The government will underwrite a £1.5bn loan guarantee to Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) after a mass cyber attack forced a shutdown.

JLR suspended production at its UK factories following the attack on 31 August. The shutdown is expected to last until 1 October, leaving the largest UK carmaker’s suppliers in limbo.

The loan is expected to give suppliers some certainty amid the continued shutdown, as the £1.5bn will help bolster JLR’s cash reserves as it pays back companies in its supply chain.

The government will give its backing to the loan through the Export Development Guarantee (EDG), a financial support mechanism aimed at helping British companies that sell their goods overseas.

The £1.5bn loan, from a commercial bank, will be paid back over five years.

“Following our decisive action, this loan guarantee will help support the supply chain and protect skilled jobs in the West Midlands, Merseyside and throughout the UK,” Business Secretary Peter Kyle said.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves added: “Jaguar Land Rover is an iconic British company which employs tens of thousands of people – a jewel in the crown of our economy.

“Today we are protecting thousands of those jobs with up to £1.5bn in additional private finance, helping them support their supply chain and protect a vital part of the British car industry.”

As a result of the attack, production was halted across the car-making supply chain, with thousands of staff off work.

More than 33,000 people work directly for JLR in the UK, many of them on assembly lines in the West Midlands, the largest of which is in Solihull, and a plant at Halewood on Merseyside.

An estimated 200,000 more are employed by several hundred companies in the supply chain, who have faced business interruption with their largest client out of action.

Ministers have had daily contact with JLR and cyber experts following the attack as the company attempts to restart production at its UK factories.

Unions and politicians have warned that small suppliers producing parts for JLR could collapse as a result of the shutdown unless they receive urgent financial support.

This week, Mr Kyle met workers and bosses at Webasto, which makes sunroofs for JLR.

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The brand has the largest supply chain in the UK automotive sector, which employs around 120,000 people and is largely made up of small and medium-sized businesses.

The government’s promise of underwriting the JLR loan has been praised by the Unite union, whose general secretary Sharon Graham said the loan was “an important first step and demonstrates that the government has listened to the concerns raised in meetings with Unite over recent days”.

She added: “This is exactly what the government should be doing, taking action to protect jobs.

“The money provided must now be used to ensure job guarantees and to also protect skills and pay in JLR and its supply chain.”

It was one sentence among the many words Donald Trump spoke this week that caught my attention.

Midway through a jaw-dropping news conference where he sensationally claimed to have “found an answer on autism”, he said: “Bobby (Kennedy) wants to be very careful with what he says, but I’m not so careful with what I say.”

The US president has gone from pushing the envelope to completely unfiltered.

Last Sunday, moments after Charlie Kirk‘s widow Erika had publicly forgiven her husband’s killer, Mr Trump told the congregation at his memorial service that he “hates his opponents”.

Twenty-four hours later, he drew fierce rebuke from medical experts by linking the use of Tylenol (paracetamol) during pregnancy to increased risk of autism.

The president treats professional disapproval not as a liability but as evidence of authenticity, fuelling the aura that he is a challenger of conventions.

On Tuesday, he went to the United Nations, where his frustrations over a stalled escalator and teleprompter failure were the prelude to the most combative address.

“I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell,” he told his audience, deriding Europe’s approach to immigration as a “failed experiment of open borders”.

Then came a U-turn on Ukraine, suggesting the country could win back all the land it has lost to Russia.

Most politicians would be punished for inconsistency, but Mr Trump recasts this as strategic genius – framing himself as dictating the terms.

It is hard to keep track when his expressed hopes for peace in Ukraine and Gaza are peppered with social media posts condemning the return of Jimmy Kimmel to late-night television.

Perhaps most striking of all is his reaction to the indictment of James Comey, the FBI director he fired during his first term.

In theory, this should raise questions about the president’s past conflicts with law enforcement, but he frames it as vindication, proof that his enemies fall while he survives.

Mr Trump has spent much of his political career cultivating an image of a man above the normal consequences of politics, law or diplomacy, but he appears to feel more invincible than ever.

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From funerals to world summits, world peace to public health, he projects the same image: rules are for others.

It is the politics of the untouchable.