Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer sign a Declaration of Intent to deploy armed forces in Ukraine if there is a peace deal. The UK and France are the only two nations to have confirmed they will put ‘boots on the ground’. © Abaca Press / Alamy Stock Photo
Donald Trump’s dramatic decision to invade Venezuela last Saturday, resulting in the swift capture and extraction of the country’s president Nicolas Maduro, on charges of narcoterrorism surprised pretty much everyone, despite the US President increasing his rhetoric on Maduro for months. The CIA have reportedly been in the country since last summer, whilst the US had amassed warships and military personnel near the country, and Delta Force had been practicing the capture on a full scale mock-up of Maduro’s safe house for months. Trump’s sudden move gave the Government its first (and definitely not last) diplomatic headache of the year – just three days into 2026 – as they sought to tread the thin line between the obvious breach of international law, and not criticising The Donald. If the snatch and grab operation was limited to the South American country almost 500 miles away then Keir Starmer would have had a much easier week to focus on matters closer to our shores (more on that below). The events however have only increased the US President’s language around the US’ needing Greenland for national security. Hitting back, in as limited a way as possible, the Prime Minister told MPs, “the future of Greenland is for Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark, and for Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone”, but has been careful all week to try and stay as far away from the issue as possible. And if that wasn’t enough to deal with, the RAF and Royal Navy provided support for the US seizure of a Russian shadow fleet tanker between Iceland and Scotland taking Venezuelan oil to Russia, whilst two further Russian shadow fleet tankers casually nipped through the Channel on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister was in Paris this week with members of the Coalition of the Willing in support of Ukraine, signing a deal to put UK and French boots on the ground to support any future peace agreement signed with Russia. The deal has been backed by the US, who would provide a backstop in the event of a further Russian invasion, and to monitor whichever eventual ceasefire line is agreed; however is likely to be vetoed by Moscow, who was fast out the blocks to state any troops would be “considered legitimate military targets for the Russian armed forces”. The headache is fast approaching a migraine however, arriving amid new reports the Chief of the Defence Staff warned a reportedly irate Prime Minister before Christmas that the Ministry of Defence is facing a £28bn blackhole over the next four years, potentially delaying the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan by months…
90,331 – Written Parliamentary Questions asked by MPs in 2025, an increase of 41,206 (84%) on 2024.
£2.5m – new threshold for Agricultural and business Property Relief, announced by the Government just before Christmas.
2 – nations confirmed that they will deploy troops to support Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, the UK and France.
Around 100 – US military personnel permanently station at the Pituffik base in Greenland's north-western tip.
30 to 50 million – barrels of oil to be ‘turned over’ to the USA by Venezuela, according to President Trump, worth about £2.1bn.
66 – international organisations that the USA has withdrawn from, including the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
4% – proposed rise in council tax put forward by Reform UK-led Kent County Council
The Spring Statement will take place on 3rd March 2026, Rachel Reeves confirmed this week – asking the Office for Budget Responsibility to prepare an economic and fiscal forecast for publication on the same day… the first to be published on the Government website following the early-publication debacle in November.
The drink drive limit could be slashed by 75% for new drivers and almost halved for all others in England and Wales under new proposals being consulted on in the Road Safety Strategy published this week. The Government is considering following Northern Ireland’s plans to reduce the limit from 80mg to 50mg per 100ml of blood for all drivers, as well as tougher limits for professional and novice drivers of 20mg.
New regulations came into force on Wednesday banning adverts for less healthy food and drinks on TV before the 9pm watershed and online at all times. The Government expects the regulations will remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets each year, reduce the number of children living with obesity by 20,000 and deliver around £2bn in health benefits over time.
Dating apps and social media platforms must take proactive steps to prevent 'cyberflashing' after new rules under the Online Safety Act came into force. DSIT has stated the new safeguarding requirements could be achieved using automated systems that pre-emptively detect and hide the image, and Ofcom will consult on new codes of practice.
A new Cyber Action Plan was published this week, to help ‘make online public services more secure and resilient,' backed by over £210m of funding. Driven by a new Government Cyber Unit, 'the plan will rapidly improve cyber defences and digital resilience across Government departments and the wider public sector, so people can trust that their data and services are protected’. A new Software Security Ambassador Scheme will also help drive adoption of a new voluntary Software Security Code of Practice.
The Environment Secretary issued a statement on the Animal Welfare Strategy (published on 22nd December – two working days after Parliament rose for Christmas). The statement notes the strategy includes a 'comprehensive package of reforms which will improve the lives of millions of animals across the UK at home, on farm and in the wild,' and set out its key commitments which include banning trail hunting and snare traps, moving away from confinement systems such as colony cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs, phasing out the use of CO2 gas stunning for pigs and working with industry to promote the use of slow growing meat chicken breeds.
Scottish First Minister John Swinney MSP delivered a speech to mark the start of 2026, in which he expressed deep concern at the situation in Venezuela, criticising Donald Trump for not abiding by international law. He announced the 15th June – the day after Scotland’s opening World Cup fixture – as a bank holiday in Scotland (when sore heads will see productivity levels at rock bottom anyway), argued waiting lists were falling, school attendance was rising, and business investment in Scotland had reached a 20-year high, and celebrated Scotland’s renewables industry as “powering a green economic future”.
Laila Cunningham was announced as the Reform UK candidate for Mayor of London in 2028 at a press conference hosted by Nigel Farage on Wednesday, in which she announced she would scrap ULEZ, automate trains, take a zero tolerance approach to crime, and encourage councils to allocate social housing to British people first. With a new poll for the Standard this week putting Labour well ahead of the rest, she will have an uphill battle to win over London for Reform. Farage also announced the new leader of Reform UK Scotland will be revealed next Thursday.
Year 11 students across England will be able to view their GCSE results online for the first time this summer (in case you needed reminding, yes we are in 2026). The new Education Record app will be rolled out nationally to modernise how young people access their exam results once they have left school, and is hoped will save schools and colleges up to £30 million per year in administrative costs once the full roll out is complete.
Forget the £28bn defence black hole… it turns out there’s a maintenance backlog of £49bn across the Government estate. The NAO report on the overview of the Cabinet Office published this week also looks into the department’s net expenditure of £11bn per year and its commitment to reduce up to 1,200 (12%) of roles over the next two years.
Parliament returned with a bang, with Monday seeing urgent questions on farmer inheritance tax, escaped prisoners and the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, as well as ministerial statements on fast-moving world events. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill also begun its parliamentary journey, and on Wednesday the Tories led an Opposition Day debate on jury trial reforms and rural communities, which were followed by a last-minute statement by the Defence Secretary on Ukraine and the US’s seizure of the Russian tanker in the North Sea.
The Government was dealt a heavy defeat in the Lords on its bill to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, meaning its third reading will be delayed to 12 January, the same day a High Court ruling on the issue is expected. Law and order was also a focus this week: the Sentencing Bill begun its report stage and the Crime and Policing Bill underwent day 8 (of an expected 14 days) of its committee stage. Aside from this, scrutiny of the assisted dying bill, which experts believe has now broken the record for the number of amendments tabled to a non-Government bill, continued on Friday.
The UK’s nuclear deterrence doctrine has not been significantly revised since the end of the Cold War, a new report for Policy Exchange co-authored by the former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Stirrup and Navigate Politics alumni Daniel Skeffington concludes. The report notes that through Russian expansionism, China’s growing nuclear arsenal and lingering third-state threats, the world is experiencing levels of international instability not seen since the Cold War, but that the UK’s nuclear deterrence doctrine has not kept pace with these developments. The report is the latest in Policy Exchange’s series of reports as part of its new Nuclear Enterprise Commission.
The UK’s debt could reach 330% of GDP by 2075 without structural reform, the Adam Smith Institute has predicted in its latest report out this week. Written by a former adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, and based on the New Zealand Treasury’s model, it argues rapid growth in health and pension spending, relatively slow economic growth, and high pre-existing debt could have calamitous results for the UK economy. The report concludes ‘moderate fiscal adjustment could solve the problem’, but action is needed imminently to return productivity growth to the levels seen under the Thatcher and Major governments, link pensions to CPI and restrain growth in health spending.
A Lab-Lib Dem coalition with Ed Davey as PM ‘is the least unpopular coalition combination polled’, according to a YouGov poll out this week, in what sounds like the most back-handed non-endorsement of the Lib Dem leader by the British public in quite a while. According to YouGov’s polling, 49% of Brits still favour single party government, compared to 27% who prefer coalition and 24% who don’t know (/ really haven’t thought about it – delete as appropriate). Unsurprisingly supporters of current poll-leaders Reform, plus the Tories and Labour are the most in favour of single party government, whilst Lib Dem and Green supporters would prefer a two-party government.
Louise Haigh made a valiant plea to the Labour Party and Government to stop using X in light of increasing sexualised deepfake content on the platform… taking to X to share her thoughts. And the irony doesn’t quite stop there, as we are sure Navigate can’t be the only ones who noticed Haigh’s claim that she hasn’t used X ‘for some time now’ is maybe not the most accurate, given you only have to scroll down from her announcement to see her latest X post on 5 Jan. Oh dear!
For many parents, the inevitable trial of kids’ new toys “just to check it works” is part and parcel of the festive period, with the Johnsons being no exception to the rule. Carrie Johnson took to Instagram to share this video of her testing out a mobile pink horse by going for a ride in her rather grand dining room. And for those watching the video with sound… no, that is not the 2020 mega star Chappell Roan (despite it sounding so similar), that is indeed our former Prime Minister doing his best rendition of Pink Pony Club, though unfortunately not quite nailing all the lyrics. Keep on dancing, Boris.
