner said. The Good Club is all about pouring money into projects that ensure there are fewer people in the world. “Their way of helping humanity is to make sure there is less of it,” Bruner said.

“Most of these [Controligarchs] in this book are sort of these Malthusian, overpopulation types who think that the Earth is overpopulated… That’s a myth, it’s never been proven conclusively that the world is overpopulated. Bill Gates says we need to cut that by 15%. Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, is a little more extreme – he thinks that under 2 billion is the ideal population of the planet. Other World Economic Forum agenda setters, Jane Goodall… says closer to 500 million. They haven’t publicised what they think the ideal total global population should be but it’s a lot less, billions less.”

TIA’s report includes $51.6 trillion for Medicare and $67.1 trillion for Social Security for benefits that have been promised to recipients down the road but are not considered in the ordinary national debt conversation.

"These numbers come from the Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports, which include calculations of the present value of projected benefits over the next 75 years, offset by the dedicated receipts expected over that period," TIA Founder and CEO Sheila Weinberg told The Center Square. "Our calculations focus only on current participants – we do not include receipts or benefits from future participants."

Yet there is a broader point, too: The whole “firewall” strategy is malfunctioning extremely badly. Sensible observers have long predicted it, and now it is becoming ever more obvious: Freezing the AfD out only serves to make it stronger.

One thing that does not make Berlin’s ruling parties, the CDU and SPD, any more popular is that they have concluded their negotiations on how to divvy up the spoils of ministries and other goodies. Indeed, it is extremely embarrassing for the new governing coalition of conservatives and Social-Democrats (SPD) that the most recent AfD milestone breakthrough is happening now. It is a coincidence from hell: there they are, the traditional parties, seemingly safe behind their “firewall” and all ready to go, and the voters – uncouth as they can be – show them just how unpopular they are.

Germans expect little from them, even now: A fresh poll shows that two thirds do not believe that things will change under the new coalition of tired old parties. “What a scandal! Opening the gates to the far right!” many will scream. Yet they have it all upside down: Disregarding the fact that, in reality, the CDU/CSU conservatives and the AfD mostly see eye-to-eye ideologically, one day, in the not so far away future, the AfD may well enter and perhaps even dominate a German government. The irony is that when that happens, those who have upheld the, frankly, moronic “firewall” will have only themselves to blame. Because the real question is not if the AfD will enter government in Berlin but how and, in particular, how strong. The longer the “firewall” is kept up, the more likely the AfD will not just participate but dominate.

“It can no longer be a six-digit figure – towns, communities, schools, hospitals and infrastructure are overwhelmed.” The number of asylum seekers entering Germany has already fallen by 30 per cent, according to government statistics for 2024. But Mr Merz is under intense pressure to adopt a tougher stance on mass migration after the far-Right anti-migrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) came second in February’s elections. Tensions over migration also rose following a series of terror attacks committed by asylum seekers and other migrants in the run-up to the elections.

In a post on X on Monday, Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, suggested that Merz was following in the footsteps of his Nazi father. “Chancellor candidate Fritz Merz is haunted by the memory of his father, who served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Now Merz has suggested a strike on the Crimean Bridge. Think twice, Nazi,” Medvedev wrote.

According to media reports, Merz’s father Joachim was conscripted into the Wehrmacht - the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany - around 1941. His grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, had also been a member of the Nazi party since 1933.

Unlike EU countries and the UK, “the Trump administration is trying to get to the bottom of the issue and, most importantly, understand the root cause” of the Ukraine conflict, Lavrov told Kommersant in an interview published on Monday. Trump initiated direct talks with Russia in February, stressing the need to broker a ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev as soon as possible. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Friday, marking their third meeting this year.