World

Thursday

Sam Olsen

Putin is warning Britain – but we're not listening

When Vladimir Putin declared this week that Russia was ‘ready’ to fight a war in Europe, the remark barely seems to have rippled the surface of Britain’s political consciousness. It should have sent a shockwave. The US delegation that had flown to Moscow in the hope of reviving a peace plan left empty-handed. Putin’s message was not bluster but a statement of intent: Russia is preparing for possible escalation now. Yet Britain continues to behave as though danger is tidily scheduled for years in the future, safely beyond the horizon of any present responsibility. It is a comforting delusion, but a very dangerous one. Britain cannot lead Europe if it

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: ‘Misleading’ Reeves, trial without jury and Great Yarmouth First

Home What Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told voters about the economy in a special press conference on 4 November was at odds with what the Office for Budget Responsibility had told her, Richard Hughes, its chairman, explained in a letter to the Commons Treasury Committee. Asked directly by Trevor Phillips on Sky if she had lied, Ms Reeves replied: ‘No, of course I didn’t.’ Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: ‘There’s no misleading there.’ Chris Mason, the BBC political editor, concluded: ‘On one specific element of what the Chancellor and the Treasury told us before the Budget, we were misled.’ Mr Hughes then resigned as the

Wednesday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

We are no closer to peace in Ukraine

Steve Witkoff’s sixth visit of the year to Moscow seems to have ended again with very little to show for it. The US special envoy was in the Russian capital with Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, to meet President Vladimir Putin and present the latest version of a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. Little is currently known about the contents of the peace plan itself. Witkoff and Kushner spent five hours with Putin in the Kremlin. Speaking after the meeting, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov called the summit ‘very useful, constructive and substantive’ but said that ‘a compromise hasn’t been found yet’. Asked whether peace was closer

Tuesday

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Tulip Siddiq can’t turn her back on Bangladeshi politics now

A Bangladeshi court sentenced the Labour MP Tulip Siddiq to two years in prison in absentia on Monday. Siddiq, who stepped down as anti-corruption minister earlier this year, has been found guilty of ‘influencing’ her aunt, the former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, to secure a plot of valuable piece of land for her family outside Dhaka. Hasina was pushed out of power following massive demonstrators last year and has since been sentenced to death by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal. She is currently living in exile in India. It does appear that Siddiq is now complaining about the very forces in Bangladesh that propelled her to power in the first place Siddiq

Edmund Fitton-Brown

Trump is right to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood

Donald Trump has begun the process of banning the Muslim Brotherhood. The US President asked his officials last week to investigate whether certain chapters of the group should be classed as foreign terrorist organisations, which would result in economic and travel sanctions. Some are portrayed this as a reckless lurch into Islamophobia. In fact, it is overdue by at least a decade. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a benign religious association. It is a disciplined ideological movement with a century-long record of exploiting political systems.Its explicit objective is to work towards the establishment of a global caliphate – only by gradualist means, rather than the reckless confrontation and brutality favoured by its distant offshoot,

Monday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why did Jeffrey Epstein hate me?

45 min listen

Freddy Gray is joined once again by the University of Chicago’s Professor John Mearsheimer to discuss why Trump’s 28-point Ukraine peace plan won’t work, how the war will ultimately be decided on the battlefield, and what happened when Jeffrey Epstein and Alan Dershowitz ran a smear campaign against him over his essay on the Israel lobby.

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Why the prospect of peace in Ukraine is troubling Macron

Emmanuel Macron welcomed Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to Paris this morning to discuss ‘the conditions for a just and lasting peace’. But is the French leader nervous about what peace in Ukraine might mean for Europe – and for France? There may be another reason why Macron is concerned at what peace in Ukraine might bring. It is an anxiety shared by others in Europe In an interview with a Sunday newspaper, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, declared that ‘peace is within reach, if Vladimir Putin abandons his delusional hope of reconstituting the Soviet Empire by first subjugating Ukraine’. Macron showed little enthusiasm initially for the 28-point peace plan put

James Tidmarsh

Violence is being normalised against the National Rally

Jordan Bardella has been physically attacked twice over the past five days. Flour was thrown over him at an agricultural fair in Burgundy, then this weekend an egg was crushed on his head at a book signing in Moissac in the Tarn-et-Garonne. He walked away unharmed, but the incidents could easily have been more serious. They come at a moment when Bardella leads the polls to become France’s next president, with Marine Le Pen increasingly sidelined after she was barred from running by the courts. Right-wing officials and politicians are facing a steady rise in insults, threats and physical aggression. France is edging towards a hierarchy of victims in which

Rory Hanrahan

Dublin is quietly becoming a Jew-free city

Dublin’s councillors have seen sense – for now. They were due to vote today on a proposal to rename the city’s Herzog Park. Chaim Herzog – the Belfast-born, Dublin-raised, British officer who helped liberate Bergen-Belsen, and became the sixth president of Israel – was set to be be airbrushed away in a ritual of performative righteousness. Some even proposed ‘Free Palestine Park’, a slogan as empty as it is vicious, as its new name. But late last night, Dublin City Council boss Richard Shakespeare said he was proposing to withdraw the report that could have led to the renaming of Herzog Park, on a point of legislative technicality. He apologised for

Daniel Thorpe

Pope Leo's visit to Turkey comes at an uncertain time for the country's Christians

Pope Leo XIV is visiting Turkey and Lebanon on what is his first trip abroad since being elected in May. These are unusual destinations for a first papal visit. Turkey is an overwhelmingly Muslim country with very few Christians left. Lebanon has a much more significant Christian population, but the country is scarred by ongoing crisis and conflict. Just last week, Israel bombed Beirut and killed another high-ranking Hezbollah commander. Turkey is a country with an often uncomfortable and dark past with Christians Many expected the Pope to make his first visit to his hometown of Chicago, or perhaps to Peru, where he served as a missionary for two decades.

Sunday

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Inside the mind of Putin's real hatchet man

As Moscow and Washington prepare for talks on the latest version of Donald Trump’s peace plan next week, leaked recordings of a conversation with US envoy Steve Witkoff have thrown a spotlight on to senior diplomat Yuri Ushakov. It seems he, not Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, is the prime mover behind Russia’s negotiating position. The stature of Lavrov, once a legend in the diplomatic community, has steadily diminished since 2014, when he wasn’t even consulted before Vladimir Putin decided to annex Crimea. Every year since then, the now-75-year-old minister has petitioned Putin to be allowed to retire; every year this is denied. Instead, Lavrov remains confined to a role of

Saturday

Jane Stannus

The downfall of Canada’s most influential ‘indigenous’ man

It’s an awkward time in the upper echelons of the Canadian cultural establishment. It’s come to light that influential indigenous author and former broadcaster Thomas King, isn’t actually indigenous at all. It matters, because King has spent much of his 82 years claiming to speak on behalf of the indigenous peoples of North America, and his role in shaping Canadian perception of their First Nations has been enormous. His books have served as standard texts in Canadian schools and universities for over 20 years. When King came to Canada, he was able not only to dine out on his purported indigenous background, but to make it the central facet of

Friday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why is the US obsessed with Britain's decline?

30 min listen

Why are Americans so interested in Britain’s decline? While visiting London, Tucker Carlson has said that the country has ‘shrunken’ and its culture ‘destroyed’, particularly because of mass immigration. Freddy Gray is joined by Tim Stanley and Ed West to discuss whether Britain has become ‘ground zero in the decline of western civilisation’ and if the US has always viewed the UK this way. 

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

The war is far from over for Vladimir Putin

‘When the Ukrainian troops leave the territories they occupy, then the hostilities will cease,’ declared Vladimir Putin during his state visit to Kyrgyzstan yesterday. ‘If they do not leave, we will achieve it militarily.’ The Russian President did not specify which territories he expects Ukraine to abandon. Did he mean only the Donetsk region? Did he also mean Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which Moscow has annexed in its constitution? Or did he, perhaps, mean the whole of Ukraine? Putin’s speech didn’t suggest he was willing to compromise. He again repeated his claim that signing any documents with Ukraine was ‘pointless’ as President Zelensky has ‘lost his legitimacy’ It’s futile to look

Lucy Dunn

France finally agrees to intercept Channel migrant boats – but there's a catch

After months of pressure from Britain, France has agreed to begin intercepting small boats in the Channel. The move comes after Keir Starmer wrote a letter urging Emmanuel Macron to support the proposal, telling the French leader that we ‘have no effective deterrent’ for migrants hoping to get to the UK illegally by sea. As reported by Le Monde, Starmer insisted: ‘It is essential that we deploy these tactics this month.’ France will intervene only before traffickers have picked up passengers The plan will see French security forces allowed to stop the small boats while they’re at sea, the caveat being that France will intervene only before traffickers have picked up

Benedict Rogers

This is Hong Kong's Grenfell

Hong Kong is reeling from the tragedy of a devastating fire which ripped through seven 30-storey apartment blocks in a crowded housing estate two days ago. The death toll so far is 128 and still rising. At least 76 have been injured and almost 300 are missing. Stories abound of survivors trapped in flames and smoke. The death toll so far is 128 and still rising. At least 76 have been injured As is so often the case in such tragedies, the emergency services responded with inspirational courage. Firefighters battled the blaze for hours, medics treated the injured, and rescue workers pulled survivors from smoke-filled stairwells. At least one firefighter

Terry Barnes

Why Australia's sharks keep on targeting tourists

Thursday dawned bright and warm over the beaches of northern New South Wales. It was a perfect morning to enjoy sun, surf and sand. One young couple, tourists escaping the Swiss alpine autumn, couldn’t resist the temptation of a 6 a.m. swim at the remote Kylies Beach in Crowdy Bay National Park, a beautiful and rugged natural coastal haven, accessible only by dirt track. The holidaymakers expected a refreshing dip in sun-dappled waves, and it now appears they took to the water to film dolphins with their underwater camera. Instead, death and tragedy found them. Without warning, the pair were attacked by a three-metre bull shark and savaged brutally before

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: a shambolic Budget, Ukrainian plan and justice overhaul  

Home Before Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered the Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility accidentally released its contents. She will increase the tax take to an all-time high of 38 per cent of GDP in 2030-31. She froze tax thresholds until the end of 2030-31 and introduced a council tax surcharge on properties worth over £2 million from 2028. She scrapped the two-child benefit cap. She froze fuel duty for only another five months but brought in a tax of 3p per mile on electric vehicles. The amount that can be added annually tax-free to a cash Isa was reduced from £20,000 to £12,000 (except for over-65s)

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why is it left to Trump to highlight the persecution of Christians in Nigeria?

20 min listen

Fr Benedict Kiely, founder of nasarean.org, and Freddy Gray join Damian Thompson to discuss the persecution of Christians which has reached new and terrifying levels. Since this podcast was recorded last Friday, we have had the further news that over 300 children and staff were abducted from a Christian school – while around 50 of the children have since managed to escape, the rest remain missing and a local Bishop has criticised the Nigeria government for its failure to act. Over 185,000 Christians are estimated to have been killed in Nigeria in the past 15 years – so why has it taken the efforts of President Trump to push this

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What's going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene?

22 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to the Washington correspondent for Vanity Fair Aidan McLaughlin about his interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Congresswoman, who was formerly a MAGA loyalist, announced her resignation having fallen out with President Donald Trump. Freddy and Aidan discuss the fallout, her unpredictable views on current issues & why the media loves a political convert.