Many of his supporters hoped the Prime Minister would restore the UK’s commitment to international law. Yet Labour’s record over the past year has been curiously mixed

The international human rights system – the rules, principles and practices intended to ensure that states do not abuse people – is under greater threat now than at any other point since 1945. Fortunately, we in the UK couldn’t wish for a better-qualified prime minister to face this challenge. Keir Starmer is a distinguished former human rights lawyer and prosecutor, with a 30-year career behind him, who expresses a deep personal commitment to defending ordinary people against injustice. He knows human rights law inside out – in fact, he literally wrote the book on its European incarnation – and has acted as a lawyer at more or less every level of the system. (Starmer is the only British prime minister, and probably the only world leader, to have argued a case under the genocide convention – against Serbia on behalf of Croatia in 2014 – at the international court of justice.) He is also an experienced administrator, through his time as director of public prosecutions (DPP), which means he knows how to operate the machinery of state better than most politicians do.

Unfortunately, there’s someone standing in Starmer’s way: a powerful man who critics say is helping to weaken the international human rights system. He fawns over authoritarian demagogues abroad and is seeking to diminish the protections the UK offers to some vulnerable minorities. He conflates peaceful, if disruptive, protest with deadly terrorism and calls for musicians whose views and language he dislikes to be dropped from festival bills. At times, he uses his public platform to criticise courts, whose independence is vital to maintaining the human rights system. At others, he uses legal sophistry to avoid openly stating and defending his own political position, including on matters of life and death. He is, even some of his admirers admit, a ruthless careerist prepared to jettison his stated principles when politically expedient. That person is also called Keir Starmer.

With many parents struggling to afford childcare, an army of grandparents have stepped up. They speak about the joys – and burdens – of caring for their grandkids at a time when they could be taking it easier

When I first call Rita Labiche-Robinson, a 59-year-old retired project manager, she can’t chat because she is with her nine-year-old granddaughter. Rita looks after Nia two days a week – Thursdays and Fridays. Today is a Tuesday, but they live together, along with Nia’s mum, and Labiche-Robinson is too in the thick of it to talk.

The three of them have been in the same home since March last year, when Labiche-Robinson’s daughter and granddaughter moved back from Canada. “While they’re waiting to be housed, they’re staying with me,” she says. On her designated days, she gets Nia up and takes her to school – a 10-minute walk from her home in Hackney, east London. At the end of the day, she picks Nia up, prepares her dinner and reads to her before bed.

Prof Tommy J Curry reflects on leading the institute’s slavery review – and why it must lead to meaningful action

For Tommy J Curry the question about Edinburgh University’s institutional racism, or its debts around transatlantic slavery and scientific racism, can be captured by one simple fact: he is the first Black philosophy professor in its 440-year history.

As the Louisiana-born academic who helped lead the university’s self-critical inquiry into its extensive links to transatlantic slavery and the construction of racist theories of human biology, that sharply captures the challenge it faces.

The BMA’s demand for pay restoration is a slap in the face for the health secretary who gave them a 22% rise – and it’s testing the public’s sympathy

There were no pickets when I set out at the weekend to talk to striking doctors. Not even at St Thomas’ hospital, a prime site opposite the Houses of Parliament, or at Guy’s at London Bridge. “It’s a bit sparse,” said the duty officer from the British Medical Association, the doctors’ union. The British Medical Journal (owned by the BMA but with editorial freedom) ran the headline: “Striking resident doctors face heckling and support on picket line, amid mixed public response.” Public support has fallen, with 52% of people “somewhat” or “strongly” opposing the strikes and only 34% backing them.

Alastair McLellan, the editor of the Health Service Journal, after ringing around hospitals told me fewer doctors were striking than last time, which isn’t surprising given that only 55% voted in the BMA ballot. Managers told him these strikes were less disruptive than the last ones. But even a weaker strike harms patients and pains a government relying on falling waiting lists.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Playing an entire tournament with a fractured tibia is the type of undiluted commitment and individual sacrifice which carried team to glory

For some reason, as Chloe Kelly’s penalty hits the net and the England players explode across the pitch like streaks of white light, as Sarina Wiegman and Arjan Veurink embrace on the touchline, as England fans clutch each other in the stands, the eye is drawn to Khiara Keating of Manchester City.

Keating has not played a minute for England at this tournament. In fact, she has never played a minute for England at all. In fact, there was not the remotest possibility that she would play a minute for England at this tournament, and she knew this all along. Her entire Euros has consisted of training, travel and watching football from a hard bench. And yet at the moment of victory, nobody celebrates harder than England’s third goalkeeper.

Scottish writer Irvine Welsh joins Grace to share his ultimate comfort food. Irvine has been a towering figure in our cultural galaxy for 30 years. His bestselling novels include Porno, The Acid House, Filth and, of course, Trainspotting. Trainspotting – famously autobiographical – follows a group of heroin addicts in a deprived area of Edinburgh. It was a huge hit, selling more than a million copies. The movie, released a few years later, was nothing short of a sensation at the box office. Irvine’s new book is accompanied by his debut album, both with the same name: Men In Love is a sequel to Trainspotting, and picks up where the characters left off back in 1993.

New episodes of Comfort Eating with Grace Dent will be released every Tuesday

Starmer said to have pressed US president on humanitarian crisis during talks at Turnberry golf resort in Scotland

• Key takeaways from Trump’s press Q&As in Scotland

Donald Trump told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza as he acknowledged for the first time that there is “real starvation” in the region.

During a visit to Britain, the US president contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister claimed it was a “bold-faced lie” to say Israel was causing hunger in Gaza.

An NYPD officer described as a ‘true blue hero’ was among those killed by a 27-year-old from Las Vegas, officials say

A gunman killed four people at a Manhattan skyscraper that houses the headquarters of the NFL and the offices of several major financial firms before turning the gun on himself, New York officials have said.

An NYPD officer identified as Didarul Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh and a father of two whose wife is pregnant, was among those killed. He was working off-hours as a security guard at the time, New York mayor Eric Adams told reporters, describing him as a “true blue hero”.

Technology secretary Peter Kyle says Reform UK leader’s latest comments demonstrate he is ‘not on the side of children’

Peter Kyle, the science secretary, has responded to what Nigel Farage said on X about his Jimmy Savile broadside against Reform UK on Sky News. (See 8.44am.) Kyle posted his own message saying:

If you want to overturn the Online Safety Act you are on the side of predators. It is as simple as that.

Police monitor social media for attempts to stir up disorder as town pays tribute to three girls murdered last year

Southport must not be defined by the atrocity at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club last summer, its leaders have said, a year on from the murders.

The Merseyside town will hold a three-minute silence and lower flags on public buildings on Tuesday in tribute to those caught up in the attack on 29 July last year.