It kicked off with the crisis over Greenland and rift with Donald Trump - and was followed by a dose of psychodrama over the Labour leadership courtesy of Andy Burnham and that unwanted by-election.

This week will be another high-stakes one for the prime minister as he heads to China to look for deeper trade ties against the backdrop of a volatile US and domestic resistance to Beijing at home.

This visit has been a year in planning and will be a big symbolic moment, if rather ill-timed, given the troubles he's facing in his own backyard. Starmer will be the first UK prime minister to visit China since Baroness Theresa May in 2018.

His goal is to try to drum up trade with the world's second-biggest economy. He hopes this will help spur the economy and help Labour make an impact on the cost of living - now his number one priority for government.

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His challenge is to navigate that while not triggering Trump. Just days ago, the US president threatened a 100% tariff on Canada if PM Mark Carney did a trade deal with Beijing.

He will also have to face down criticism at home as the political consensus hardens against China due to concerns over national security threats and human rights.

It's been over a decade since David Cameron hailed a "golden era" of close economic relations with China, as the UK hosted President Xi Jinping on a state visit.

Since that period, relations between the two nations cooled amid concerns over national security and Chinese espionage, China's alliance with Russia, human rights abuses of the Uyghur population, and the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong.

The controversy around the government's approval of a Chinese mega-embassy last week - after years of delay - is a reflection of the deep unease many feel about an expanding Chinese footprint in the UK.

It has not been well received by Washington, which believes the embassy will allow widespread spying, and was opposed by a number of MPs across the House.

That is why this reset moment, spearheaded by Starmer, carries consequence. He must navigate both those economic opportunities while managing critical matters of national security and an increasingly fractious geopolitical backdrop.

In an interview with Bloomberg on the eve of his trip, the prime minister said he wanted to take a "more consistent" approach to China rather than "veering from a Golden Age to an Ice Age" as he insisted the UK did not have to compromise on national security to pursue business interests (those opposed to the mega-embassy disagree).

On the economic opportunities, the prize is clear: the UK wants to do more trade with the world's second-biggest economy, and the PM will be taking a delegation of 60 business and cultural leaders with him to that end.

China is already the UK's third-largest trading partner and supports 370,000 jobs. Starmer wants to do more.

In the global context, the reset with China will, of course, carry risk with President Trump, but the recent actions and behaviour of the US president, who sparked a national outpouring of anger after denigrating British servicemen who lost their lives fighting alongside US troops in Afghanistan, can only help the UK's cause when it comes to China.

Be it Trump's ambivalence over NATO, aggression towards Greenland, threats of tariffs or hostility to the UK European allies, the US has turned from the cornerstone of the post-war order to an unreliable ally.

In an increasingly tense space between two global powers, middle powers like the UK can no longer seek sanctuary under the umbrella of the US and need to navigate a more complex path: in recent months, the leaders of the EU and President Macron and Chancellor Merz have all beaten a path to President Xi's door.

For the PM's part, he insists the UK can maintain its relationship with its closest ally, the US, while pursuing trade opportunities with China, without being forced to choose between the two.

"I'm often invited to simply choose between countries. I don't do that," he told Bloomberg.

"We've got very close relations with the US, of course we want to, and we will maintain that business, alongside security and defence."

For China's part, it wants better access to UK markets, be that in investments or exports. It will also want to depoliticise a relationship that has in recent years been dominated by questions of security threats and the status of Hong Kong.

In a sign of the growing warmth between London and Beijing, officials said Starmer would work with China on illegal migration and more financial co-operation.

Starmer is sometimes in private rather prickly about the tag "never here Keir", and tells colleagues that these international trips are all about, and only about, delivering for the public - be it on trying to deal with illegal migration with the Germans or the French, or trying to put more money in the pockets of working people through seeing off the worst of Trump's tariffs or trying to drum up business.

Dealing with China will, of course, come with controversy and risks, leaving the impression that the prime minister cares more about globe-trotting than the domestic grind.

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Even as he prepares to fly to Beijing, the government this week is trying to highlight freezing prescription charges, announcing plans to cap ground rents - delivering on a manifesto pledge while also trying to placate MPs - and an £80m support package for pubs after the business rates backlash.

It's been hard for Starmer to make much progress on the cost of living message in between the drama of Trump and then Burnham, but government insiders tell me that, at last, polling is beginning to improve for Labour with people that are feeling the benefits of some of their cost of living initiatives, be it breakfast clubs, free childcare or their decision to lift the two child benefit cap.

For a prime minister acutely aware of his domestic fragility, with the public and his party, a five-day trip to China right now will do little to steady the nerves. There are many in the party mutinous over Starmer's decision to block Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election.

The prime minister is not in a good place to try to lead from the front and charm in the tearooms when he is 5,000 miles away.

But as he struggles with the politics, he is pressing on with trying to secure some delivery on the pledges he made when he won the election.

His calculation is that more business with the world's second-biggest economy will help him do that - and could ultimately give him some much-needed help back home.

The Revel Collective, which revealed on Monday that it had filed notice of an intention to appoint administrators, said it had since formally appointed FTI Consulting.

Venues closing with immediate effect include 14 Revolution bars, six Revolucion de Cuba bars and one Peach Pub - with the loss of 591 jobs.

However, FTI confirmed a pair of deals which will secure the future of 41 sites and 1,582 jobs.

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The locations of the Revolution sites closing are: Manchester (Oxford Road), Huddersfield, Leicester, Glasgow (Renfield Street), Cardiff, Nottingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Ipswich, Manchester (Parsonage Gardens), Plymouth, Durham, Exeter and Preston.

The Revolucion de Cuba sites affected are: Cardiff, Derby, Liverpool, Reading, Harrogate and Aberdeen while the Peach premises to be shut was The Almanack at Kenilworth in Warwickshire.

The announcement was made shortly before the chancellor was expected to reveal a partial U-turn on business rates changes facing pubs.

The industry said they were expected to add almost £13,000 in costs over three years to the average pub in advance of the climbdown.

It has battled rising costs for many years, with new minimum pay levels and heightened national insurance contributions adding to the burden last spring.

Revel undertook a major restructuring in 2024, shutting 15 unprofitable bars in a bid to turn around its performance.

But the revamp fell flat and a strategic review resulted in the group being placed up for sale.

Revel had partly blamed weak trading, with younger customers having little disposable income. Higher costs also weighed on its bottom line and growing debt pile.

Warning - this story includes descriptions of a newborn child's suffering and death

Thomas and Victoria Gillibrand's baby, Pippa, suffered a severe brain injury and died at just 12 days old, Cheshire Coroner's court heard.

Ms Gillibrand, 33, had planned to give birth at her home in Warrington, but when she went into labour on 25 August 2024, the home birth team from Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was dealing with another labour.

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There were "missed opportunities" for the trust to abandon the home birth plan and tell Mrs Gillibrand to come into hospital, coroner Victoria Davies said as she delivered her findings.

Speaking outside the court in Warrington on Tuesday, Mr Gillibrand, 34, said: "The trust seems to have played Russian roulette with the innocent lives of mothers and babies.

"Tragically, we are the family that took the bullet on that. Our feelings are that Pippa's death was clearly preventable and it shouldn't have taken a child's death for changes to be implemented."

Mrs Gillibrand, who carried a small toy bought for Pippa with her, added: "Services have been underfunded and stretched for such a long time, that we're now in a position that we've lost our daughter because of the cuts and the services that are currently in situ, and things need to change."

Mr Gillibrand called Warrington Hospital at about 5.30am on the Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend to tell them his wife was in labour, the inquest heard.

Ms Davies said that, given staffing issues over the weekend, including that the home birth team were already at another birth, "Pippa's mother should have been advised to attend hospital rather than continue as a home birth".

A second opportunity to change course came when Mr Gillibrand rang after his wife's waters broke at about 7am.

Eventually, a midwife arrived at the couple's home, about 15-20 minutes' drive from the hospital, at about 8.15am, the inquest heard.

After 9am, Pippa's heart rate should have been monitored every five minutes but midwives were coping with "competing pressures", including short staffing and laptops which were not working.

A decision to take Mrs Gillibrand to hospital should have been made after 9.36am, when difficulties in monitoring Pippa's heart rate became clear, the coroner said.

"Had Pippa been delivered earlier, on the balance of probabilities she would not have died when she did."

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Mrs Gillibrand was transferred to hospital by ambulance after a decision was made at 10am and Pippa was delivered by forceps.

She was transferred to the neonatal unit and later moved to Liverpool Women's Hospital but died on 5 September after scans showed she had suffered a "severe irreversible brain injury" due to a lack of oxygen.

Recording a narrative conclusion, Ms Davies said: "Pippa Gillibrand died as a result of a brain injury sustained due to an avoidable delay in her delivery."

She said the Warrington hospital trust had since changed its home birth service.

Rebecca Cahill, from JMW solicitors, who represented the family, said the situation "made the homebirth service manifestly unsafe, and the service should have been suspended when Vicky made initial contact".

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She said the family "were failed from the start".

Ali Kennah, chief nurse at Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals, said: "We remain truly sorry for the failures in the care that Mrs Gillibrand and Pippa received, and we fully accept the coroner's findings.

"Since this tragedy occurred, we have strengthened our home birth service and have fully implemented all recommendations from an independent review. We will continue to make sure that all lessons are learned.

"We would again like to extend our deepest condolences to Mr and Mrs Gillibrand for their heartbreaking loss."

The trust was not immediately available for comment regarding the most recent accusations.

Speaking on Holocaust Memorial Day, Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said anger against Jews had grown to dangerous levels, regardless of their views on politics, religion or the war in Gaza.

He said there was the prospect of "antisemitic acts against Jews who live anywhere in the world, who have nothing to do with the Israeli government and nothing to do with Israel".

But he said Jews and Israel would both "prevail", telling me: "Eighty years after the end of the Holocaust, Jews are back as a sovereign nation in Israel, united with the Jews who live all over the world."

We spoke in Jerusalem, meeting in the shadow of the Western Wall. It is a place of pilgrimage for Jews of all countries, which he referred to as the "source of Jewish identity".

But for many of those Jews, this has been a time marked by a surge in antisemitic acts.

The attacks of 7 October 2023, and the relentless Israeli military response that followed, led to a sharp increase in antisemitic hate crimes across Europe, including France and the UK.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed due to Israeli military action.

"The criticism of war is legitimate and there is criticism of that in Israel, too," Rabbi Goldschmidt told Sky News.

"But when the criticism goes beyond the pale - delegitimising the existence of the state of Israel or allegations that have no basis in fact, that's when you traverse from criticism to antisemitism."

He blamed "extremists" from the "far right and far left in the United States and Europe" and claimed that they were receiving support and backing from Iran.

"All these people who went and discredited the Jewish people in Israel over the last two years - I don't see them on the streets regarding Iran. I don't see one voice talking about the 30,000 civilians killed in Iran. Why not?"

Rabbi Goldschmidt, who represents hundreds of orthodox rabbis across Europe, believes the Iranian regime, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sits at the centre of a web that seeks to undermine, damage and ultimately destroy both Israel and Jewish people.

'Jews better off in London'

On Gaza, he was clear that Israel should not control the Strip, but rather "it should be administered by a consortium of Arab countries supervised by the United States and other Western powers to provide security, and a viable way of economic support for the Palestinian population in Gaza".

I asked whether he would like to see a two-state solution that would create a Palestinian state separate from Israel.

"Yes, but in the same way that the European Union was impossible as long as Nazi Germany existed, so the two-state solution is impossible as long as Iran is creating failed states and terror hubs all over the Middle East," he said.

"That is why Iran needs a successful revolution. And they need Western support. I told my colleagues in Europe: 'You can do much more to support the demonstrators.'

"They can offer asylum. They can offer support for those leading politicians and people in the security forces who switched sides. Much more can be done."

The rabbi did, however, praise the efforts of British institutions to protect Jewish people, laughing off the idea that they might want to claim asylum in America - an idea apparently floated by the Trump administration.

"I think the Jews are much better off in London," he said. "I think the government in England has done a lot to protect the Jewish community.

"The government is friendly, the King is friendly with the Jewish community. The attack in Manchester was the exception to the rule."

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Rabbi Goldschmidt is not considered an extreme voice in the Jewish world, but his voice does resonate widely.

He was clear that he thought European nations had tried to tackle antisemitism - his praise for the UK was earnest. So, too, were his claims about the dangers posed by Iran.

And he reflects an anxiety in this region. Many in Israel were hoping to see the protesters prevail, and the Ayatollah fall from power. Neither of those has happened.

Speed cameras clocked the actor, 53, making his way across Chelsea Embankment in central London at 10.12am on 21 June last year.

Sir Idris is renowned for his love of mopeds - so much it even made its way into a Taylor Swift song.

The US singer sampled the actor saying "We can go driving on my scooter - you know, just riding in London" on her 2019 song 'London Boy'.

Meanwhile film fans will be reminded of Guy Ritchie's 2008 film Rock'n'Rolla - where Sir Idris's character has to evade Russian mobsters on a moped.

Sir Idris admitted riding the BMW moped but insisted he had not received a fixed penalty fine from the police and was denied a chance to pay it off before appearing in court.

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He was ultimately forced to pay a £147 fine and received three penalty points at Westminster Magistrates' Court last Thursday. He was also ordered to pay £110 in costs and a £59 victim surcharge.

Police presented three images to the court, showing Sir Idris riding a scooter at 28mph in a 20mph zone.

The incident happened a day after it was announced the actor is collaborating with the King for a Netflix film about 50 years of Charles's charity The King's Trust.

But Sir Idris's lawyers, Patterson Law, which specialises in motoring offences, urged the courts to let him ride off with just a £100 fine instead.

"Mr Elba initially responded to the Notice of Intended Prosecution to nominate himself as the driver and was expecting to receive a fixed penalty offer," a letter read to the court said.

"However, the offer never arrived and he therefore never had the opportunity to accept it.

"Had he received it, he absolutely would have accepted it."

The law firm said the actor had a clean driving licence and was pleading guilty to the offence, sparing the expense of a trial.

"We would ask the court to consider replicating the fixed penalty by imposing no more than a £100 fine, with no award for costs," the letter continues.

"He never received the fixed penalty - and this was through no fault of his own. It would therefore not be in the interests of justice to impose further financial penalties for something which was not his fault."

The prosecution was dealt with in the Single Justice Procedure, meaning Elba was not required to attend.