British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under pressure to resign after more than 80 lawmakers in his Labour Party said he was not the right person to lead the country and win the next national election. He has vowed to stay on as no formal leadership challenge has yet been triggered.

If Labour were to choose a new leader, here is a list of those in the frame to replace Starmer:

Wes Streeting, 43

Streeting has served as health and social care minister since Labour came to power in July 2024 — a role that puts him in charge of the state-funded National Health Service with its budget of more than 200 billion pounds.

Streeting is seen as a centrist within the Labour Party, and has advocated fiscal restraint in line with the approach taken by Starmer. He has also supported the government’s policy to increase defence funding.

Streeting was seen as a protege of Peter Mandelson, the former UK ambassador to the US who was appointed by Starmer and then fired over his links to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Streeting has said he’s embarrassed to have known Mandelson but denied that they were close friends.

In his first year as health minister, he approved a 22% pay rise for resident doctors over two years in a bid to end a standoff over pay. Doctors have since resumed striking.

Streeting has represented a constituency in east London since 2015. The seat is tightly contested and in 2024 he won by just 528 votes, making it vulnerable for the next election.

He describes his upbringing as working class, and he would be Britain’s first openly gay prime minister. Born to teenage parents, he has described how his grandfather and grandmother both spent time in jail, with his mum born while his grandmother was in prison.

He attended Cambridge University — an education he says he funded himself with retail jobs — and is a former president of the National Union of Students.

Andy Burnham, 56

Burnham is the mayor of Manchester in northern England, and one of Labour’s most high-profile politicians.

He is currently unable to stand in any leadership challenge because he is not a member of parliament, but he has made recent efforts to return.

In January, he was blocked from running for a seat in the House of Commons by Labour’s National Executive Committee. His supporters, who tend to come from the left of the party, accused Starmer and allies of keeping out a potential leadership rival.

Burnham was briefly Britain’s deputy finance minister in former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government in the 2000s, and has run twice to be the party’s leader, including losing heavily to left-wing veteran Jeremy Corbyn in 2015.

He became Manchester mayor in 2017 but has remained an influential figure for some centre-left groups within Labour, particularly those critical of Starmer’s more centrist stance.

He has tried to reassure investors that they would be safe under his economic vision after he was quoted as saying Britain needed to stop being “in hock to the bond market”. He said his comments were misinterpreted.

Angela Rayner, 46

One of the party’s most recognisable figures, Rayner stepped down from her role as deputy prime minister, deputy Labour Party leader and housing secretary in 2025 after admitting she had unintentionally underpaid taxes on a property purchase and was found to have breached the ministerial code of conduct.

The matter is yet to be fully resolved with authorities, hindering any potential leadership bid. Recently she has called for Burnham’s return to parliament, which may signal she will not run herself.

She is seen as closer to the party’s left-wing, trade union roots than the centrist Starmer. When in office she championed legislation that expanded workers’ rights, backed minimum wage increases and called for higher public investment.

While publicly falling in line with Labour’s calls for fiscal restraint, media reports in May 2025, when she was still a minister, said she had argued for higher taxes, and since leaving government has called for “bold action” to shield Britons from the effects of the Iran war.

Rayner grew up in relative poverty on a social housing estate in the town of Stockport, near Manchester. A teenage mother, she worked as a care worker and trade union official before entering parliament in 2015.

She credits this background for giving her authentic insight into the struggles faced by the poorest Britons, and is regarded by many in Labour as a strong communicator whose background means she can reach parts of the party that Starmer – a Londoner and former human rights lawyer – cannot.

Ed Miliband, 56

Energy Minister Miliband is one of Starmer’s most senior cabinet ministers who has been linked to a return to lead the party after an earlier 2010-2015 stint in opposition. He has said that experience “inoculated” him against wanting to do it again.

He has been the main proponent in government of pursuing net zero energy policies.

He previously served in government from 2006 to 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and defeated both his brother David and Burnham in the 2010 leadership election, offering a more centre-left vision for the party than his centrist brother.

Shabana Mahmood, 45

A lawmaker since 2010, Mahmood has risen rapidly through the ministerial ranks and was promoted to home secretary in September after serving as justice minister. She is the first Muslim woman to hold either role.

Seen as on the right of the party, she has driven a tougher stance on immigration which she says is key to facing down the right-wing Reform UK party and addressing voters’ concerns on immigration.

However, critics have said her tough stance means Labour is losing the support of progressives who traditionally backed it to left-wing alternatives such as the Greens. She is also unpopular with the left wing of the party.

Al Carns, 46

Newly elected in 2024, junior defence minister Al Carns has been rumoured as an outside candidate who could prove popular among other first-time lawmakers who want a fresh voice.

He served in the Royal Marines and is an Afghanistan veteran who advised several Conservative defence ministers on military matters before coming into politics.

Last year he was part of a team that climbed Mount Everest in less than seven days trialling the use of xenon gas to help speed up acclimatisation.

Chinese emperors once prayed for bumper crops under the blue-tiled, triple-eaved roof of Beijing’s Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, in sacred rites affirming their mandate to rule.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will walk the same imperial ground within Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, as both leaders seek a different kind of harvest from a high-stakes summit.

For Xi, hosting Trump there offers a stage rich in messages about China’s endurance and civilisational depth. For Trump, the setting carries a more literal resonance: agriculture will be high on his list of priorities, with US farmers looking for bigger Chinese purchases of soybeans, other crops — and meat.

“As a Chinese leader, this is the perfect backdrop to show the depth of Chinese history and how long it is, how sophisticated it is,” said Lars Ulrik Thom, a Beijing-based historian and founder of historical walking tour company Beijing Postcards.

Trump is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday ahead of his meetings on Thursday and Friday. The two leaders are due to visit the Temple of Heaven on Thursday, according to the White House.

Trump heads to China with his ambitions blunted by court rulings on tariffs, narrowing his goals to a few deals on beans, beef and Boeing jets, and enlisting China’s help to resolve his unpopular Iran war, analysts say.

Xi could out all the stops for pomp-loving Trump

In 2017, Xi and his wife gave Trump and the first lady a rare private tour of the Forbidden City, the ancient home of China’s emperors.

Analysts are watching whether Xi, who enters the talks projecting more confidence than Trump, will once again pull out all the stops for the mercurial US leader known for his love of pomp and pageantry.

Located some 7km (4.35 miles) south of the Forbidden City, the temple was built in 1420 under the same Ming emperor responsible for the imperial palace construction.

Surrounded by ancient pine and cypress trees, it is today a popular tourist site and a park where Beijingers practice tai chi, play chess or dance.

During the dynastic rule, emperors would once a year process from the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven, with an entourage of thousands of men and elephant carriages, to perform a religious ceremony that affirmed their right to rule.

That right was not unconditional: poor harvests, famine or disorder could reflect poorly on an emperor’s standing.

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Temple’s best-known landmark, was rebuilt in the late 1800s with tall redwood imported from the US, said Thom.

US farmers want China to buy more of their harvest

After the tour, Trump will be looking to score bigger commitments from Xi on purchases of soybeans, grains and meat.

China is the top market for US farmers, taking about $24 billion of their goods in 2024 before Trump took office. Beijing has frozen much of that trade and scaled back its need for US supplies, using it as a powerful lever against Trump’s tariffs.

Soybean farmers will be watching how China fulfils last year’s commitment to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually until 2028. Bigger Chinese purchases could appease distressed US farmers, who are among Trump’s biggest electorate, ahead of November’s midterm elections.

For Xi, the venue offers more than imperial scenery.

“It’s a very good backdrop to telling Donald Trump and the world that China’s here and has been here for thousands of years,” said Thom.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump went on an extraordinary social media spree into the early hours of Tuesday, posting dozens of conspiracy theories and crude memes attacking his opponents.

The intense outburst on Truth Social came amid growing public scrutiny of the 79-year-old Republican’s health.

As Trump deals with the economically damaging impasse with Iran and prepares to fly later Tuesday for a summit in China, his attention was elsewhere in the nighttime flurry.

In a span of just three hours around midnight Monday, Trump posted over 50 times, almost exclusively re-sharing videos and screenshots from supporters’ accounts, plus AI-created memes.

Two posts called former Democratic president Barack Obama a “traitor” and a “DEMONIC FORCE.” Others called for Obama and other Trump critics to be arrested.

Multiple posts urging prosecution tagged Todd Blanche, a former Trump criminal defense lawyer who has been appointed acting US attorney general and is reportedly working to accelerate prosecutions of Trump critics.

Many of Trump’s posts reiterated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, including made-up assertions that voting machine manufacturers switched ballots cast for him to the actual winner, Democrat Joe Biden.

“The CIA knew what these machines were capable of and brushed it under the rug to control election outcomes,” read one post on his account.

He also shared at least two original posts signed “President DJT”: one cryptically saying the US was “going to talk” with Cuba and another – over 400 words long – defending his costly renovation project of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

In a recent Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll, 59% of respondents said they believed Trump lacked the mental capacity to lead the country, while 55% said he was not physically fit.

Trump, the oldest president ever elected to the presidency, insists he is in top shape.

“I feel the same as I did 50 years ago. It’s crazy,” he asserted on Monday.

The White House announced on Monday that the president would undergo a medical and dental examination on May 26 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, near Washington.

It will be his third such visit since returning to the White House in a year and a half.