Panicking Trump has finally realised the jeopardy his presidency is in

Donald Trump has, for the moment, almost total control over America’s political institutions. He lives in the White House, Republican-appointed justices fill six of the nine seats on the Supreme Court – three of them filled by Trump himself – and Republicans are in the majority in both the House and the Senate.

Despite this, the US President has managed to pass very little legislation through Congress. His second term has been a flurry of activity, but almost all of that has been through Executive Orders – which could be overturned immediately if a Democrat won in 2028.

So, when Congress finally passed a popular housing bill, supported by the Trump White House, this month, it should have been a major accomplishment for the President, even if it had passed with broad support from Democrats, too.

Officials have drawn up contingency plans to cut further green levies from energy bills if prices remain high this winter, The i Paper has been told.

Several options are now circulating among Burnham’s transition team who are believed to be weighing up how to deliver on that pledge. A Treasury source said work on a package was ongoing to help with rising costs.

Burnham could remove remaining green levies from energy bills, funded through general taxation instead.

One proposal would be to raise the bank surcharge from its current 3 per cent.

Replace stamp duty, loosen fiscal rules and tax the capital gains uplift on inherited assets.

A written statement published by the Chancellor said the remaining sum would be “confirmed at Budget 2026, in a fair and balanced way”.

The coronation of Andy Burnham is fraught with dangers. Never will a prime minister have arrived in Downing Street with so little scrutiny of what he wants to do.

Sir Keir Starmer’s much-delayed Defence Investment Plan had one big bet at its heart: drones are the future of warfare.

American company Anduril makes the “Seabed Sentry“- a weighted cylinder that uses sensors and AI to monitor what is happening under the sea. They could be used to listen out for spying and sabotage by Russian submarines. They are far cheaper than crewed submarines using traditional sonar.

A dozen of the cylinders can be dropped onto the seabed at a time by an autonomous submarine, with the devices forming a network which communicate between themselves and listens out for undersea activity.

The UK is woefully unprepared with the Royal Navy in a desperate condition. Whoever sits in Downing Street come next September will need to address matters of defence, homeland and cyber defence especially, with urgency.

Writer Sadhbh O’Sullivan looked into her own forgotten subscriptions when she became a first-time buyer, and realised how much she was wasting on things she wasn’t using.

I’d long considered myself to be quite a reasonable spender. 

But the hidden costs across her bank accounts, like free trials that hadn’t been cancelled and memberships for abandoned services, proved otherwise.

It was full of small amounts, £2.99 here, £4.50 there. These small amounts added up.

According to a Nationwide survey almost one in five Brits don’t use every platform they pay for.

The bank suggests they could save as much as £400 a year by ditching them. 

National Trading Standards’ 2025 research found 4.7 million people were paying for subscriptions they didn’t know they’d signed up for.

In 2024, a government report found unused and unwanted subscriptions cost consumers up to £1.6bn a year.

Hunt them down

Banking apps usually list your ‘subscriptions’ separately from direct debits and standing orders so you can easily spot what you’re shelling out on.

Check everything

You can be debited through credit cards, E-payment services, your mobile phone bill, Apple Pay or Google Pay.

Don’t vow to use a subscription you’re not going to, even if you
have good intentions.

Many businesses have changed from monthly to annual payments so look further back.

Make sure to track any subscriptions you have kept so you can cancel them, if need be, in future.

But staff say many people treat their shops like a tip.

Here they share the most useful donations they get, and the
ones that drive them mad.

The quality of donations over the last year has diminished.

Claire Stockman, head of retail for St
Luke’s Hospice [pictured], says many donations include used items from fast fashion like Boohoo and Primark, which they cannot sell for more than £2, if at all.

of what comes into St Luke’s Hospice is unsellable, Stockman says.

She adds its soiled, damaged beyond
repair or smelly.

Harriet, a volunteer at Crisis in Dalston,
says people bring in clothes that are dirty and stained – things that they cannot sell
on Vinted.

She also sees dirty kitchenware and technology that no longer works.

There was a box donated after someone’s family had passed and in it were all these medals. I researched them and the whole collection ended up going for £2,340…

A good donation is anything new with tags on, anything that hasn’t been opened, or higher quality items.

Items that have been well looked after are more likely to sell and generate a better price for charity too.

Harriet adds that knick-knacks and wine glasses are surprise hits in her branch.

Here, psychologists, career consultants and sleep experts give their best advice on how
to beat the gloom that the
work week is looming…

Pave the way on Friday

Psychologist Maria-Teresa Daher-Cusack says to wrap up tasks and not to leave big or difficult things for Monday. And write a to-do list for the next week so you know what to expect when you return after the weekend.

Get outside early

Doctor Naheed Ali says getting out on a Sunday morning – not sleeping late – helps regulate the circadian rhythm that can become skewed over the weekend.

On Sunday spend time away from technology to allow yourself a personal reset away from doom scrolling.

Put yourself in the best position to rest by avoiding large meals, screens and caffeine.

If possible don’t stack your Mondays with high-pressure tasks.

Don’t just save joyful things for the weekend. On lunch breaks, try to do something you enjoy.

If the Sunday scaries are constant, listen to them. If every Sunday fills you with dread and nothing seems to quell it it’s worth asking if it’s the job, the culture or the career itself. No one should spend half their weekend bracing for impact… ” says Victoria McLean

But no country’s energy system is 100 per cent secure and large-scale blackouts, although rare, are possible.

Here’s how to prepare, and what could happen, if we do have a blackout.

If the UK’s power went down tomorrow, these are the ways it is likely to impact you first.

For EV owners that are already on the road, Professor Keith Bell, who works in electricity planning, recommends that those with an EV with reasonable charge use it as a generator, like your own store of electricity.

In the case of the power system going down, petrol isn’t a totally safe option as queues at petrol stations could be huge and places are likely to run out of fuel.

The longer the power takes to return the worse things are likely to get. In 2021 Storm Arwen physically damaged power lines across the UK.

During the 1977 New York blackout, which lasted 25 hours, there was civil unrest, resulting in widespread looting and arson, although intense heatwaves are thought to have exacerbated the situation.

To get updates during a power cut – a car radio can be used, but in severe weather it might be safer to stay inside.

A minimum of 2.5-3 litres of drinking water per person per day is recommended.

The Government recommends opting for torches over candles, for safety reasons.

Using screens in a way that benefits your child’s development is key and balancing educational content and entertainment with offline activities ensures a well-rounded routine.

For younger children, try scavenger hunts, garden games and nature walks. For older ones, hikes
and biking trips.

Designated screen-free times helps children develop a routine that balances screen use with other activities.

It’s an excellent way
to bond and develop critical thinking skills.

Getting creative, through drawing, painting or model construction, enhances cognitive skills and offers an alternative to screens.

Arrange playdates or group activities with friends, or for older kids try an overnight camping trip in the garden.

Showing that you value offline time encourages your children to do the same.

Implement a reward system where screen time is earned through positive behaviour. 

Discuss the importance of balancing screen time with your children so they understand the reasons behind the rules.

Some studies suggest so.

These are the eight brain-boosting foods registered dietitian Fareeha Jay
recommends people consume as part of a weekly diet…

They contain several nutrients thought to support brain health, including choline, vitamin B12 and iodine.

Caffeine can reduce inflammation and
slow the degeneration
of brain cells.

It’s packed with antioxidants and high in vitamin K, which is essentially for healthy brain cells.

Your brain uses Omega-3s to build brain and nerve cells – so a diet rich in them may slow age-related mental decline.

These improve heart health markers, which is linked to a lower risk of neurological disorders.

They contain compounds which have been shown to improve blood flow to the brain, cognitive function, and memory.

This was a genuinely major bit of legislation, tackling a crisis that matters to millions of Americans.

But on the day Trump was due to sign the bill into law in an Oval Office ceremony, the President abruptly changed his mind. He wouldn’t let the bill become law unless Congress also passed a law introducing nationwide restrictions on voting, mandating voter ID and even trying to ban postal voting nationwide.

Trump appears to be in a belated panic about the impact of the fast-approaching November mid-term elections, which Republicans are widely expected to lose, not least because of the President’s plummeting approval ratings, which are at an all-time low. Trump is dragging other Republicans down with him. Almost every forecast has Republicans losing the House, and there is an outside chance Democrats take the Senate as well.

If Democrats take the House, they will control all its committees and can use them to launch investigations into the Trump administration – subpoenaing documents, calling witnesses, and much more. If they take the Senate, they can block almost any senior appointment Trump tries to make, including to the judiciary and Supreme Court.

For months, Republicans have tried to alert Trump to the importance of the mid-terms, in a bid to get him to care about an election in which his name doesn’t appear on the ballot. The President has seemed almost aggressively indifferent to what voters care about. He has pursued an unpopular war against Iran and claimed he “couldn’t care less” about rising costs of living linked to the conflict, even saying he “loves the inflation”. At times, he has been almost militantly unwilling to play the game.

But finally, Trump seems to be awake to the risks of the mid-terms. However, rather than trying to play the game by giving voters what they want – action to tackle the cost of living, such as the housing bill he just refused to sign – he is trying to win the game by changing its rules.

On one level, this appears to be a draconian and alarming power grab, an executive trying to cling to all levels of power by rewriting the rules. On another, it is bleakly comedic, because Trump doesn’t seem to be very good at it – at least so far.

Trump has tried to issue a flurry of executive orders demanding various changes. However, in the US, managing elections is the responsibility of state authorities, not the federal government. This means courts have been striking down these executive orders left and right, leading Trump to realise he needs to actually pass legislation.

Characteristically, though, the President hasn’t bothered to listen to Republicans as to what changes might actually help them win.

Earlier this year the Supreme Court handed Republicans a huge victory – to the detriment of Black Americans – by throwing out post-Reconstruction rules banning racial gerrymandering. Red states have been able to redistrict to reduce the power of Black voters, to benefit the Republican Party. That is a real win for those trying to game the system.

Trump, though, is hyper-fixated on the idea that postal votes are how Democrats “cheat” at elections to beat him – something the President has said so often that he appears to have convinced himself it is true. In reality, the evidence shows Republicans, who tend to be older than Democrats, are more likely to vote by post. Trump is desperately trying to pass rules that would actually harm his own side.

The danger with the Trump administration is always outrage fatigue: they test the limits of the constitution, of US laws, and of public decency in so many ways that it is hard to keep up with it all, let alone to care about it all. Given that casting a vote is the fundamental democratic right upon which all the others depend, trying to interfere with it is a gross violation of what a president should do. But what else is new?

More telling, though, is what Trump’s efforts to secure the mid-terms tell us about the man himself. He cares enough about the elections (despite his name not being on the ballot) to try to change the rules to win them – but not enough to change his behaviour and just give voters what they want.

Yet again, the American public will be the ones paying the price for Trump’s chaotic decisions.