World

Monday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Spain is stoking Europe’s migrant crisis

The new year in Spain began much as the old one ended, with a huge influx of illegal immigrants arriving on its shores. Nearly 800 people from North and Sub-Saharan Africa landed on the Canary Islands between 6 and 8 January. That fleet of ten boats are an ominous sign of what Europe can expect in 2025. Spain has become the people smugglers’ route of choice: last year they ferried 63,970 migrants into Spanish territory, an increase of 12.5 per cent on 2023. Of that number, more than 43,000 men, women and children landed in the Canaries. Spain is seen by the people smugglers as the softest of touches The

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Labour’s kowtowing to China will cost Britain

When the security services accessed the mobile phone of Yang Tengbo, the alleged Chinese spy who became a confidant and business partner of the Duke of York, they found a document in which Yang said of the duke, ‘He is in a desperate situation and will grab onto anything’. We can only assume there are memos circulating in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) this week describing the visit by Rachel Reeves in similar terms. Starmer and his ministers appear to be competing to see who can kowtow the lowest before Xi The hapless duke’s entanglement with Yang, whose exclusion from Britain was confirmed shortly before Christmas, was held up as

Terry Barnes

Djokovic must forgive and forget his shoddy Covid experience in Australia

Another Australian Open tennis tournament, another Novak Djokovic media sensation. As play gets under way at Melbourne Park, Djokovic the showman has been working the Australian media, as well as doing a glossy spread for the upmarket US magazine, GQ. The common thread of his media commentary is his experience coming to the 2022 Australian Open when, as the Covid-19 pandemic still raged, the unvaccinated Djokovic was detained and deported after seeking to enter Melbourne, the city oppressed by arguably the most draconian lockdown and vaccination mandates in the world, let alone Australia. The Serbian star’s 2022 experience clearly gnaws at him Having initially been given an exemption to enter

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Was Rachel Reeves’s China trip worth it?

Rachel Reeves is on her way back to the UK after a brief visit to China over the weekend. The Chancellor faced calls to cancel the trip, not over alleged human rights abuses by her hosts, but instead because of the state of the UK bond market. However, those around Reeves did not seriously consider cancelling her visit to China, taking the view that to call it off would have added to a sense of panic. After borrowing costs soared in the days before she departed, Reeves abruptly cancelling the trip would have likely drawn comparisons with 1976, when chancellor Denis Healey turned back at Heathrow, aborting a planned trip

Jay Mens

Trump’s presidency could spell the end of Iran’s regime

Donald J. Trump returns to the Oval Office for the second time as the least interventionist American president since 1941. As the Islamic Republic of Iran – which recently tried to kill him – is at its lowest point in forty years, could the end be near? And what does that all mean for the UK? The death of the Islamic Republic has been predicted many times before, always prematurely. But today, with the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, economic collapse at home, and an incoming Trump administration, the moment feels different. The Iranian rial is trading at 820,000 to the dollar; it was 59,000 back in 2017. It has

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Eva Dou on ‘The House of Huawei’

49 min listen

Chinese Whispers is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People’s Choice category here. Among the casualties of Donald Trump’s trade war with China in his first presidency was the telecoms giant Huawei. Founded by former military engineer Ren Zhengfei, the company is a world-leading manufacturer of everything from telecoms equipment to smartphones. But it fell foul of the Trump administration as it tried to become integral to the world’s rollout of 5G, leading to a backlash in the West and even the house arrest of Ren’s daughter. At the centre of the row is a suspicion that Huawei is essentially a state-owned company, working

Sunday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Keir Starmer wants to redefine crime and punishment

How far should a government go to stamp out people smuggling? This month, the Home Office is set to introduce powers that will allow courts to place expansive restrictions on those suspected of people smuggling and other serious crimes. Penalties are set to include social media bans, restrictions on banking and even curfews, imposed pre-arrest. Infringement of these court orders would be a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail. Some have welcomed this as tough action from the Labour government; finally, you may think, they’re doing something about illegal immigration. But tough policies aren’t always good policies. The mooted powers would allow the police to shut down a

Anatol Lieven

Give Trump’s realism a chance

In one place at least, the reaction to Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal has been one of unequivocal joy. That is Russia – and for obvious reasons. Most Russians have long seen US language about the ‘rules-based order’ as a mere mask for US empire and US national interests. In their view, Trump has now removed the mask. Even more importantly, for the Russian establishment Trump’s words are a confirmation that he and Vladimir Putin see international affairs in very much the same way: as a matter of spheres of influence, transactionalism, and the ruthless defence of national interests. During the Ukrainian revolution and

Saturday

Patrick West

What Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg owe to the mainstream media

Censorship and the silencing of dissenting voices has been a defining feature of the 21st century. It’s curious, because it wasn’t meant to be like this. This epoch, as the tech libertarian utopians of the 1990s so eagerly pronounced, was going to be one of unprecedented and untrammelled freedom. The internet, which burst into public consciousness back then, promised as much. Social media, which erupted a decade later, promised even more. And then it all went wrong. I was cancelled by Facebook for writing about why men are funnier than women We shouldn’t have been surprised. Ideologies based on utopian fantasies, underpinned by the illusion that mankind can be perfected, inevitably

Casey Babb

Will Palestinians give peace a chance?

Time and time again, people look to those outside of the Middle East to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After decades of an occupation and unrelenting hostilities between Jews and Arabs in the region, it makes sense why the burden of peace is so often placed on leaders abroad. Unfortunately, this approach has repeatedly failed, in large part because convoluted peace plans tend to focus on land over ideology, dreams over reality, and an outright denial of existing beliefs which for many, seem insurmountable. On the Palestinian side, things are perhaps even more bleak That said, if there’s ever going to be lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, change needs to come

Friday

John Keiger John Keiger

How Jean-Marie Le Pen lives on

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died aged 96 on 7 January, was the personification of the travails and excesses of post-war France. He was a co-founder in 1972 of the reactionary Front National, whose senior members included former Vichy collaborators and a former member of the Waffen SS Charlemagne Division. Yet on 21 April 2002 to universal surprise, he nonetheless beat the Socialist candidate and qualified for the second round of the French presidentials with 18 per cent of the vote. For some he was a malign towering figure of French politics and political life for six decades; for others the outspoken tribune of the French people insistent on stating fearlessly,

Catherine Lafferty

Catherine Lafferty, Michael Simmons, Paul Wood, Philip Hensher, Isabel Hardman and Damian Thompson

39 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Catherine Lafferty argues that the drive to reduce teenage pregnancies enabled grooming gangs (1:27); following Luke Littler’s world championship victory, Michael Simmons says that Gen Z is ruining darts (6:32); Paul Wood looks at the return of Isis, and America’s unlikely ally in its fight against the terrorist group (10:35); Philip Hensher reviews a new biography of the Brothers Grimm by Ann Schmiesing, and looks at how words can be as dangerous as war (17:57); Isabel Hardman highlights the new garden now open at the Natural History Museum (26:57); and, Damian Thompson reveals he watched videos of plane crashes to distract himself from the US

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Why German politicians fear Musk’s AfD interview

Over 200,000 listeners tuned into Elon Musk’s online conversation with Alice Weidel, the co-leader of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), on the social media platform X yesterday. Musk has endorsed the anti-immigration party as ‘the last spark of hope’ for Germany. Reactions were expectedly tetchy in Weidel’s home country where the AfD is polling in second place ahead of snap elections in February. For about 75 minutes, Musk and Weidel chatted about everything from energy and immigration policy to God, Hitler and life on Mars. I’d never seen Weidel act so casually. She actually giggled when Musk jokingly said ‘yes’ to her suggestion that nobody wants to be surrounded by yes men. ‘This is

Yuan Yi Zhu

The Chagos Islands deal is uniquely terrible

Last year, a Mauritian politician raised eyebrows in Britain when he told a political rally that ‘England has agreed to pay us a compensation’ to the tune of ‘many billions of rupees’ as part of the deal to hand over the Chagos islands to Mauritius. Still, a billion Mauritian rupees only converts to around £17 million, so observers were none the wiser about the financial provisions of the still-secret agreement between the two countries. If the deal goes through, Britain will be paying a king’s ransom to give away sovereign territory to a foreign power with no rightful claim to it Now we know that ‘many billions of rupees’ also means ‘many

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Could Elon Musk really oust Keir Starmer?

Another day, another story that risks further exacerbating tensions between the world’s richest man and the prime minister. The Mirror reports that Elon Musk’s posts on X (the platform he owns) are being monitored by the Home Office’s counter-extremism unit as part of an increased effort to assess the risk posed to Britain by tweets sent from those with large followings. The news will go down like a cup of cold sick with Musk who has long railed against the UK government over censorship. It’s just another indicator of how the strained relationship between Keir Starmer and Musk is unlikely to improve anytime soon. But are things so bad that

Thursday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How will Trump change the world? With Gideon Rachman

42 min listen

Americano is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People’s Choice category here. Freddy Gray is joined by Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times to discuss what Donald Trump’s revisionist America could mean for the world order. Trump is a sworn enemy of what he calls ‘globalism’, which raises questions about whether America will remain the world’s most powerful country in 2025 and beyond. Gideon has described five ways in which Trump’s America First strategy would play out, from a great new power bargain, to war by accident and anarchy in a leaderless world. On the podcast Freddy and Gideon discuss the five possible scenarios, how

Ian Williams Ian Williams

What is the point of Rachel Reeves’s visit to Beijing?

The Chinese communist party claims to know a thing or two about humiliation – the ‘century of humiliation’ at the hands of rapacious foreigners is a founding myth of the CCP, which presents itself as a redemptive power. It will no doubt derive some satisfaction in making Rachel Reeves look foolish, as she heads to China today with a selection of City grandees. In reality though, the damage will be largely self-inflicted. Starmer’s China strategy seems even more incoherent than that of his predecessors For multiple reasons, the timing of a visit designed to build closer economic links with Beijing is awful. It comes just weeks after the UK confirmed

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

The truth about grooming gangs, ‘why I’m voting for the AfD’ & exploring YouTube rabbit holes

47 min listen

This week: what does justice look like for the victims of the grooming gangs?In the cover piece for the magazine, Douglas Murray writes about the conspiracy of silence on the grooming gangs and offers his view on what justice should look like for the perpetrators. He also encourages the government to take a step back and consider its own failings. He writes: ‘If any government or political party wants to do something about the scandal, they will need to stop reviewing and start acting. Where to begin? One good starting point would be to work out why Pakistani rapists in Britain seem to have more rights than their victims.’ To

Terry Barnes

Beach turf wars are dividing Australia

At a time when Donald Trump threatens to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal, China is flexing its military and economic muscles, Britain is in a state of seemingly permanent political crisis, Los Angeles tragically burns, and murderous conflicts still ravage Ukraine and the Middle East, here in Australia just one issue dominates public debate this week: whether a true Australian has the right to reserve beach space by setting up an American-style beach shelter – a cabana – to stake a claim, whether or not it’s occupied. Even the country’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has waded in on the subject – and finally found popularity by condemning the canvas

James Tidmarsh

Why the French state fears Elon Musk

The French government on Wednesday declared war on X and on Elon Musk, directly threatening to ban the platform. Speaking on France Inter, Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s Foreign Minister, accused Musk of allowing X to become a platform for interference undermining European ‘public discourse’. Barrot demanded that the European Commission act with ‘the utmost firmness’. He has repeatedly complained to Brussels and said that if the EU fails to act, potentially by banning X outright, France may demand the power to protect itself. ‘The debate on public platforms,’ he declared, ‘cannot be outsourced to unregulated social networks controlled by billionaires.’ Make no mistake – this isn’t about interference or democracy. It’s