World

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Do Donald Trump's fans like South Park or not?

Eric Cartman, the antihero of South Park, is a disgusting bigot who mocks disabled people, demeans women and says hateful things about Jews. When the series debuted in 1997, much of what offended parents, educators and religious groups came out of the mouth of this school-aged Alf Garnett. Later, it was the forces of coercive progressivism who bridled, especially at its derision of the trans creed. Suddenly, the median South Park disapprover was Emily, 30 ans, who worked in HR, actually met a black person once, and renamed her dachshund because ‘Dumbledore’ made her feel complicit in JK Rowling’s gendercide. Now the series is displeasing MAGA groupies after its 27th

Elvira Bary

Russians worry what happens when the soldiers come home

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that Vladimir Putin actually respects Trump’s 50-day ultimatum to stop the war in Ukraine. We know what this will spell for millions of Ukrainians. It will mean a chance, among other things, for the ferocious nightly bombings to end and for the country itself to draw breath. But ask yourself this: what happens when over half-a-million Russian troops finally come home? What happens when over half-a-million Russian troops finally come home? To make predictions, you first need to know exactly who these soldiers are and where Russia found them. Throughout the war, Putin has avoided, as far as possible, recruiting in St Petersburg and Moscow

Monday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What should we make of Trump's trip to the UK?

Donald Trump is in Scotland, holding court at Turnberry. He’s welcomed Sir Keir and Lady Victoria Starmer to his golf course, and had a long discussion with reporters at a wide ranging press conference, that covered Russia, Gaza, and his long running feud with London mayor Sadiq Khan. To unpack it all, Freddy is joined by political editor Tim Shipman, and deputy US editor Kate Andrews.

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The leaked email that blows apart the BBC's impartiality claims over Gaza

A leaked internal email from a BBC executive editor reveals that the Corporation has issued prescriptive instructions to staff on how to cover the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The memo, titled ‘Covering the food crisis in Gaza’, amounts to a top-down editorial diktat that discards impartiality, elevates one side of a deeply contested narrative, and imposes a specific anti-Israel legal-political framing as settled fact. The existence of this email is a telling sign of how the Corporation works to ensure its journalists stick to its own ideological angles. This latest leaked BBC email suggests it is failing in its duty The email, which was sent to BBC staff on Friday, begins

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Starmer’s disingenuousness on free speech won't fool Trump

It’s often the rotator blades of Marine One that blare over Donald Trump’s voice as he stands near the helipad on the south lawn of the White House. In Turnberry, in Scotland, it was bagpipes. Trump, playing host to the Prime Minister, performed his now familiar ingratiation ritual as he welcomed Sir Keir and Lady Victoria Starmer to his golf course. ‘Our relationship is unparalleled,’ he said, above the din. He flattered the PM’s wife and even suggested, in his delightful nonsensical way, that she is a well-known figure all over the United States. Finally, the bagpiping stopped and the world could hear as Trump and the reporters rattled through the

James Tidmarsh

Why France is cracking down on topless tourists

Police have been sent out to patrol France’s seaside promenades. Not to chase hardened criminals – but to look for bare-chested tourists. From Les Sables-d’Olonne to Cassis, and in a growing number of coastal towns, local authorities are introducing by-laws banning shirtless men from wandering around in public. The fines are €150 if you’re caught walking from the beach to the bakery in swim shorts and flip-flops, but no shirt. Uniformed gendarmes have been instructed to enforce the rules. Posters have gone up at beaches. Police are stopping tourists, handing out tickets and giving lectures. The summer’s great threat to republican order, it seems, is the male torso. It’s easier to

Sunday

Charlie Griffin

Falling victim to a hate crime taught me a dark lesson about Europe

As a Brit, and in spite of a little Brexaustion, I hold a certain romanticised view of central Europe. I know I am not alone. It is, I am sure, a place of high culture, animated coffee shop conversations, and romantic walks through cobbled streets. The sun is always warm, and life plays out at a more relaxed pace than here in Britain – as three flags flying in Brussels’ Grand Place confirmed for me, it is a place to ‘love’, ‘live’, and ‘unite’. As they muscled towards us, in mixed Islamic dress, liberally spitting at our feet, we struggled to respond With a weekend to kill in Brussels, I

Catherine Ellis

How Trump helped Venezuela’s Maduro bounce back

For someone widely believed to have lost a presidential election just a year ago, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro is looking remarkably defiant – and still firmly in power. Maduro has just pulled off another patriotic spectacle – a choreographed homecoming of Venezuelan migrants with flags, cameras, and emotional reunions. This followed a deal with the Donald Trump administration that secured the return of 252 Venezuelans from CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison. Trump has breathed fresh political oxygen into a regime many thought was on the brink Maduro cast himself as a protector, bringing his people home from what he called ‘concentration camps,’ with the regime launching an investigation into alleged abuses. For

Saturday

Mat Whatley

Why Zelensky reversed his anti-corruption overhaul

On Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved a law to gut Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies. On Thursday he backtracked, and said he would put forward new legislation to restore their independence. The original legislation would have stripped both the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (Nabu) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo) of their independence, bringing them under direct executive control. The official reason for the legislation was to cleanse Ukraine’s investigative bodies of Russian influence. A spy, apparently, was suspected in their ranks. But treason has become the calling card for the consolidation of power in Ukraine. Earlier this year, Petro Poroshenko – President Zelensky’s main declared challenger in the next election – was sanctioned for

Friday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The problems with a state of Palestine

France intends to recognise a state of Palestine at the United Nations, which I’m sure will be followed by UK recognition of the same. We can be sure of this because the UK does not have an independent foreign policy when it comes to the Middle East. Inside or outside of the European Union, London’s stance on Israel and the Palestinians has become indistinguishable from the position of the European Commission. The European Commission simps for the Palestinians and Britain simps for the European Commission. I take the somewhat contentious view that Britain should simp for itself, which is why in my occasional (read: incessant) Coffee House posts recommending, beseeching,

James Heale James Heale

Will Starmer recognise a Palestinian state?

Keir Starmer is facing mounting international and domestic pressure to formally recognise a Palestinian state. Dozens of MPs are expected to publish a cross-party letter this afternoon, urging Starmer to follow the lead of Emmanuel Macron. The French president last night declared that his country will formally recognise a Palestinian state when the UN General Assembly meets in New York this September. A report this morning by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee has also called for immediate recognition, a position that would put the UK at odds with the US. Labour’s manifesto contains a commitment to recognise a Palestinian sovereignty. But the lack of a timeline has irritated parts of

Alexander Larman

Why are the Macrons suing Candace Owens?

As bizarre conspiracy theories go, the rumours about France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron take some beating. The stories that have been circulating about her in the murkier corners of the internet generally suggest that she was born a man under the name of Jean-Michel Trogneux, that she and the French President Emmanuel Macron are related in some way, that Brigitte’s first marriage (to André-Louis Auzière) was non-existent and, for good measure, that Macron is a CIA plant who was installed into the Élysée Palace through nefarious means. Up until now, the rumours have largely remained both shadowy and obscure, with few other than the most credulous basement-dwellers attaching either veracity

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France's decision to recognise Palestine is a mistake

Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will recognise Palestinian statehood. The French president will make his historic proclamation, the first among G7 countries, at the UN General Assembly in September. In a statement on X, Macron said that ‘there is no alternative’, adding that ‘the French people want peace in the Middle East’. The rhetoric is inflammatory, and honest, but it’s not what Emmanuel Macron wants to hear Many French people, however, do not want their country to recognise Palestine in the manner Macron intends. A poll last month found that only 22 per cent were in favour of immediate and unconditional recognition; 31 per cent were opposed and 47

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Can Ukraine forgive president Zelensky?

For six years in office, Volodymyr Zelensky never experienced the raging crowd beneath his window. But Ukraine’s wartime president grew too powerful, too confident, bathing in the unwavering support of Ukrainians in the face of a greater evil. He overstepped. When Zelensky signed the bill stripping the anti-corruption institutions of their independence, he assumed Ukrainians would look the other way. They didn’t. Protests against the law swept through the country. He did well to listen – and back down. But the damage to his image in Ukraine – and abroad – may now be beyond repair. The damage to Zelensky’s image in Ukraine – and abroad – may now be

Liz Walsh

Why one US diplomat thinks Ireland has 'fallen into a vat of Guinness'

US diplomat Mike Huckabee was dead right to question whether Ireland had ‘fallen into a vat of Guinness.’ Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, played into stereotypical tropes on the Irish and alcohol when he made that comment last week. But it is, he reckoned, the only possible explanation for Ireland’s looming ban on Israeli settlement goods, despite ominous soundings from the US over the potentially ruinous consequences. This bill is so stupid it amounts to ‘diplomatic intoxication’, he concluded. This bill is so stupid it amounts to ‘diplomatic intoxication’, Mike Huckabee concluded To answer his question, Ireland is not drunk. More’s the pity. It is preparing to commit

Thursday

Michael Evans

The origin of the Thailand-Cambodia conflict

A border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia which goes back more than a century has once again erupted in fatal clashes, leading to diplomatic alarm and appeals for international help. There has long been a schism between the two countries over an arbitrarily-drawn, 817-kilometre border conceived by the French in 1907. The present confrontation began in May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed during an exchange of fire between Thai and Cambodian troops in a border region known as the Emerald Triangle because it also shares a frontier with Laos. Despite attempts to prevent escalation, tensions continued to rise. Troop deployments on both sides were reinforced, border crossings were restricted

William Moore William Moore

Soul suckers of private equity, Douglas Murray on Epstein & are literary sequels ‘lazy’?

44 min listen

First up: how private equity is ruining Britain Gus Carter writes in the magazine this week about how foreign private equity (PE) is hollowing out Britain – PE now owns everything from a Pret a Manger to a Dorset village, and even the number of children’s homes owned by PE has doubled in the last five years. This ‘gives capitalism a bad name’, he writes. Perhaps the most symbolic example is in the water industry, with water firms now squeezed for money and saddled with debt. British water firms now have a debt-to-equity ratio of 70%, compared to just 4% in 1991. Britain’s desperation for foreign money has, quite literally,

Eilidh Hargreaves

Monaco, the people-watching paradise

I’m lying on a sun lounger in Monte Carlo and there are so many women with extended blonde hair, hornet-stung lips and bazooka breasts stuffed into tiny monogrammed bikinis that I can’t distinguish between them. They make me feel as though I’m part of a different species. My battered copy of Bret Easton Ellis’s The Rules of Attraction and a sweating glass of champagne complete the scene. Like Bret, I’m drawn to the dark side of glamour, which means Monaco is a people-watching paradise. Along with the bazooka babes, ninety-something men also aren’t in short supply. A leathery, wispy-chested man in that age category is slumped next to the pool,

Ian Thomson

Hotel Oloffson is ruined – and so is Haiti

Earlier this month, in Haiti’s tatterdemalion capital of Port-au-Prince, armed gangs burned down the Hotel Oloffson. As news of the attack spread, both Haitians and foreigners mourned the loss of one of the most beautiful gingerbread mansions in the Caribbean. Thinly disguised as the Hotel Trianon in Graham Greene’s 1966 novel The Comedians, the Oloffson had served as a meeting place for writers, journalists, actors and artists of every stripe and nationality. Past guests include Nöel Coward, John Gielgud, Marlon Brando, Tennessee Williams, Jacqueline Onassis and Mick Jagger (who wrote ‘Emotional Rescue’ there). Laughably, a room had been named after me as the author of a book on Haiti. The