Week two of the new Labour government begins and Sir Keir Starmer is finding foreign affairs taking up the lion’s share of his attention.

His first task as prime minister was travelling to the Nato summit in Washington DC, where he, in common with other world leaders, was pressed into commenting on President Biden’s fitness for office. (“On really good form” was Sir Keir’s assessment.)

He was hardly back in Downing Street when news came of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Sir Keir may not have been familiar with the town of Butler, Pennsylvania before yesterday, but like the rest of the world he knows it now.

What happened there at 18.11 local time could have a profound impact not just on the 2024 race for the White House, but on politics in general, in the US and other democracies.

Some effects will take longer to pinpoint than others, but time and news cycles wait for no broadcaster. With the details still emerging it fell to the Sunday shows, here and later in the US, to take a first pass at what the events in Pennsylvania might mean.

The UK shows had planned to take a relatively sedate look at the King’s speech on Wednesday. Instead of abandoning this entirely, the broadcasters adopted a make do and mix strategy that blended the two.

It did not always work, as when BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg finished the show with a chat about the Euro 2024 final. The presenter’s “time for something completely different” link only made the juxtaposition seem more Pythonesque.

On the BBC1 show’s panel of commentators was a new MP who knew only too well the terrible effects of political violence. Kim Leadbeater, the sister of murdered MP Jo Cox, said the attack on Mr Trump raised questions about “what a civilised democracy looks like”.

Someone else making their debut as an MP on the Sunday shows, though not as an interviewee, was Nigel Farage. The Reform UK leader said he will travel to the US for the 2024 Republican National Convention this week as a “show of friendly solidarity” with Mr Trump.

The new MP for Clacton said he had a drink thrown at him “as recently as last Wednesday”. He was astonished, he told Sky News’s Trevor Philips on Sunday, that more MPs were not attacked.

“That is how unpleasant so much of the narrative is,” he said. “It’s become deeply personal and I’m afraid – and a lot of the public hate this – but if you want people to stand for public office, we’re going to have to protect them properly.”

On Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Farage said the problem was not confined to social media.

“There are some things that are said on social media that aren’t acceptable but there is also a mainstream media narrative and I’m afraid it’s very, very one-sided – the BBC is a part of this, it’s happening in this country.”

He added that “liberal intolerance” was increasingly a part of the problem.

“The narrative that is put out there about Trump by these liberals that oppose him is so nasty, so unpleasant, that I think it almost encourages this type of behaviour.”

Mr Farage, who had milkshake and wet cement thrown at him during the general election campaign, said Donald Trump and politicians in the UK now had to balance security with meeting voters.

“The problem with this is, how do you go out and campaign? Think of John Major 30 years ago, a soap box in market squares, you couldn’t do that today.”

At just before 5am Washington DC time, Kuenssberg spoke live to the American pollster and political consultant, Frank Luntz.

According to Luntz, the assassination attempt will have an impact not on who people support but on their likelihood of getting out and voting.

“I think you are going to see 1-2% addition to Trump’s vote, particularly in the state that this happened, Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, because every Trump voter in Pennsylvania is going to participate,” he said.

“The intensity of that vote we’ve probably never seen anything like it, and that, in itself, could make a difference in November.”

America had not experienced this kind of violence since 1981 when Ronald Reagan was shot, he said. “It does not bode well for the country.”

Asked who was responsible for the climate that had been created, Luntz replied “All of us”.

“There are people on the left, and on the right, there are too many people in America looking for the negative, the opposition, trying to find the best line that will sound great as a soundbite, and then the media reports it.”

A look at social media throughout the day showed no coming together of opposing sides. If anything positions were becoming more entrenched, with many taking issue with Nigel Farage’s comments about “liberals”.

In the US, the focus was more on how the assassination attempt had unfolded than any deeper impact on democracy. There were differences of opinion on the actions of secret service agents. To some it was a textbook response, to others it looked slow and chaotic. More concerning still were reports that witnesses had tried to alert agents to the gunman’s presence before shots were fired.

Donald Trump was already ahead of Joe Biden in the polls before the events in Butler. He now heads to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (another battleground state), to formally accept his party’s nomination. A hero to the faithful before, his welcome now will raise the roof.

It had been thought the most newsworthy event this week in Milwaukee would be Mr Trump’s naming of his preferred vice-president. Now the attention will be on the former president’s acceptance speech, delivered in prime-time, which he will use to boost his campaign, and his fundraising, to the next level.

“Fight, fight, fight” were his words to supporters as he left the stage in Pennsylvania, but later he called on Americans to “stand united”. Which Donald Trump will emerge the strongest from this weekend’s harrowing events? America and the rest of the world waits to find out.