World

Thursday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The Trump resistance is dead

The special relationship is dead, long live the special relationship. On Friday, at a ‘Stars and Stripes & Union Jack Celebration’, British and American right-wingers mingled gladly atop the Hay-Adams hotel, which overlooks the White House. Nigel Farage and co smoked cigarettes with their Republican brethren and shared Trump war stories. Dolled-up American girls took selfies with Liz Truss. And Steve Bannon showered Lord Glasman, the Labour peer, with admiration. The horseshoe theory has gone full circle. I bumped into Truss at the bar. ‘You’re a Gove shill,’ she told me, in that delightful, easygoing manner of hers. How did she think Kemi Badenoch was getting on, I asked, trying to

George Osborne

Give David Beckham a knighthood

Donald Trump descends on Davos as if he were in Apocalypse Now. Four years ago I saw his cavalcade of helicopter gunships fly over the town. With the noise echoing off the mountain valley sides, he drowned out all the other conversations. This week his inauguration speech in the Congress Rotunda – watched in huddles around screens at Davos – had a similar effect. Withdrawing from the Paris climate talks and the World Health Organisation, the President was napalming the global international order which is celebrated here. And yet, apart from Bill Clinton in his final year in office, no American president has come to the World Economic Forum –

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Immigration’s theatre of the absurd

On the cusp of an almighty row over Trump’s planned mass deportations, let’s look to Europe for light relief. Last month, the pridefully left-wing management of the storied 19th-century Parisian theatre Gaité Lyrique, owned by the pridefully left-wing Paris council and traditionally the home of operettas, digital arts and musical performances, staged a free conference on ‘reinventing the refugee welcome in France’. The organisers literally invited their own downfall: 200 West African migrants who apparently felt very welcome indeed and refused to leave. Gaité Lyrique invited its own downfall: 200 West African migrants who refused to leave These passionate opera fans have since swelled to 350. The pridefully left-wing management

Wednesday

Terry Barnes

Australia can’t blame foreign actors for its anti-Semitism shame

Australia is supposed to be a nation of tolerance and acceptance – the one place in a troubled world where people of different ethnicities, cultures and faiths can get along. That no longer feels like the case. Since the Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023, and the conflict in Gaza and Israel, Australia has been exposed as a simmering hotbed of ethnic and religious hatred. The ugliest strain of all is anti-Semitism. It may have been breathed into life by Hamas’s evil, but it has been latent in Australia’s communities, as they have become ever more ethnically and religiously diverse, for some time. To many Jewish Australians, our city centres have

James Hanson

How Donald Trump could really help Ukraine

There was surprisingly little in Donald Trump’s inaugural address about Russia and Ukraine, aside from a vague pledge to ‘stop all wars’. There was certainly no repeat of his campaign trail promise to end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office.  But, while answering reporters’ questions in the Oval Office as he signed a flurry of executive orders, Trump did comment on Zelensky and Putin – the two men he wants to bring to the negotiating table. ‘Zelensky wants to make a deal’ said Trump. He ‘didn’t know’ if Putin does too, but ‘he should’. And then the returning president said something far more revealing: he claimed Putin was

Charles Lipson

Donald Trump is a president in a hurry

“The First Hundred Days” was the iconic phrase for Franklin Roosevelt’s rapid-fire acts as the new president. Donald Trump intends to top that with “The First Hundred Hours.” Three months is far too slow for the new president. He made that clear by signing some 200 executive orders on his first day back in office. The media has focused on the substance of those orders, and understandably so. But their substantive content, on the border, birthright citizenship, DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) and more, is only half the story. The other half is the swift, decisive process. Trump had those orders prepared during the weeks between his election in early

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Nine reasons why Trump means business this time

Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, every new US administration has been judged on its first hundred days, but it is in the first 24 hours, with a flurry of executive orders and memorandums, that a president sets the tone for the coming four years. The first 24 hours hint at nine themes that will define Donald Trump’s second administration. Trump is determined to settle scores Theme one: Trump II will see ‘America First’ placed at the heart of White House policy even more so than during Trump I. Among the memorandums issued from the Oval Office after noon on Monday was one outlining an ‘America First trade policy’, a revival of

Tuesday

Matt Ridley

Why has Biden pardoned Anthony Fauci?

Joe Biden left it until the last minute to issue a pre-emptive pardon of Anthony Fauci for any offence committed since 2014 in his work on ‘the White House Coronavirus Task Force or the White House Covid-19 Response Team, or as Chief Medical Advisor to the President.’ Yet surely Covid began in 2019, not 2014? The significance of 2014 is that this was when the Obama administration responded to anxiety among some scientists about a series of experiments that made influenza viruses potentially more dangerous to people – by banning federal funding for any such gain-of-function experiments. Yet from June 2014 money flowed from Fauci’s National Institute for Allergy and

Joanna Williams

Donald Trump, feminist icon?

Cast your mind back eight years. The day after Donald Trump’s first inauguration, hundreds of thousands of women marched on Washington in opposition to the incoming president. Adorned in pink ‘pussy’ hats, they were joined by protesters in London, Sydney, Zurich and at least 30 other American cities. As I argued at the time, beyond expressing general distaste for the incoming administration the precise aims of this movement were never particularly clear. But it was feminism and therefore good. In his inaugural address, Trump did more for women’s rights than all the cutesy hat-knitters put together Yet in his second inaugural address last night, Trump did more for women’s rights

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

No, Elon Musk didn’t make a fascist salute

We’re not even 24 hours into the second Donald Trump term and already there’s a ‘New Nazis’ panic. Only this time it’s not The Donald who’s being branded Hitler 2.0. It’s his billionaire pal and state-slashing tsar, Elon Musk. The Guardian says Musk did ‘back-to-back fascist salutes’. At yesterday’s wacky inauguration, a giddy Musk gave a speech during which he saluted the crowd. I’ll be honest – it was a weird salute. He slapped his right hand against his chest and then threw his right arm upwards, diagonally and with vigour. He did it twice. His facial expression was an odd blend of love and anger. Within seconds, X –

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

‘I’m a Democrat who will give him a chance’ – Lionel Shriver on Trump’s inauguration

23 min listen

Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. All the former leaders of the free world were there to watch Trump take the oath – again – but how was this inauguration different to the last? And what signs were there of how Trump intends to govern? Guest hosting for Americano, The Spectator’s Kate Andrews speaks to Freddy Gray, who is on the ground in D.C., and Lionel Shriver about Trump’s speech lamenting the Biden administration, Biden’s last minute pardoning of his family, and why some Democrats could be willing to give Trump a chance this time round.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Natasha Feroze.

Michael Evans

Trump professes peace, threatens fury

The new president of the United States believes in fairness, and says the running of the Panama Canal has been very unfair. Even though President Trump’s thunderous ‘Golden Age’ inauguration speech was short on foreign policy objectives, he still managed to slip in his ambitions for the canal. He wants it back in American control, partly because US cargo ships, he complains, are paying over the odds for using it. He is also worried about Chinese encroachment at each end. Inauguration addresses are not generally seen as an opportunity to lay out a blueprint for overcoming America’s enemies or to hint at potential territorial ambitions beyond America’s shores. President Joe

Monday

Jacob Heilbrunn

How radical will Donald Trump be?

If Donald Trump, as Scott Jennings observed on CNN, is at the ‘apex of his political power,’ then what comes next? In his inaugural address, Trump vowed that ‘American decline’ had ended and a ‘golden age of America’ was about to begin. He essentially embraced what amounted to a form of liberation theology. ‘Liberation Day,’ as Trump put it, would ensure the restoration of American sovereignty. Trump barely touched on foreign policy. There was no mention of Israel. No word about Ukraine. No allusion to Russia. No nod to Nato or any other American alliance. Instead, it was McKinley all the time – William McKinley, the president who imposed high tariffs

Ben Domenech

Will Trump’s new friends stick around?

The temperatures at game time in Kansas City and Buffalo this weekend were in the high teens and the low 20s, respectively, before both sank even lower as day turned to night. The temperature in Washington on Capitol Hill when Donald Trump began to give his second inauguration address was -2ºC a far cry from the -14ºC that forced Ronald Reagan’s second inaugural indoors. It turns out more people find it far more important to root for their team even in the face of frigid wind and swirling snow than to cheer on the swearing in of a new/old president — which indicates to me that the American people have

Daniel DePetris

Trump the ‘Peacemaker’ has his work cut out

Joe Biden is out, Donald Trump is in, and ‘the golden age of America has begun.’ Trump’s second inaugural address on this frigid January afternoon was, as one might expect, laced with grievances, bombast, self-congratulation and big promises. The speech was a preview of the dozens of executive orders primed for the president’s signature hours later, some of which, such as declaring a national emergency along the US–Mexico border, were at the core of his campaign. While Trump stuck with domestic issues, there were several broad foreign policy themes he chose to highlight. The first few – that the US will be respected again on the world stage and the

Simon Cook Simon Cook

Which president granted the most pardons? 

Joe Biden has bowed out of the White House with a slew of presidential pardons. Today they have been awarded to Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, a bunch of family members and an assortment of investigators from the 6 January riots – but Biden also controversially pardoned his son Hunter a month ago, despite promising not to. The presidential pardon has been a part of the constitution since the start – something that the Founding Fathers thought worth keeping from the British monarchy. Historically it’s been quite sparingly used. Most presidents pardoned no more than a few hundred through the first hundred years of the US – with the exception

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Could Trump 2.0 derail the Starmer project?

13 min listen

The parties – and protests – have already kicked off, as Trump’s inauguration gets underway in Washington D.C. today. Katy Balls speaks to Michael Gove and Republicans Overseas UK’s Sarah Elliott about what we can expect from the first week of Trump’s second presidency, and how Keir Starmer will attempt to navigate the ‘special relationship’. Sarah updates us on the mood in the US capital; which UK politicians have been spotted joining in on the fun? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Terry Barnes

Why is Novak Djokovic getting so tetchy?

On his record, Novak Djokovic deserves to be rated as the greatest singles tennis player of the last 50 years. Twenty-four Grand Slam titles. An Olympic gold medal. Ninety-nine tournament wins overall. Goodness knows how many finals appearances. Some say he’s the greatest of all time: the Goat. Contrast that with Tony Jones. A veteran Australian sports journalist and broadcaster specialising in Australian Rules football, he’s little known outside Melbourne, let alone Australia. As the local sport presenter for Australian Open host broadcaster, the Nine network, Jones is at Melbourne Park fronting a morning magazine-style programme and doing live crosses to Nine’s national news bulletin. Could it be that the

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Britain is taking a punt on Ukraine’s future

There is a perverse congruence of interests between the British and Russian governments, as both sides seek to talk up London’s level of influence in Ukraine. This was particularly visible in the new agreement signed between the UK and Ukraine last week – and Moscow’s response to it. To the Kremlin, after all, Perfidious Albion remains its most devious antagonist. True to form, the Russian embassy in London tweeted out that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s surprise visit to Kyiv represented ‘a desperate attempt by British handlers to keep the agonising Kiev [sic] regime afloat’ with ‘new highly provocative UK plans, including the establishment of military bases within Ukrainian territory’. It is a warning

Sam Leith Sam Leith

The difference between Trump 45 and Trump 47

Him again? Donald Trump’s back in the White House. Those who thought his first term in office was an aberration – a dismaying blip in the long arc of history towards liberal democracy, properly corrected by Biden’s 2020 victory – have been proven wrong in the most painful possible way. He wasn’t some brainfart of the internet era, some moment of madness. He’s back, and all the evidence seems to suggest that what he represents is much more in tune with the global zeitgeist than what Kamala Harris or, for that matter, Keir Starmer, are selling. Trump once made a performance of fighting the deep state. Today he wants to