America

Robin Ashenden

Why should Zelensky be grateful to Trump?

A consensus seems to be forming, in certain quarters, that the debacle at the White House meeting on Friday – which played out before an incredulous world – was in large part Volodymyr Zelensky’s fault. Aside from the Republican politicians racing to side with Donald Trump, there have been voices nearer home. Presenter of the Triggernometry podcast Konstantin Kisin, who initially sided with the Ukrainian leader, tweeted out after watching the entire meeting that ‘Zelensky decided to attack [American Vice President J.D.] Vance unnecessarily. He totally messed this up… I hope he can see sense, apologise and get a deal for his country. This was not smart.’  Jawad Iqbal, in these very pages,

James Heale James Heale

Priti Patel attacks Nigel Farage over Zelensky comments

During the early days of the Gaza crisis, there was an unofficial refrain doing the rounds in the Foreign Office: ‘Foreign policy doesn’t win votes – but it can lose them.’ In recent days, the same could be said of Ukraine’s peace negotiations. The drama between Presidents Trump and Zelensky which played out in the Oval Office on Friday horrified Westminster. Both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch were quick to signal their support for Zelensky, aware that – three years after the war with Russia began – public support for Ukraine remains rock solid. It poses a difficulty for Nigel Farage That poses a difficulty for Nigel Farage. The Reform

Jawad Iqbal

Keir Starmer has had his best week since becoming Prime Minister

Even Keir Starmer’s fiercest detractors (and there are a fair few) must concede that he has had a very good week on the international stage: the best by a long chalk since he entered Downing Street. The Prime Minister, derided by critics as a political plodder, lacking in ideas and charisma-free, is a leader transformed. The new Starmer is a man with a mission, imbued with the confidence to lead. This was very much in evidence when he met US President Donald Trump for talks in Washington earlier this week. Starmer approached the discussions in the manner of the barrister he used to be, carefully mastering his brief and solely focused on

Friday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How Starmer won over the Donald

14 min listen

Unbelievably, Keir Starmer arrives back from Washington today after a successful meeting with Donald Trump. In fact, it’s hard to see how it could have gone much better. Top of the list of victories: it looks like some headway was made in avoiding tariffs on the UK and, on Ukraine, the pair discussed the prime minister’s call for a security backstop for any deal. Starmer described that part of the talks as ‘productive’ and said that a ‘deal has to come first’. There will also be a second state visit for the President.  The greatest victory however is winning personal and effusive praise from the President. The Spectator’s sister magazine

Thursday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer’s press conference with Trump was a triumph

Keir Starmer could not have dreamed of a better press conference with Donald Trump. Much of its success was not down to luck, either: the Prime Minister has meticulously prepared for these talks both in terms of substance and (very important) superficialities such as flattering the President. But instead of appearing to be a sycophant who just says whatever Trump wants to hear, Starmer ended up looking as though he was the one in control of the relationship. The President came into the press conference telling journalists that Starmer is a ‘very tough negotiator, however I’m not sure I like that, but that’s OK’. It was exactly the kind of

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The case for climate humanism

28 min listen

Robert Bryce, an energy expert and author of The Question of Power, discusses the state of global energy, electric vehicles, and government policies both in the UK and America. Freddy and Robert look at how government subsidies and mandates have driven automakers toward unprofitable EV production, what is energy humanism, and how foreign interference has shaped climate policies over the past decade. 

Wednesday

Jawad Iqbal

There is reason behind Trump’s AI Gaza video

Donald Trump really knows how to wind up his political opponents. That has to be the only rational explanation behind his decision to share on social media a video – apparently AI-generated – of what a US-owned Gaza Strip could look like in the future. It is 35 seconds of unadulterated visual idiocy, veering from the bizarre to the senseless. Why do it? What is the point, exactly? The video starts with the territory in ruins after the war with Israel, with the caption ‘Gaza 2025… What’s next?’ The US president is shown sharing a cocktail, topless and poolside, with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. These are not flattering

Matthew Lynn

Will Trump’s ‘golden visas’ threaten Rachel Reeves’s tax plans?

Fed up with Rachel Reeves’s tax rises, with the calls for wealth and mansion taxes, and the loss of non-dom status? For $5 million (£3.95 million), there is now a very easy escape route. President Trump has just announced a ‘golden visa scheme’, allowing investors an easy path to American citizenship. That is aimed at attracting global entrepreneurs to the US. But it could also pose a real threat to the British economy. The UK depends on a small group of taxpayers to keep its huge state machine financed It is certainly a dramatic move. Golden visas that allow citizenship in return for investment have traditionally been restricted to a

Tuesday

John Keiger John Keiger

How Macron beat Starmer to Trump

Emmanuel Macron’s lightning visit to the White House was a tour de force of French diplomatic energy, skill and bravado. Whether Macron has managed to convince Donald Trump of the need to involve Kyiv and Europe in US-Russian negotiations on the war in Ukraine will become clear in the next fortnight. But what it demonstrated forcefully was the striking humiliation of the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the slothful incompetence of diplomacy in London and Washington. It is a stark warning of how President Macron and the EU will run rings round the Labour government and its ‘reset’ with Brussels. The Labour government announced some two weeks ago a Keir Starmer visit

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

Why Brits keep getting a tongue lashing from Team Trump

So much for the Special Relationship. Since Donald Trump took office in January, Brits have been taking quite a tongue-lashing from the US president’s team. Keir Starmer, who touches down in Washington on Thursday to meet Trump, has been nicknamed “two-tier Keir” by the president’s consigliere Elon Musk over his handling of grooming gangs. JD Vance, the vice president, also seems to have it in for Brits: Vance has mocked Rory Stewart (not something we need help with but thanks anyway, Veep); ‘The problem with Rory and people like him,’ wrote Vance, ‘is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130’. Vance spluttered

Thursday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Trump right about Ukraine?

24 min listen

Donald Trump attacked the Ukrainian President overnight, describing him as a ‘dictator’ and saying he’s done a ‘terrible job.’ In return, Zelensky has accused Trump of ‘living in a disinformation space.’ The West has invested a huge amount of capital in the fight against Russia – and failed to secure peace. Is Trump using these offensive and odious methods in order to secure an end to the conflict? Is he the only person with the power to do so? Freddy Gray discusses with The Spectator’s Russia correspondent Owen Matthews, and Sergey Radchenko, historian and author.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The cruellest thing about Trump vs Zelensky? Trump’s right

And just like that, we are back in 2017. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, is posting ridiculous hyperbole on his socials and mouthing off from Mar-a-Lago, as he always has. In the last 24 hours, however, the global political and media classes have gone back to gnashing their teeth and wailing in the way they did in Trump’s first term. It’s disgraceful! It’s sub-literate! He’s Vladimir Putin’s puppet! He’s reckless and utterly out of control! And that, of course, is the point. Trump’s re-election proved that he is no aberration, so in 2025 the liberal, western world order has tried to come to terms with him. Western

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Putin is watching Trump attack Zelensky with glee

Britain might not even be close to putting boots on the ground, but proposals by Keir Starmer to send UK troops to Ukraine have already been rejected by the Kremlin. Put forward by the Prime Minister as part of a plan to send a 30,000-strong European peace-keeping force to the country in the event of a ceasefire with Russia, this idea is ‘unacceptable’, the Kremlin has said. Reacting to plans reportedly being prepared by Prime Minister Keir Starmer with leaders on the continent (some of whom have already refused to involve their countries in), Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said such a proposal was ‘a matter of concern’ as it would

Owen Matthews

The Trump-Zelensky train wreck will cost Ukraine dearly

Where did it all go wrong between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky? Just a week ago, Zelensky was speaking of his ‘respect’ and ‘friendship’ for Trump and of his hope that the new US administration would ‘stand by Ukraine … to make a just and lasting peace’. Yet in the course of just 24 hours, the Trump-Zelensky relationship spiralled into a nose-dive before definitively crashing and burning with a devastatingly vicious post by the US President on his Truth Social media platform. In an incoherent and error-filled statement, Trump blasted Zelensky as ‘a dictator without elections’, a ‘modestly successful comedian’ who had ‘talked the United States of America into spending

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Does Trump want to strike an Arctic oil deal with Putin?

The decision by Donald Trump to hold peace talks with Russia on ending the Ukraine war – without Ukraine actually being present – is starting to look even more disgraceful. It transpires that the war was not the only item on the agenda in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. A significant part of the day’s business seems to have been discussing oil deals in the Arctic. According to Kirill Dmitriev, who heads the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Russian and US delegations took the opportunity to talk about reviving joint exploratory operations such as that between Rosneft and Exxon Mobil, which was called off in 2018 following the imposition of sanctions

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

J.D. Vance didn’t go far enough on Europe

In January last year the European Union revealed that it had dreamed up a ‘secret plan’ to sabotage the economy of one of its member states. Brussels was growing impatient with the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had shown the temerity to dissent from EU orthodoxy on a number of issues. In this particular case it was Orban’s continued use of the veto to block a £50 billion aid package to Ukraine that had angered the bureaucrats and liberal politicians. According to the Financial Times, the EU’s strategy in response would involve targeting Hungary’s economy, weakening its currency and reducing investor confidence. Some £20 billion of funding for Hungary

Wednesday

Matthew Lynn

Is X still worth £38 billion? Elon Musk thinks so

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, his many critics gleefully predicted a catastrophe. We were told that everyone would quit the site for its rivals, such as Bluesky and Mastodon. The rebranding to X made Musk the object of ridicule. Musk was warned that he was unlikely to see a return on the $44 billion (£38.1billion) he had splashed out on the site. But hold on: today brings news that Musk is attempting to raise extra cash for his site at the same valuation as what he bought it for. Musk’s critics will no doubt say he is deluded. But his business acumen speaks for itself: this is a

Patrick West

Why is Tom Hanks mocking Trump supporters?

We have long become accustomed to actors holding and sharing their progressive political views. So when David Tennant opened the Bafta awards on Sunday with a dig at Donald Trump, repeating the line that the American President is a dangerous moron, many people were annoyed, but few were surprised. Mechanically reciting fashionable mantras is what actors do, and Tennant, hitherto known for his vocal support for the trans movement, is no exception. The entire film Team America: World Police (2004) was founded on this reality about thespians.  When his counterpart on the other side of the Atlantic, Tom Hanks, did similarly at the weekend, there was, however, genuine shock. Appearing on

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Was ‘free trade’ really working?

29 min listen

Oren Cass, founder and chief economist of think-tank American Compass, sits down with Freddy Gray at the ARC conference in London. They react to the announcement by President Trump over the weekend of reciprocal tariffs: the decision by the US to match import duties levied by other countries.  What’s the strategy behind Trump’s decision? And what could the consequences be for American companies and for global trade? They also discuss the broad political consensus behind free trade in the US since the 1990s. Given the ‘lived reality’ that faced many American investors and companies – for example competing with Chinese Electric Vehicles – was the free trade really working anyway?

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Vance criticises Britain: is this a new era for free speech?

15 min listen

The fallout continues from US vice-president J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. Criticising Europe over what he sees as the retreat of free speech, he singled out the case of Adam Smith-Connor in the UK as something that worries him about the direction that Britain is heading in. Smith-Connor was arrested in 2022 and prosecuted for breaching an abortion buffer-zone in Bournemouth. Freddy Gray speaks to Paul Coleman at the ARC conference in London. Paul is executive director of ADF International, a faith-based legal advocacy organisation that has been advocating for Smith-Connor. What is the truth behind abortion buffer-zones? Is this part of a wider ‘censorship industrial complex’?