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.
‘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
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
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
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
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)
In order to impose peace terms, you first need to win the war. That fundamental principle seems, for the moment, to elude Ukraine’s European allies. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has taken the more pragmatic – some would say more cynical – view that Ukraine will never defeat Russia and therefore needs to make the best of a bad lot. Trump’s strategy for peace in Ukraine has been to browbeat Volodymyr Zelensky into approving a deal acceptable to Vladimir Putin. In fairness, Trump has also gone some way to putting the squeeze on the Kremlin too, by sanctioning the oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, authorising the Ukrainians to use
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
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.
Predicting Russian behaviour is a fool’s errand. As a young ‘stringer’ in Kyiv during the dying months of the Soviet Union, I was bemused by the analysis of Western journalists from their elite compounds in Moscow, who saw a very different world to that experienced by those of us in the ‘sticks’. This deal is little more than a sophisticated Kremlin disinformation campaign It is with some trepidation then that I write this. While I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the peace deal Ukraine has reportedly agreed to, I fear any ‘agreement’ will prove to be little more than a sophisticated Kremlin disinformation operation, designed to hurt Volodymyr Zelensky when
The kidnapping of over 300 students and teachers from a Catholic school by armed men in the Papiri area of central Nigeria is one of the worst mass abductions the country has ever witnessed. The horrifying incident on Friday is far from isolated: more than 2,500 students have been taken in at least 70 raids on schools in the last decade. The St Mary’s School attack came in the same week that gunmen killed a teacher and abducted 25 students from a girls’ secondary school in Nigeria’s Kebbi State. More than 2,500 students have been taken in at least 70 raids on schools in the last decade While no one
Bruno Retailleau, France’s former interior minister, has with his Senate group just published the toughest report on Islamism in a generation. They warn that Islamist networks have taken hold of entire swathes of French public life – from schools and sports clubs to student housing, neighbourhoods and councils. In the report, 29 Republican senators set out what they describe as a coordinated effort by Islamist networks to impose parallel norms and bypass republican authority. They argue that only urgent, hard-hitting measures can halt the advance and are calling for banning the hijab for girls under 16, prohibiting fasting for minors, enforcing strict neutrality in sport and local government, cutting foreign
For years, there was a broad consensus in Israel that there was no benefit to reintroducing the death penalty. But now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is reportedly considering supporting a bill which would bring back capital punishment for convicted terrorists. The bill, which has passed its first reading in the Knesset, would introduce the death penalty for those who murder Jews – specifically, Palestinian terrorists. It would not apply to Jews who commit acts of terrorism and murder Palestinians. And it would not apply if Israeli Arabs, who are full citizens, are murdered. The bill, which has passed its first reading in the Knesset, would introduce the death penalty for
Doge has been Doge’d. Elon Musk’s once fearsome US Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) has been shut down eight months before its contract officially ends in July 2026. What was supposed to be an organisation that exploded traditional ways of running the federal government has turned into a damp squib. Doge was established by President Trump on the first day of his second term in office. Headed by Tesla chief Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (who resigned early on to run for governor of Ohio), it struck the kind of fear into government bureaucrats that a visit from the Red Guards might instill during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Musk’s minions rampaged
Australia’s parliament is a curious place when it comes to its dress code. Suits without ties: frowned upon. Dresses made from the national flag: absolutely not allowed. Keffiyehs in solidarity with the Palestinian cause: most definitely permitted. On Monday, another piece of clothing caused an uproar in Australia’s Senate, so much so that it had to be suspended for 90 minutes. The leader of the populist One Nation party, 71-year-old Pauline Hanson, grabbed global headlines by striding on the floor of the Senate wearing, a skirt, heels – and a full-length burka, covering her face but flapping loosely like Robert Donat’s tattered academic gown in Goodbye Mr Chips. Hanson was
At a time when Western commentators are tying themselves in knots trying to parse the ongoing Ukraine peace discussions, the Russian media is suddenly strikingly united in its coverage. There is a common misperception that, like their Soviet forebears, the Russian press simply reproduces some standard party line, day in, day out. In fact, there is often surprising pluralism, with different newspapers having their own interests and angles. However, the Kremlin does impose its will when it comes to especially important or sensitive matters, with editors receiving tyomniki, informal but authoritative guidance from the presidential administration on lines to take and topics to avoid. When the press is speaking in
In 1929, René Magritte painted a picture that has since become iconic in both art and philosophy. The Treachery of Images depicts a finely detailed tobacco pipe with a caption beneath: Ceci n’est pas une pipe – ‘This is not a pipe’. Magritte’s point is subtle and enduring. It is indeed not a pipe, but an image of one. You cannot fill it with tobacco, light it, or smoke it. It is a representation, not the object itself. Israel manoeuvres within it, cautiously. Hamas exploits it, selectively. Saudi Arabia nods along, calculating Magritte was exploring the gap between signifier and reality, between the name and the thing named. His visual paradox
Indications that the Islamic State (Isis) has begun to employ artificial intelligence in its efforts to recruit new fighters should come as no surprise. At the height of its power a decade ago, Isis was characterised by its combination of having mastered the latest methods of communication with an ideology and praxis that seemed to have emerged wholesale from the deserts of 7th century Arabia. In 2014 and 2015, Isis recruitment took place on Twitter and Facebook. YouTube was the favoured platform for the dissemination of propaganda. The group’s videoclips of its barbaric prisoner executions, including the beheadings of a series of western journalists and aid workers and the immolation
France has spent decades telling itself the same comforting story: that the children and grandchildren of Muslim immigrants would become more French than their parents. Secular, republican, integrated. The older generation might cling to conservative religious values, but the young raised on liberté, égalité and fraternité would drift towards the mainstream. That assumption has taken a serious blow. A country that once prided itself on assimilating newcomers has spent the past several decades dismantling the very idea of a dominant national ethos According to a new IFOP poll, 57 per cent of French Muslims aged 15 to 24 place the rules of Islam above the laws of the Republic. This is
The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and three warships have been sent to the Caribbean, where they are joining a dozen Navy warships already off the coast of Venezuela, in an unprecedented show of military force. President Trump and his administration are taking aim at the administration of Nicolas Maduro, over his alleged role in the drug trade which presents a national security threat to the United States. It’s clear that if the US succeeds in destabilising and displacing President Maduro’s regime, it would be a blow to the region’s drug traffickers. What is less known is that it would also hit Iran. Venezuela has long served as a launchpad