How Sunak and Starmer will deal with the headache of convicting Trump

Trump's convictions present a slightly different set of problems for each of the two party leaders, Rayner writes.

How to solve a problem like Donald? Just as the general election campaign was heating up this week, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer found their campaign coverage wiped out by guilty verdicts from New York, as if a Trump-shaped celestial body had arrived over the UK and blocked the Sun .

No matter how hard the leaders of the two parties try to answer questions about their views on the presidential candidate's unprecedented beliefs, the issue will continue to be raised, and there is a danger for both of them that it will be exposed. divisions within their parties.

There is no escaping the fact that Trump is now a criminal — and no political leader, let alone one who used to be the director of public prosecutions, as in Starmer's case, can condone crime.

But there is also an imminent possibility — perhaps even a probability, according to bookmakers — that Trump will enter the White House for a second time and become the most important international ally of whoever is in the top 10 come July. Dirty doesn't even begin to hide it.