World

Thursday

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

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The truth about the LA wildfires 

It is like a Hollywood disaster movie with a difference: it really is happening close to Hollywood, and the stars involved, such as James Woods and Eugene Levy, aren’t acting – they really are fleeing their homes as a wildfire singes residential areas in the Pacific Palisades area on the north-west fringe of Los Angeles. Several film premieres have been cancelled, along with the nomination ceremony for the Screen Actors Guild awards.  Because fire services have become better at putting out fires, the natural cycle has been interrupted We know what to expect, however, when we do get to those awards ceremonies: celebs lecturing us on climate change and how

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

The ‘MAGA’ South Koreans still supporting President Yoon

In extraordinary scenes more reminiscent of a South American coup than a supposedly stable first world democracy, fights broke out between protestors supporting and opposing South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol, outside his presidential compound in an upscale suburb of Seoul. They were there to demand or resist Yoon’s arrest for his declaration of martial law last month.  Yoon, whose powers are currently suspended, is being defended by the PSS (Presidential Security Service) who are barring the way to government investigators now trying to figure out how to gain entry. Yoon’s personal security detail (200 strong) has fortified his compound and so far kept investigators at bay.  Unless the authorities seek

Paul Wood

America’s new ally in the battle against Isis: the Taliban

Isis are back. In fact, to borrow Gerry Adams’s remark about the IRA, they never went away. Now, they are regaining some of their previous strength in Syria and Iraq, and moving into fresh territory in Africa. Of most importance to the West, the Afghan branch of Isis – Isis Khorasan – is said to be plotting more direct attacks on the ‘far enemy’, as well as pumping out propaganda to create so-called ‘lone wolves’. But with the stakes rising, it seems the United States may have found a new ally in the battle against Isis: the Taliban. The enemy of my enemy… Intelligence also flows the other way, with

Toby Young Toby Young

Farewell Justin Trudeau, the last of the lockdown tyrants

So farewell then, Justin Trudeau, last of the lockdown tyrants. Or should that be the last of the democratically elected lockdown tyrants? After all, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are still in office. But setting aside those authoritarians, it’s difficult to think of a single democratic leader apart from Emmanuel Macron who was in power during the pandemic who has survived – and Macron will be gone soon. Their decision to lock down their countries, with all the collateral damage that entailed, is surely a factor in their demise. Time and time again, these highly educated technocrats have proved spectacularly inept at navigating global crises In Trudeau’s case, inflation is

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: grooming gangs, wildfires and a Littler victory

Home Responding to a rejection by Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, of calls for a government inquiry into historical child abuse in Oldham, Elon Musk tweeted that she was a ‘rape genocide apologist’ and ‘deserves to be in prison’. After a day or two of tweets suggesting such things as the dissolution of parliament by the King, Mr Musk tweeted: ‘The Reform party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.’ Nigel Farage had dissociated himself from the far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson, who is serving 18 months for contempt of court. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, tweeted: ‘Importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess

Katy Balls Katy Balls

‘There’s been a vibe shift’: welcome to the new political disorder

Donald Trump isn’t back in the White House yet, but already his victory is being felt across the world. Greenland is pondering the prospect of an invasion after the President-elect refused to rule it out during a Mar-a-Lago press conference. In Canada, the last western leader from the days before Trump has just exited the stage. Justin Trudeau, the one-time liberal hero, quit earlier this week in the face of tanking ratings. Nick Clegg, the former Liberal Democrat leader, is out at Meta and the billionaires of Silicon Valley are bracing themselves for what comes next. Mark Zuckerberg has announced sweeping changes (including an end to fact-checkers) in response to

Elisabeth Dampier

Why I’m voting for the AfD

On 23 February, I will vote for the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party in the German general election. As someone with an immigrant parent, a postgraduate degree, and who works in the liberal world of film and TV, this is the last thing I’m supposed to admit to in public. My fellow Germans might understand my not wanting to vote for the Social Democratic party (SPD), the left-wingers who lead our deeply unpopular coalition government. But as an ‘educated’ millennial, surely I ought to vote Green? After all, our shamelessly non-neutral public broadcasters ARD and ZDF acclaim them the ‘party of youth’. They’ve consistently opposed mass immigration and Germany’s absurdly

Wednesday

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

It’s no surprise so many British Jews are leaving for Israel

Some things may come as no surprise in theory but cause the heart to sink when they emerge as reality. The surging number of British Jews emigrating to Israel – which doubled last year – is one such example. With antisemitism at record levels, this exodus is hardly unexpected. The British Jewish community is longstanding and patriotic – the office of the Chief Rabbi was established in 1704 – and has always worn its warmth for Israel alongside a deep loyalty to King and country. This is not about to change. But relentless hostility takes a toll. There is one particularly significant secret sauce that Israel offers Before October 7,

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Does Britain want to join Trump’s new world order? 

Goodbye EU, hello AU? It’s been evident for a few months now that Donald Trump’s second administration will be more geostrategically ambitious than his first. Yesterday, in another extraordinary press conference in Mar-a-Lago, we got a glimpse of what Trump and his advisers are thinking for the planet in 2025 and beyond.  Trump reiterated his desire to annex Canada and Greenland. He declared that the Gulf of Mexico should be called the Gulf of America, said the United States should take back control of the Panama Canal, and told Hamas ‘all hell will break loose’ if its Israeli hostages are not returned before his inauguration.  Earlier, as if to underscore

Edward Howell

Kim Jong Un isn’t going away

It was only a matter of time before North Korea lit things up again. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarked on a five-day sojourn to Seoul, the hermit kingdom welcomed the US official in the way it knows best – by testing another ballistic missile.  North Korean state media proudly announced that Monday’s missile launch was of its latest hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile system. For Kim Jong Un, now entering his 14th year in power, the test of the ‘strategic weapon’ – which flew 1,100 kilometres with an altitude of close to 100 kilometres – would ‘contain any rivals in the Pacific’ and demonstrate to its ‘enemies’ that it would be

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Why do the left mock the dead?

It was party time in Paris and elsewhere in France on Tuesday evening as hundreds of people celebrated the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The figurehead of France’s far-right died earlier in the day aged 96 and within hours a jubilant crowd had assembled in the capital’s Place de la République. Champagne was uncorked, fireworks were sent into the night sky and there were chants of ‘The dirty racist is dead’ and ‘Marine, you are next’. Marine Le Pen assumed leadership of the National Front in 2011, 40 years after her father helped found the party that is now known as the National Rally. The reason some on the left like to

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump’s plans sound… interesting

No one can accuse President-elect Donald Trump of failing to be transparent about his intentions and plans. Speaking at a lengthy news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America’. He also refused to rule out employing military force to reclaim the Panama Canal and to seize Greenland. He did, however, exempt Canada, declaring that he would rely solely on ‘economic force’ to create a great union between the two countries. All that was missing was a vow to reunite with Great Britain and Trump would have reverse-engineered much of the British empire. Trump had good reason to feel bullish. For one thing, Meta CEO Mark

Tuesday

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Jean-Marie Le Pen won’t be missed

Perhaps it’s tasteless to make the point that maybe nobody will be happier to see Jean-Marie Le Pen buried than his daughter Marine. The founder of the National Front died this morning at the age of 96, discredited, ignored, mentally incapacitated and largely irrelevant, except as a spectre.  Today the terms ‘hard right’, ‘extreme right’ and ‘far right’ are often carelessly employed, but Len Pen père was all of these, a millstone for his daughter as she attempted to drag the party towards the mainstream and kick down the door of the Elysée Palace. Though it’s been years since his outbursts against Jews, Arabs and gays made headlines, it’s now sure there

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

There’s something hypocritical about Macron attacking Musk

Europe’s leaders rounded on Elon Musk on Monday as the American tech billionaire continued to air his views on the state of the Old Continent. Although Musk – who in a fortnight’s time will be president Donald’s Trump efficiency tsar – has focused most of his ire on Britain, he’s also endorsed Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a newspaper column ahead of next month’s parliamentary election. Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, said in an interview that he finds it ‘worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and large financial resources is so directly involved in the internal affairs of other countries’. According to Store: ‘This is

Matthew Lynn

Mark Carney is not fit to be Canadian PM

He has global experience. He has proven his leadership. And he has the management skills needed to turn around a sinking ship. As Mark Carney makes a bid to succeed Justin Trudeau as Canadian prime minister, he will no doubt make much of his credentials as a ‘rock star’ central banker. There is just one snag. As it turns out, it takes only a cursory glance at his record as Governor of the Bank of England to work out that Carney’s reputation is completely overblown – and in reality he is not fit to be Canada’s next prime minister.  The Bank made a whole series of mistakes under his management Given

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Did we learn anything from Charlie Hebdo?

Ten years ago today, two men armed with Kalashinikovs barged into the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris and opened fire. They unleashed hell. In less than two minutes, 12 people were slaughtered, eight of them writers or cartoonists at the famously scurrilous weekly. Their crime? Blasphemy. They had mocked Muhammad and they paid for it with their lives. They were doing a jig on the graves of the dead. It defied moral comprehension A decade on, this atrocity, this crime against liberty, still chills the soul. I can’t be the only journalist who works in a small, busy office who has found himself imagining the terror of that day.

Jane Stannus

The dark legacy of Justin Trudeau 

He’s gone – but he’s not gone. As per his announcement in Ottawa on Monday, one of Canada’s most disliked prime ministers is finally set to exit the political stage. First sworn in on November 4, 2015, Justin Trudeau will resign once the Liberal party has chosen his successor. It is a process that may take some time. Trudeau started out as prime minister by promising ‘sunny ways.’ Instead his regime delivered a tumultuous decade of radical social and legal change, achieved by methods that were frequently high-handed and occasionally unprecedented (such as the debanking of protestors).  Trudeau has always been a curious mix of ruthlessness and juvenility Under his leadership,

Monday

Michael Taube

Justin Trudeau was Canada’s worst ever prime minister

Canada’s long national nightmare is finally coming to an end. Justin Trudeau has announced he is resigning as leader of the Liberal party of Canada. He will remain prime minister until his replacement is announced in a forthcoming leadership race, and has prorogued parliament until 2 March. What took Trudeau so long to read the tea leaves that have been available for consumption for what seemed like an eternity? His poll numbers, as well as his government’s, have been disastrous for years. The Liberals are well behind Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. One recent Angus Reid Institute poll had the Liberals at a record-low 16 per cent.  That’s a question only he can answer, but we can

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Is it time to lay off Tulip Siddiq?

We all have generous aunties, right? My own once let me live rent-free in her London flat for several months while I was teenaged, and broke, and working as a slave for Auberon Waugh’s Literary Review magazine. I can’t count the number of family dinners in the years since where I’ve had second helpings pressed on me at her groaning table. Aunts are often like that. So in the post-Christmas period, when many of us even now have extremities toasty warm from the socks and mittens left by such aunties under the tree, it is in a spirit of charity and understanding that we should approach the case of Tulip Siddiq, Labour