Tim Shipman: the lessons from Trump II. Donald Trump’s second term, Tim Shipman writes, has ‘impressed even British politicians who thought him reckless’ previously. ‘You’re the most consequential president of my lifetime,’ one senior official told Trump during his state visit to Britain in September. ‘Think about the speed at which we’ve been able to move,’ says one White House official, pointing to the clarity of agenda and lack of infighting. Trump’s most notable achievements have come in foreign affairs, especially the Middle East. Starmer and Trump have got along, although the President ‘likes winners’, says one White House aide, ‘and Starmer is beginning to look like a loser’. There was also ‘great irritation’ that Peter Mandelson’s ambassadorial appointment was rammed through in the dying days of Joe Biden’s administration; the frontrunner to replace him is Varun Chandra, Starmer’s business liaison man.

James Heale: the climate conundrum. On economic policy, James Heale suggests, the three major parties are increasingly similar, hemmed in by ‘anaemic growth, fiscal constraints and uncomfortable exposure to the bond markets’. Could energy replace the economy as the major political dividing line? On one side is Ed Miliband – ‘the ex-Labour leader turned champion of the green movement’, pushing for clean power and the darling of the Labour faithful. Opposite him is Claire Coutinho, ‘set to launch a Cut My Bills campaign’ in response to Labour’s missed pledge to reduce household energy costs. Green Tories are increasingly worried by Kemi Badenoch’s rush to drop climate commitments, with a Lib Dem aide threatening to ‘use everything at [their] disposal’ to suggest she is soft on the environment. The party plans an informal pact with the Greens at next May’s locals. Rachel Reeves has backed Miliband so far. But the ‘climate consensus… now appears to be coming apart’, with voters more concerned about soaring bills.

Douglas Murray: how not to run a city. ‘There is an unhappy history of left-wing Britons getting involved in US elections,’ Douglas Murray reflects. Ohio voters didn’t take kindly to Guardian readers asking them not to re-elect George W. Bush back in 2004. Murray wishes that Sadiq Khan’s exhortation to New Yorkers to vote for Zohran Mamdani had had a similar effect. ‘While Khan wafts around the world telling everyone what a diverse and vibrant place London is,’ Murray writes, ‘the news that floats back over the Atlantic from London is rarely positive’, as mass immigration and phone-snatching make the city a fraught place to live. New Yorkers may have a bumpy time ahead: ‘Mamdani must count as the least qualified person ever to run for major political office.’

John Power: psychiatrists are being deterred from sectioning dangerous patients. The case of the alleged train attacker, Anthony Williams, is a ‘familiar British tragedy’, according to John Power – ‘a violent outburst by a man apparently in the grip of severe mental illness’. Partly because of ‘underfunded public services’, NHS mental health beds fell by a quarter between 2010 and last year. But there has also been a shift towards treating mental health cases in the community. Following a violent attack by a mentally ill patient, the same phrases recur: ‘known to services’, ‘off their medication’. Britain’s mental health establishment is worsening the situation, Power argues, with pushes to reduce sectioning. Britain needs to address ‘the supply and demand of psychiatric care’ –  fewer dangerous people sectioned’ means ‘more people stabbed’.

Harriet Sergeant: the inconvenient truth about cannabis and mental illness. Mash’s older brother, Harriet Sergeant writes, ‘was the same age as Anthony Williams when he slaughtered a stranger in a brutal and random attack’ while ‘in the grip of a psychotic disorder caused by cannabis’. Even if we do not yet know what drove Williams, Mash is ‘in no doubt’ that cannabis ‘often plays a part’. ‘The liberal narrative that smoking cannabis is harmless is based on weed used decades ago’, she writes: the average strength of cannabis has tripled in the past 20 years. A study published in JAMA Psychiatry found that south-east London ‘has the highest rates of first-episode psychosis in Europe’. Adolescents who smoke weed are 11 times more likely to have a psychotic episode later in life – and their mental ill health is contributing to the ballooning welfare bill.