Tuesday briefing: Why Ireland bucked the trend for punishing incumbent governments

In today's newsletter: After a general election, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail look set to retain power - how have two main, centre-right parties avoided the kicking seen elsewhere?

Good morning. All over the western world, incumbent governments have been given a kicking over the cost of living crisis. But in the Irish election, where the counting of results concluded yesterday, it's a very different story.

Not long ago, Sinn Fein appeared on course to win the popular vote and become the leading party in a new coalition, but its support fell away badly earlier this year. Instead, Ireland's traditionally dominant parties of the centre-right, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, appear to have it sown up again.

Cybercrime | The UK is underestimating the severity of the online threat it faces from hostile states and criminal gangs, the country's cybersecurity chief will warn on Tuesday. Richard Horne, the head of GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre, will cite a trebling of severe" incidents amid Russian and Chinese aggression.

Foreign policy | Keir Starmer has utterly rejected" the idea that the UK must choose between the United States and Europe when Donald Trump comes to power. In a major foreign policy speech in London, Starmer said the UK would never turn away" from the US but would continue to reset" the relationship with Europe.

US news | Donald Trump seized on Hunter Biden's pardon to drop one of his strongest hints yet that he intends to grant clemency to at least some of the instigators and participants of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by a mob trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

Syria | Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have crossed into eastern Syria in an attempt to shore up struggling forces loyal to Damascus. They are battling an insurgency that has swept much of the country's north-west as Islamist militants seized control of Aleppo.

Television | Gregg Wallace has apologised for dismissing those who have accused him of inappropriate behaviour as middle-class women of a certain age". His remarks came after No 10 condemned his initial remarks as misogynistic", and as pressure mounted on the BBC to stop broadcasting Wallace's programmes.

Migration is a really difficult issue for them. Sinn Fein are unusual in that they are a leftwing nationalist party. Typically, nationalist parties tend to be on the right and nativist ... happy to redistribute money but only to people of a given nationality. Sinn Fein, on the other hand, have quite a socialist economic agenda, which is at odds with that.