The row between Elon Musk and the UK over the use of X’s Grok AI to generate sexualised images, including of children, is a fascinating moment. It’s when global politics becomes intimate, not a matter of conferences and armies, but of what is inside our heads and at our fingers.
I’m picking up a profound change of mood inside Downing Street: not just genuine anger about the behaviour of Musk but also a view that the world has changed in a way that requires a visibly different style of governing. It begins with an understanding of the novelty of Donald Trump’s position – for the first time since the Cold War, the US faces a genuine peer threat, from China.
There is a race on for resources, technological edge and security that the Americans might lose and which propels us into new times. The European model of relying on China for trade, the US for security and Russia for cheap gas is over forever. The hope that living standards suffered a one-off hit from the Ukraine invasion, but that good times are just around the corner, seems an illusion.
None of Labour’s political enemies have a coherent answer but the time is ripe, ministers tell me, for the politics of security-first – a state that begins with resilience. It’s going to require agonising choices about the resources needed for rebuilding defences – the UK is pathetically weak given the promises it’s making in every direction, from Ukraine to Greenland. There are opportunities for British industry and technology, but money is going to have to be switched from things Labour MPs love to national defence.
Yet the multi-sided crisis and the sense that it’s not going away has undoubtedly strengthened Keir Starmer. Downing Street finds the mood of MPs calmer since Christmas. I think we are going to see an inner cabinet emerging, based around the National Security Council, whose members include Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, John Healey, Yvette Cooper, Shabana Mahmood and Darren Jones.
That would add up to a reverse of the tilt to the soft left being talked about by Labour MPs before Christmas, and the rising star in No 10, for instance, is David Dinsmore, the former Sun editor, now permanent secretary for government communications. A distinctly different government is emerging, yet with the same leader. The Prime Minister has been criticised for his relationship with Trump; it would be one of the great ironies of politics, if Trump Unleashed provided both renewed purpose and political protection for Keir Rodney Starmer. But that’s the mood.
Between the covers
I’m not a club person – there seem to be enough pubs still around – but the nearest for me is the private London Library, which I’ve just rejoined. The most interesting people are there, but they are all working, so no conversation is required – which is perfect. No coffee machine, no sandwiches, just books, sidelong glances and sub-audible mutter.
The bearded ghosts of Dickens, Tennyson, Darwin and many more haunt the sepulchral rooms it has occupied since 1845. Its president is Helena Bonham Carter. Everybody there is “writing a book” or sleeping. Well, except…
In this age of relentless online surveillance, of snooping and snitching, a library proves to be a formidable machine for private resistance. Unprintable gossip, billets-doux and the fruits of private espionage can be handwritten on paper, inserted in obscure journals or novels forgotten a century ago, then retrieved by arrangement.
It’s a giant network of whisper. One comes across furtive glances in the recesses of the old cast-iron stacks in this command hub of subterfuge and – generally amiable – conspiracy. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Beijing are out of the loop. The only real danger is some deluded PhD student suddenly deciding to disinter the reputation of a novelist rightly long forgotten. Meanwhile – sshhh.
Double exposure
The essence of a good club, like friendship, is tolerance. My Glaswegian grandpa, a mordant wit, was on the disciplinary committee after a member of his club, worse for wear, forgot to button up after visiting the gents and staggered into the street on full dangling display. Shouldn’t he be immediately expelled? No, replied Grandpa, according to the family story, “we should think of it as nothing more than… a pleasing touch of informality.”
Winter solace
In these days when the sky changes colour from sputum to cold tea, I keep myself going with David Hockney’s adage: “Remember, they can’t cancel the spring.” From Tehran to Nuuk, better times are ahead.
[Further reading: Will Grok destroy the special relationship?]
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This article appears in the 14 Jan 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Battle for power
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