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Welcome back. Prior to the holidays, the Labour leader had planned to use the initial days back after the parliamentary break to highlight ministers' actions to reduce the living expenses. He outlined this case yesterday in a piece where he referenced steps including plans to reduce utility costs. However, Starmer’s economic media push has been blown out of the headlines by the former US president, and his distinct strategy to ensuring his voters receive cheap energy.

No one in mainstream UK politics seems particularly eager on embracing the Trump approach – which is probably good news for other nations.

But there is an intense debate ongoing about what the UK government should be prepared to say about Trump’s decision to abduct the Venezuelan president, and install a successor with someone anticipated to be more cooperative with American interests, particularly in relation to the country’s oil industry.

Keir Starmer has declined to censure the American intervention, and the administration has avoided questions about whether or not it considered what happened as legal. Recently, European Union members except one nation issued a collective declaration which, while not explicitly condemning, did stress the value of global rules, and by implication accuse Trump of disregarding it. It said:

The European Union call for calm and restraint by all actors, to avoid a worsening and to ensure a peaceful solution to the crisis.

The Union recalls that, under any conditions, the principles of the rules-based order and the UN Charter must be upheld. Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have a particular responsibility to defend those standards, as a pillar of the global security framework.

Mike Tapp, was doing an series of media appearances this morning and, when asked if Starmer was refusing to say the Maduro extradition broke global statutes because he was worried of antagonising Trump, Tapp replied:

Not at all. The British government are and will remain in conversations with the Americans. And it’s for the United States to lay out the legal basis for the steps that they’ve taken. And we’re also consulting with close allies looking at the juridical dimension of this.

But last night, in an appearance on the BBC, Emily Thornberry (and a former shadow attorney general), said she was very concerned about the way Trump seems to think, like the Russian leader and China’s Xi Jinping, that he could do what he wanted in his sphere of influence.

Questioned about Starmer declining to say that Trump was in breach of international law, she said, because the PM was in office, he had to weigh up “a number of considerations”. But she was in a separate situation because she was not a government member, she said. She added:

In the end there is no escaping the fact. This is an unlawful move.

[Starmer] may well want to hear what the justification is from the American government. I can get in front of us and say I literally think of anything that could be a valid excuse.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: The Scottish first minister, gives a address in Glasgow. The Scottish opposition leader, and Scottish Tory leader, are also giving speeches, at mid-morning and lunchtime in turn. All the party heads are gearing up to the Scottish parliament vote in May.

Morning: Keir Starmer is on a tour in Berkshire where he is due to make comments to the media.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: The home secretary, takes queries in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: The foreign secretary, is anticipated to give a update to MPs about Venezuela.