Summary

The US President sent his son-in-law to meet Hamas, so as to more effectively pressure the government of Israel. That is the kind of sentence that, even just a few years ago, would have been assumed to be speculative fiction – or, if it was real, would set off weeks of outraged headlines, especially if it happened under a Democratic president. But, it is exactly what Donald Trump did over this weekend, and there is barely a mumble of Republican outrage. Jared Kushner, with former UK prime minister Tony Blair in his entourage, met senior Hamas leaders in Cairo on Sunday in something of a desperate bid to revive Trump’s peace plan for Gaza. It is unclear when the messages were sent and what was discussed. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI were investigating attempts to access Wiles’ phone after an unknown person contacted prominent Republican figures and business chiefs while pretending to be her. news The damage paying student loans into your 50s will cause Callum Mason Deputy Money Editor Nowadays, repaying your student loan into your 50s is a relative rarity – but that will soon change, with terrible consequences for those who have the loans and the economy as a whole. Class of 1998 still have debt to pay New figures this week reveal that 88,057 graduates who took out the first “income contingent” student loans in 1998 – now in their late 40s or early 50s – still owe debt. Most of these people aren’t repaying the loans because they earn low wages or aren’t working. But that won’t be the case for long. In fact, a majority of those who took out student loans since 2012, when tuition fees were trebled in England, are likely to be paying off until their 50s. This is because, as well as borrowing significantly more than their predecessors to go to university, the terms of the loans were changed so they are wiped later – after 30 rather than 25 years – and accrue larger amounts of interest, often above inflation. Many on high salaries are repaying hundreds a month and still seeing their loans grow due to interest – which has dire consequences for these individuals and the economy. The first negative consequence is the effect it will have on spending, and the second is the chilling impact we will see on pensions. Limited consumer spending A report by Oxford Economics has already pointed out that Plan 2 loans – those given to students from England and Wales between 2012 and 2022 – are leading to more limited consumer spending, weaker business investment and greater aversion to risk. Over the next 20 years, having a large student loan will become common across decades of generations. If these people are repaying hundreds or thousands towards their loan, there is clearly going to be a big impact on their disposable income. But if we want people to boost their pension savings, we need them to have enough disposable income throughout their lives, so they feel they can part with more cash upfront. Disincentivising workers The final point is this. Last week, polling by Opinium found that three in 10 people with student loans say they have turned down a promotion, new job or pay rise because of the impact on their repayment plan. If you’re a higher earner making over £50,270, then with the loan repayments your marginal tax rate is over 50 per cent. The economic impact of this should not be understated. If we’re disincentivising any of our most productive workers from employment and they’re earning less as a result, this has knock-on effects for our national tax take and growth. Child-like sexual abuse dolls could be banned – what we know Sexual abuse dolls designed to look like children could be banned in England and Wales under a new draft law. Possession of a child-like sex doll is not an offence in the UK; however, those who import them can be convicted under the Customs Consolidation Act 1876. What you need to know Now Liberal Democrat Munira Wilson is seeking to criminalise the possession, sale and manufacture of child-like sex dolls. Her private member’s Bill, which is set to have its second reading in the House of Commons on 4 September, aims to prevent sexual harm and disrupt behaviour which may indicate a sexual interest in children. Under the draft law, police will be able to seize such dolls – which are sold mainly in the image of girls and can come as small as babies. Offenders who are found guilty could face prison time as well as monitoring. The Bill, which needs Government support to become law, is drafted to include any doll which “resembles a child or any part of a child”, to prevent perpetrators getting around the proposed law, Wilson said. Ex-school governor jailed Ex-school governor and church warden David Turner was jailed in 2017 for 16 months after he imported a 3ft child sex doll from China. When officers from the National Crime Agency searched his home in Ramsgate, Kent, they discovered two more child sex dolls and over 34,000 indecent images of children on his devices. This is an important next step in bringing competition and growth to the market for international rail services, and we welcome the progress VirginTrains and London St Pancras High Speed have made. While there is still more work to do, we are supporting Virgin and the wider industry to grow international services. Martin Jones, Deputy director of access and international What next? Despite just clearing a major regulatory hurdle, Virgin Trains has yet to secure access to other rail networks. It must also obtain safety approvals from the ORR and relevant regulators in the EU before services start in 2030. The US managed to broker a nominal ceasefire in Gaza last October, and last month Trump announced he had transformed this into a permanent deal in which Hamas had agreed to a phased disarmament of its weapons and to hand over power to a new, technocratic Palestinian authority, in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. However, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, roundly and publicly rejected that deal, demanding full disarmament before any withdrawal of troops – and dismissing any possibility of a Palestinian state in the process. More than that, despite the nominal ceasefire, Israel is taking control of a larger share of Gaza by the day: currently, it controls about 60 per cent of the region, and has said it will increase this to 70 per cent. Trump, desperate for a win after his Iran war stalled, has been trying to resurrect his Middle East peace plan – dispatching Kushner to deliver a deal. As President, Trump has more than 13,000 professional diplomats at his disposal, but Trump has always preferred to keep things in the family. Kushner has no formal role with the US government, has never been appointed or ratified by Congress and is accountable to no one except the President, but is being trusted with some of the most sensitive diplomatic issues facing the federal government. Some people might find a double standard in this. Between 2013 and 2018, Hunter Biden’s company made around $11m (£8m) for his work with the Ukrainian company Burisma (among other clients), a story that became a decade-long scandal for his father, Joe Biden – even though there was never any evidence Biden Sr even met Burisma, let alone did them any favours, while Hunter Biden never did any work for the US government. By contrast, Jared Kushner has received $2bn (£1.5bn) in investment from Saudi Arabia alone, and is actively working as an international adviser while undertaking his role as his father-in-law’s off-books diplomat. According to media reports, Kushner’s visit with Hamas was surprisingly friendly: the group reportedly restated its commitment to Trump’s peace plan, provided Israel did what the US promised it would. The meeting was followed by a joint statement by multiple Gulf states – including Kushner’s business partners – calling upon Israel to sign up to the deal. That would appear to be the US engaging in a co-ordinated campaign of diplomatic pressure, working alongside Hamas and the Gulf states, against Israel – traditionally the USA’s closest allies in the region, something that would have been unimaginable even a year or two ago. This is the kind of desperate move sometimes required in diplomacy, but the trouble for both Trump and Kushner is that it has almost zero chance of working. The third anniversary of the deadly October 7 attacks is approaching, making it an awkward time politically for Israel to sign an agreement with Hamas, given Netanyahu had promised to wipe out the group entirely in the wake of the atrocity. Even more pressingly, Israel has its elections later in October, and Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival – meaning the prospects of him changing his hardline stance on Gaza are even more remote than normal. Signing any kind of peace deal that involved concessions to Hamas would be out of character for Netanyahu at any time. Doing so when it would spell the end of his own political career is essentially an impossibility. Donald Trump is a man obsessed with projecting strength on the world stage. He wants world leaders to say “how high” when he says “jump” – but instead, he’s increasingly yelling into the void. The President has alienated most of the USA’s traditional allies in Europe and across Nato. He had wooed several Gulf states to his side, but has burned their trust by putting them directly in the line of fire with his conflict with Iran. Relations between the US and Israel are the worst they have been in decades. The President who became famous for “the art of the deal” now seems unable to get anything over the line. Try as they might, neither Jared Kushner nor Tony Blair is likely to break that trend for him.