World

Friday

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Keir Starmer was a fool to ever tie himself to Peter Mandelson

There is a unique, and bitter, flavour to the corruption of the men of the 1990s. Peter Mandelson – who was yesterday sacked as UK ambassador to Washington – Tony Blair, and the former German and US leaders Gerhard Schroeder and Bill Clinton came from the left, and offered a hard but plausible message to their supporters. The right had monopolised power under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, they said. The only way to win in the late 20th century was for Labour in the UK, the Democrats in the US, and the Social Democrats in Germany to abandon their old notions of standing up to the bosses on behalf of the

Thursday

Tim Shipman

Prince of Darkness sacked (again)

22 min listen

Another week, another departure. Conservative MP Neil O’Brien – who serves in the shadow cabinet as minister for policy renewal and development – was granted an urgent question in Parliament this morning, to question the government about Peter Mandelson. Then the news broke that Lord Mandelson had been sacked by Keir Starmer following further disclosures about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Neil joins Tim Shipman and James Heale to discuss the latest developments and also the questions that still remain: what did they know about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein; if they didn’t know, why didn’t they know; and will the government be forced to release their vetting files on Mandelson’s

James Heale James Heale

Lord Mandelson sacked as US ambassador

Peter Mandelson has been sacked as British Ambassador to the United States after further revelations emerged about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer dismissed Mandelson less than 24 hours after insisting: ‘I have confidence in him’. Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told the House of Commons this morning that Mandelson was dismissed ‘in light of additional information’. Mandelson has now become the first public figure in modern British history to have been forced out office for three different scandals across four different decades. It follows two days of controversy after emails between Mandelson and the paedophile financier were published. In one letter, he called Epstein his

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The killing of Charlie Kirk is an assault on America itself

He was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Freedom’. A one-word rallying cry emblazoned in black across his chest. It was his core belief: that liberty, especially the liberty to speak, is preferable to tyranny. Then, following the crack of gunfire, that word was stained red with blood. We’ve heard of blood being spilt for freedom: here it was for real. Not a metaphor, not an analogy: the literal drenching of liberty with the blood of a young man who devoted his life to fighting for it. This is America’s Charlie Hebdo moment. Violence wielded against ideas, a man punished for his ‘blasphemies’, gunfire cutting down discussion The killing of Charlie

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The far-left failed to bring France to a standstill

There were over 500 arrests and numerous violent incidents across France on Wednesday but the far-left failed to bring the country to a standstill. The Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, thanked the ‘responsiveness’ of the police and rejoiced that the ‘blockaders did not block France’. Most of the demonstrators I saw were students and freeing Palestine, not saving France, was their preoccupation Over 200 of the arrests were made in Paris, where thousands had gathered throughout the day, first at the Place de la République and later at the Place du Châtelet. There were some scuffles late in the day at the Place de la République between protestors and police but

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Free speech should never be fatal

Charlie Kirk was not storming a government building. He was not brandishing a weapon. He was not even shouting. He was on stage, mid-sentence, addressing a university audience at a speaking event. Then he was shot in the neck. And now he is dead. No civilised society can survive a situation in which public speech becomes a life-threatening act What occurred at Utah Valley University is not just a shooting, but an event that punctures the illusion that liberal democracies are still safe places to think aloud. However you viewed Kirk’s politics, whether you found him a bracing truth-teller or a contrary demagogue, he was, in the most basic sense,

William Moore William Moore

Royal treatment, neurodiverse history & is everyone on Ozempic?

45 min listen

First: a look ahead to President Trump’s state visit next week Transatlantic tensions are growing as the row over Peter Mandelson’s role provides an ominous overture to Donald Trump’s state visit next week. Political editor Tim Shipman has the inside scoop on how No. 10 is preparing. Keir Starmer’s aides are braced for turbulence. ‘The one thing about Trump which is entirely predictable is his unpredictability,’ one ventures. And government figures fear he may go off message on broadcast – he is scheduled to be interviewed by GB News. It is rare for leaders to receive a second visit, especially those in their second term. But, as Tim says, ‘Britishness is

Sam Olsen

Will Nato pass – or fail – Russia’s great test?

Poland woke yesterday morning to what its prime minister, Donald Tusk, called an “unprecedented violation of Polish airspace.” In the early hours, a “huge” swarm of Russian drones – at least 19 by Warsaw’s count, perhaps 23 according to Polish media – crossed the frontier during overnight strikes on Ukraine. Polish and Nato fighters scrambled, including Dutch F-35s, to bring them down. Airports were closed as air-raid sirens wailed. In one village, falling debris from an intercepted drone crashed into a residential block. For Vladimir Putin, Ukraine is not the goal but the stepping stone This was not business as usual. Drones have strayed into Poland’s skies before, but this

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Angela Rayner resigns, Poland downs Russian drones and Israel bombs Qatar

Home The government shuddered when Angela Rayner resigned as housing secretary, deputy prime minister and deputy leader of the Labour party after being found to have breached the ministerial code by Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser on ministerial standards. He said she had followed advice from a legal firm when not paying enough stamp duty on her new flat in Hove, but ignored a recommendation to seek expert tax advice. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, called her ‘the living embodiment of social mobility’. He then threw himself into a great big cabinet shuffle, in which Yvette Cooper became Foreign Secretary and was replaced as Home Secretary by Shabana

Francis Pike

Fragile China: who’s really in charge?

Xi Jinping effectively vanished in July and the first half of August. Some China watchers speculated that his unexplained absence was a sign that he was losing his grip on power. But he has since reappeared and been very visible again. At the end of last month, he visited Tibet, then indulged in a high-profile, back-slapping meeting with Vladimir Putin and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tianjin. He capped off his busy fortnight with the 3 September military parade in Beijing and a second meeting with his star guest Putin, this time accompanied by Kim Jong-un. So, a great triumph for the neo-Maoist leader and the new Axis

Wednesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Mandelson’s Epstein problem is not going away

When King Charles hosts Donald Trump for the state banquet at Windsor Castle next week, the dignitaries should know better than to mention Jeffrey Epstein. Inevitably, however, Epstein’s ghost will hang over proceedings, the paedo-Banquo at the feast. In the coming days, the details of Mandelson’s bond with Epstein may end up overshadowing all talk of the special relationship The royal family will entertain the President, though the Duke of York will (surely?) stay away. He no longer works for the crown and everyone knows why. Trump, meanwhile, will still be batting away suggestions that in 2003 he contributed a puerile drawing to Epstein’s 50th ‘birthday book’ – a strange

Owen Matthews

The Kremlin had nothing to gain from sending drones to Poland

Provocation, mistake, or something in between? Either Putin sent Russian drones into Poland’s airspace on Tuesday night to test Nato’s reaction, or Ukrainian electronic jamming scrambled the targeting systems on Russian drones and sent them haywire. Or perhaps the Kremlin is playing a grey-zone game, launching an accidentally-on-purpose attack to push Europe’s boundaries.  The problem with the Kremlin testing the boundaries theory is that it doesn’t make much political or military sense Whatever Putin’s intent, the shooting down of several drones marks the first time ever that Nato warplanes have engaged and destroyed Russian weapons in European airspace. Though Polish prime minister Donald Tusk noted that ‘there is no reason

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Why Nepal’s Gen Z overthrew its government

Nepal’s prime minister KP Sharma Oli has resigned after nationwide demonstrations descended into bloodshed. At least 22 people have been killed and hundreds injured in the country’s deadliest protests for nearly two decades. Spearheaded by the Nepal’s disaffected youth, the ‘Gen Z protest’ has evolved into one targeting the corruption of the government coalition led by the Congress and Communist parties. The protests were triggered by the government’s decision last week to issue a blanket ban on 26 social media platforms After events took a violent turn on Monday when authorities unleashed fury on the protestors, killing at least 19, demonstrators responded by targeting state institutions in Kathmandu. They ransacked government buildings, including the country’s parliament, and targeted politicians’ homes. Rajyalaxmi Chitrakar, the wife

Terry Barnes

Victoria’s Aboriginal ‘Treaty’ will undermine its democracy

On Tuesday evening, my six-year old’s suburban Melbourne primary school staged a wonderful concert, an all-school celebration of contemporary song, dance and collaboration. It was, however, preceded by an elaborate Acknowledgement of Country and Aboriginal Australians, in which a group of children led incantations to the ‘Old Ones’ that the rest of the school echoed in a mystical Gregorian-like chant. For the audience, it turned the theatre into a cathedral, as if we were witnessing a sacred rite – which, to the primary school children inculcated in its sacredness, it was. The 65,000 people who identify as Aboriginal, out of over seven million Victorians, will be given rights, privileges and

James Tidmarsh

Sébastien Lecornu is Macron’s last hope

Emmanuel Macron has named Sébastien Lecornu, a loyal confidant, as France’s new prime minister after François Bayrou’s resignation. At 39, Lecornu is Macron’s last stand, a bid to reset a deadlocked presidency. Lecornu is one of Macron’s most trusted allies. His appointment is a deeply personal choice, signalling that Macron is circling the wagons and relying on his innermost circle as the crisis deepens. Lecornu is not a compromise candidate or a unifying figure, he’s Macron’s man, appointed to hold the line and protect the president’s political legacy. Lecornu inherits a fractured parliament, a looming budget crisis and a country on the brink of strikes. There is no doubt that

Travis Aaroe

Iryna Zarutska and the reality of American ‘two-tier’ justice

Under Trumpism the old certainties no longer hold and are starting to ebb away. Do illegal immigrants really have an inviolable and unlimited right of appeal against deportation? Probably not. Is America honour-bound to defend small nations against aggressors? It isn’t. People don’t really believe in the ruling pieties anymore yet they do not know what should replace them; in this sense, Trump, who has only ever presented himself as a figure of expediency, really is the man of the hour.  Almost every reigning piety has now come in for some deconstruction, except this one One old certainty remains, however. Even when all the illegals are deported and all the

Jacob Heilbrunn

Trump is sending mixed messages about the Qatar attack

Oops. The White House is claiming that President Trump directed the ubiquitous Steve Witkoff to warn Qatar that Israel was going to strike Hamas headquarters in Doha. But Qatari officials denied that they received any such warning. ‘What happened today is state terrorism and an attempt to destabilise regional security and stability, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading the region to an irreversible level,’ Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani stated in a televised address. ‘These missiles were used to attack the negotiating delegation of the other party. By what moral standards is this acceptable?’ Trump wants to placate an aggrieved Qatar without openly denouncing Israeli Prime

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Why the French fear the far-left

A caller to a French radio station on Monday morning said he supported Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. However, he added, he wouldn’t vote for them in an election. Why? asked the host. The man said he feared that if the National Rally came to power the far-left would turn France ‘into a real mess’. I have heard similar anxiety from other middle-class French people who are tempted to vote for Le Pen’s party. They may not agree with her economic policies but they do share her concerns about mass immigration and insecurity. But what frightens them most is the far-left, which has a history of violence going back to

Tuesday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Israel is right to strike Hamas’s leaders in Qatar

When the government of Qatar condemned the Israeli airstrike in Doha as a ‘cowardly’ act, it revealed less about the operation itself than about the priorities of the state voicing the charge. In reality, the strike was an extraordinary and unprecedented move: Israel launched a precision airstrike inside Qatari territory targeting senior Hamas leadership, aiming to eliminate figures at the apex of the group’s external political and financial hierarchy. It was a direct and deliberate attack on the masterminds behind terrorism, carried out by Israeli fighter aircraft with exceptional range and accuracy. The operation marked a bold assertion of Israeli extraterritorial power and strategic doctrine. There is nothing cowardly in