Donald Trump has claimed that the UK’s two aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, are little better than “toys”. The president hit out as he spoke on camera at the start of a cabinet meeting in the White House. In a rambling address, that covered a range of subjects, Trump revived his complaint about the UK not offering military help with the Iran war. He said that Nato had done “absolutely nothing” to support the US and he went on: Now they all want to help. When they’re annihilated, the other side is annihilated, they said ‘we’d love to send ships’. Actually made a statement, a couple of them, that ‘we want to get involved when the war is over’. No, it’s supposed to get involved with the war’s beginning, or even before it begins. We had the UK say that ‘we’ll send’ – this is three weeks ago – ‘we’ll send our aircraft carriers’, which aren’t the best aircraft carriers by the way. They’re toys compared to what we have. But ‘we’ll send our aircraft carrier when the war is over’. I said ‘oh that’s wonderful, thank you very much. Don’t bother. We don’t need it’. This is not the first time Trump has claimed that the UK has offered to send aircraft carriers to the Gulf. Downing Street has said this is not true. On Monday, asked about Trump’s repeated insults about the UK recently, Starmer said he thought they were designed to put pressure on him. He told MPs that he had chosen to respond just by focusing on doing his job and acting in the national interest.Donald Trump has dismissed British warships as “toys” in his latest jibe at Nato countries for their lack of involvement in the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Speaking at the White House on Thursday, he claimed he had told the UK: “Don’t bother, we don’t need it.” The SNP, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives have all launched their campaigns for the Holyrood election. Keir Starmer has said he will tackle “addictive features” in social media amid increasing signs the UK government is preparing to crack down on risks to children after a US court verdict that held Meta and YouTube responsible for harms caused by designing addictive technology. Downing Street has said it is “categorically untrue” to suggest that there was a link between Morgan McSweeney’s phone being stolen and the humble address motion passed by MPs saying messages with Peter Mandelson would have to be exchanged. (See 12.28pm.) The UK government has said it will ban trail hunting, the rural sport that police and animal rights activists have long accused of being a “smokescreen” for illegal foxhunting. The government has announced the formal start of the promised official inquiry into the violent policing at the Orgreave coking plant during the 1984-85 miners’ strike and the discredited prosecutions of 95 men that followed.