Yvette Cooper

Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper: ‘Making decisions based on what the US do or say doesn’t feel like sensible foreign policy’

Firing Peter Mandelson, convening with Marco Rubio – then handling the fallout of conflict in the Middle East… it’s been a busy time for the secretary of state, and our writer has had a ringside seat

Sat 14 Mar 2026 06.00 GMT

Before Yvette Cooper joins me in a plush side room at the Foreign Office, an aide comes in and draws the heavy curtains. Outside is Horse Guards Parade. I can see a strip of Downing Street, a patch of the No 10 garden, daffodils in bloom. I say that it’s a shame to block the light on such a beautiful spring afternoon. The aide coughs, embarrassed, and explains that it’s actually for security.

So that people can’t see in?

“Um, no. These are anti-shrapnel curtains.”

The joint US-Israeli bombardment of Iran is ongoing and the mood here is solemn. News sites show oil facilities and desalination plants ablaze in both Iran and Gulf states. Black clouds rise from residential areas across Lebanon, where Israel say they are striking the militant group Hezbollah. President Masoud Pezeshkian’s apology to the Gulf states – Oman, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia – for firing more than 2,000 retaliatory Iranian drones and missiles, was undermined by continued bombardment and indicated a split in the country’s leadership. At the time of writing, more than 1,800 people have been killed across the region, including 175 schoolgirls and staff in Minab, south Iran, which a New York Times investigation suggests was a US precision strike.

…read the full article in The Guardian