World

Thursday

Nicholas Farrell

My run-in with airport security

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna ‘Welcome back, signore!’ said the woman in uniform at the all-seeing security doorway which passengers must walk through to be allowed on a plane, as if it were the Holy Door of St Peter. I was about to fly from Rimini on the Adriatic coast, not far south of my home, to Gatwick for a church service in remembrance of my father who had died two days short of his 100th birthday in July. I was with three of my six children and felt flattered, especially in front of them, to be remembered, proudly and deservedly famous at the Aeroporto Internazionale di Rimini e San Marino Federico

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

What is the West without the Jews?

To the studio! Podcasts, if you ask me, are the one good thing to have come out of the digital revolution. My new one, The Brink, which I present with hulking former Parachute Regiment officer Andrew Fox, has hosted three guests so far: American media supremo Bari Weiss, former Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant and Mossad spymaster Yossi Cohen. What are we? Well, we’re not Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. The highlights? Weiss observing that society is not facing a crisis of trust but of trustworthiness: ‘You should not trust something that’s not worthy of your trust.’ Then there was Gallant’s message to the West: ‘We all think war is

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Synagogue attack, pro-Palestine protests and a new Archbishop of Canterbury

Home Two men at a synagogue at Heaton Park in Manchester were killed on Yom Kippur when Jihad al-Shamie, 35, drove a car at bystanders and went on the attack with a knife. He was a British citizen of Syrian descent, on bail after being arrested on suspicion of rape. He was bravely prevented by those present from breaking into the main building. Police shot him dead; they also accidentally shot a worshipper who died, and wounded another. Six people were arrested on suspicion of terrorist offences. Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, appealed for a pause in pro-Palestinian protests but police arrested 488 people around Trafalgar Square demonstrating on Saturday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

The Spectator state of mind

It is party time in New York as we toast the launch of The Spectator’s swish new office on Fifth Avenue. The building, an art deco number originally designed by George F. Pelham, thrusts skywards, just a few blocks from the Empire State Building – and we’re right at the top. The Spectator State of Mind. The office is a work in progress: walls half-demolished, wires hanging out, plaster on show. Yet even in its unfinished state, it looks beautiful. We spend the day getting the place in shape for our ‘hard hat party’, improvising with gaffer tape and a few well-placed lamps to conjure up a vibe. I lay

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

How Germany is preparing for war

Hamburg What would happen if Russia was planning an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – and the threat was sufficiently great that Nato felt the need to send troops east across Europe to face off against Moscow? This was the scenario the German Bundeswehr spent several days rehearsing last month, working out how the army would transport its soldiers towards Nato’s eastern flank in the event of conflict in the Baltics. For three days, the port city of Hamburg played host to the exercise Red Storm Bravo: 500 soldiers, along with roughly 300 members of the emergency services and other civilian organisations, took part – the largest military exercise

Wednesday

Arnout Nuijt

Belgium has joined the battle against the ECHR

Belgium’s federal Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, is not your average European leader. A conservative intellectual with a sharp tongue and a taste for historical analogy, he is perhaps the only European statesman to cite Edmund Burke more readily than Brussels regulations. A long-serving mayor of Antwerp – one of Europe’s great port cities – and leader of the moderate nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), De Wever stitched together a national coalition after topping the 2024 federal elections. The alliance includes both centre-right and centre-left parties, drawn from both of Belgium’s major linguistic blocs – no small feat in a country that barely speaks to itself. De Wever brings to

Luke Coppen

Islam and the Bible are fuelling France’s ‘baptism boom’

You have probably heard that something extraordinary is happening in the Catholic Church in France. The French bishops’ conference announced in April that more than 10,000 adults were due to be baptised in 2025 – a 45 per cent increase on the year before. France is seeing what the media call a ‘boom biblique’: a rapid rise in sales of the Bible It’s not just adult baptisms that are booming. A record 19,000 people, many young, attended this year’s Paris to Chartres pilgrimage. An unprecedented 13,500 high school students took part in the 2025 Lourdes FRAT pilgrimage, a major annual youth event. The country is also seeing what French media call a ‘boom biblique’: a rapid rise in

Tuesday

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

The ghost of October 7 haunts one Israeli kibbutz

A little over two months ago, I stood in the fallow murderscape of the Nir Oz kibbutz facing towards the barbed border fence with Gaza. Once, this village in southern Israel was a thriving community of 400 Jewish people, known for their left-wing ideologies and progressive ideals. But, two years ago on this very day, 500 Hamas terrorists smashed holes in the security wall, poured into Israel and stormed this quiet kibbutz. Nir Oz suffered the worst violence per capita of any village in the country that day, with a quarter of its population either slaughtered or taken hostage. Now only burned and looted cottages remain in this deserted memorial

James Tidmarsh

Could Marine Le Pen save Macron’s presidency?

Emmanuel Macron is cornered, his presidency unravelling under relentless pressure. From left and right, there are demands to dissolve the National Assembly or for Macron himself to resign. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s resignation after just 27 days has shattered Macrons fragile coalition. The man who once straddled France’s political divide now faces its united wrath. Yet, in a cruel irony, Macron’s survival may hinge on his nemesis, Marine Le Pen. By calling an election and letting her National Rally form a government, Macron could cling to the Élysée, his power gutted but his title intact, saved by the National Rally he vowed to destroy. France’s Fifth Republic, designed for strong

Angela Epstein

The case for staying put: why this Jew isn't leaving Britain

Is it time for the wandering Jews to once again pack up and go? It’s a question that has been troubling communities of the Diaspora – especially in this country – ever since the atrocities of October 7th unleashed, in the words of the Chief Rabbi, unrelenting waves of hatred against our people. How much more of a warning did we need? Sometimes we muse in the abstract. Idling around the Friday night dinner table over a fragrant bowl of chicken soup and wondering if this is the time for ‘the Exile’. At others, the tone hardens. Not least on strident Facebook feeds where the gathering storm clouds of prewar Germany are invoked

Jonathan Spyer

What Israel has learned from two years of war

Today marks two years of Israel’s Gaza war. The current conflict is perhaps now close to conclusion, depending on the negotiations in Egypt over President Trump’s peace plan. It is already the longest war that the Jewish state has fought since its establishment in 1948. It isn’t the bloodiest conflict Israel has been involved in, though it’s getting up there. Six thousand, three hundred Israelis were killed in the 1948 war. Two thousand, six hundred died in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Right now, the current war has taken the lives of just over 1,980 Israelis. The war and its trajectory have perhaps above all else revealed the very narrow

Monday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Sébastien Lecornu's exit is a humiliation for France – and for Macron

In a sensational development, Sébastien Lecornu has resigned as prime minister of France. His departure, after 27 days in office, makes the 39-year-old the shortest reigning premier of the Fifth Republic. Lecornu’s resignation is a humiliation for him, for France and for Emmanuel Macron. The president has now worked his way through seven prime ministers in eight years, a Fifth Republic record he shares with Francois Mitterrand. He, however, presided over France for fourteen years. The catalyst for Lecornu’s departure was the new government he unveiled on Sunday evening The catalyst for Lecornu’s departure was the new government he unveiled on Sunday evening. He has promised a ‘break’ with Macron’s

Lee Cohen

Britain's Jews must stay and fight

Britain once prided itself on being different from France, Belgium and Germany, where Jewish blood was repeatedly spilled on European streets. Now the same contagion has arrived in your green-but-less-pleasant-land. Britain was never free of prejudice, but unlike Europe, its anti-Semitism never captured a major party or defined the state – until our times. The Manchester attack was not merely an assault on Jews. It was an assault on Britain’s soul I write as an American of Jewish heritage, and a lifelong champion of Britain – the nation that turned liberty into law, and faith into citizenship. I write to offer a warning to Britain’s Jewish community: Don’t flee your

Sunday

Colin Freeman

The Brits who fought in Ukraine deserve to be remembered

Last week, a West End arts venue hosted ‘Indomitable Ukraine’, a war artefacts exhibition with everything from prosthetic legs to captured Russian battle plans. It was put on by the War Museum of Ukraine and had an added poignancy for British audiences. On a black memorial board was a list of nearly 40 names of British citizens who have died while serving with Ukraine’s International Legion – or, as the memorial puts it: ‘defending Ukraine against Russia’s aggression.’ As things currently stand, there are no plans for any permanent British memorial to those who have fought for Ukraine Families of the fallen were invited to a special showing of the

Saturday

Nicholas Farrell

My Italian family believe Meloni is complicit in genocide

I would like to ask readers for help. My Italian wife and our six children, aged 10 to 22, believe that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza and that Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is complicit in this genocide. I do not. What should I tell them? Once again, I am forced to remember how precious truth is – yet how difficult it is to demonstrate. Also, how easy it is to convince people that an untruth is the truth. And yet, at the same time, how easy it is to doubt the truth when all around you are telling you it is an untruth – especially if

Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes

German reunification never really happened

It’s not easy for Germany to celebrate itself. But on Friday, the country tried. At the official celebration festivities for the Day of German Unity, the city of Saarbrucken near the French border hosted musicians, breakdancers, acrobats, magicians, and oddly, two actors dressed as a ‘talking sofa’ to entertain visitors. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the official head of state of the Federal Republic, spoke, alongside Chancellor Friedrich Merz. French President Emmanuel Macron also took part, to underscore the European dimension of Germany’s reunification. Notably, Angela Merkel, the only chancellor born in East Germany, and Joachim Gauck, the only federal president from the former communist ‘new states’, were not present – absences that highlight how Germany is

Friday

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

What can we expect from the first female Archbishop of Canterbury?

19 min listen

Dame Sarah Mullally has been announced as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Previously the Bishop of London, she becomes the first woman to lead the Church in its almost 500 year history. She also had a 40 year career as a professional nurse, rising to be the most senior nurse in England and Wales. The Rev’d Marcus Walker, rector at St Bartholemew the Great in the City of London, joins Damian Thompson to react to the news – what can we expect from her leadership? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Owen Matthews

The ‘shadow fleet’ tanker raid was pure theatre

The news footage was satisfyingly reminiscent of Mission: Impossible. Masked French commandoes swarmed up the side of the rusty oil tanker Boracay, assault rifles drawn, and commenced their search for evidence the vessel had been responsible for launching Russian drones at Danish airports. The captain and first officer – both Chinese nationals – were taken into custody. France’s president Emmanuel Macron could not confirm that the Boracay was responsible for the drone attacks – but did make it clear that stopping the vessel off the coast of St Nazaire was intended as ‘a step moving towards a policy of obstruction of suspicious ships in our waters that are involved in

Robert King

What was Jeremy Corbyn doing in South Africa?

Jeremy Corbyn has spent a lifetime attaching himself to lost causes abroad and failed movements at home. Now, as the still-unnamed ‘Your Party’ continues to tear itself apart, Corbyn quietly slipped away from the domestic drama to South Africa and neighbouring Namibia, where he has been doing what he does best: surrounding himself with trade unionists, pro-Palestinian activists and any podcaster willing to lend him a microphone. For Corbyn, South Africa has long been a stage on which to project his political fantasies For Corbyn, South Africa has long been a stage on which to project his political fantasies. In the 1980s he was a fixture of the anti-Apartheid movement

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Japan's Asahi cyber attack is a national embarrassment

Could Japan be about to run out of beer? Or at least of one of its favourite brands Asahi, whose ‘Super Dry’ is the number one best seller in this nation of hop heads? This is the alarming and looming prospect in the country after a cyber attack on Asahi forced the company to close its production facilities. There are rumours of only a few days’ supply left in the convenience stores and izakayas (Japanese style pubs). If true, and if Asahi can’t solve the problem quickly, panic buying is a distinct possibility in a country with a per capita consumption of 34.5 litres a year. Then, with no indication