World

Tuesday

Eliot Wilson

Starmer will struggle to keep both the EU and US happy

We do not have to make a choice between our alliance with the United States and closer relations with the European Union: that was the message of the Prime Minister’s traditional annual speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall. Sir Keir Starmer called the supposed binary ‘plain wrong’, and prayed in aid some of his most illustrious predecessors. I reject it utterly. Attlee did not choose between allies. Churchill did not choose. The national interest demands that we work with both. He described the ‘special relationship’ with the United States in profound terms, written ‘in the ink of shared sacrifice… in Normandy, Flanders and around the world’, and

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is this the end for Barnier – and Macron?

Emmanuel Macron arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday for trade talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Having signed a strategic partnership deal in Riyadh, the pair pledged to work for peace in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon. An Élysée spokesman said Macron wants ‘presidential elections to be held in Lebanon, with the aim of bringing the Lebanese together and carrying out the reforms necessary for the country’s stability and security.’ No one wants to be seen trying to save Emmanuel Macron The irony won’t have been lost on the French. A recent poll revealed that nearly two-thirds of the country think their president should resign in the event that

Matthew Lynn

Marine Le Pen’s reckless game with the French economy

The power probably feels good. And it may help her win the presidency eventually. Even so, there is a catch to Marine Le Pen’s decision to bring down Michel Barnier’s government in France, potentially as soon as tomorrow afternoon. If the government goes, the eurozone ay well go down with it. The financial plans of Le Pen’s National Rally’s (NR) party are completely reckless. And even if the chaos that will follow the vote does help win the Élysée Palace for Le Pen, she will inherit a ruined economy – for which she will only have herself to blame.  The NR’s only answer to excessive spending is to spend even

Damien Phillips

Why Britain is rolling out the red carpet for Qatar

This week’s state visit by the Emir of Qatar is the first of any Arab leader since King Charles ascended the throne. This is no coincidence: while its role is often misunderstood, Qatar has skilfully positioned itself as one of the West’s most important allies in the Middle East. Doha’s role as the world’s mediator-in-chief is only going to become more important With the current conflict in the Levant showing no signs of slowing, the Russo-Ukrainian War entering a critical phase, and events in Syria and Yemen increasing the risk of a wider conflict, Doha’s role as the world’s mediator-in-chief is only going to become more important. Yet the polarisation

Christian Wolmar

The Japanese are in for a big TfL culture shock

Tokyo Nothing can prepare the good people from Tokyo Metro – who are coming to London to run the Elizabeth Line – from the culture shock they will undoubtedly suffer here. Japan, as we all know, is a very different place and the way they operate their transport system is very different to how business is conducted here. To make it even harder for those plucky Japanese managers to adapt, the key difference is one that can only be felt rather than seen – the utter divergence in the business ethos of the two nations. Nowhere is that better expressed than in their respective railway networks. For a start, Tokyo

Patrick Gibbons

Ireland’s centre has held

Two years ago, I secured an apartment in Dublin through a gay dating app. I was desperate and there was a housing shortage in Ireland so I was prepared to ignore safety concerns to get a roof over my head. ‘You must be used to this in London’, Irish friends would say to me. But I was not. In London if you’re happy to compromise on cost or location, there are plenty of rooms available. In Dublin you can double or triple your budget or look further afield and still not find a place. There are some very high-spec, new-build apartments in the city’s docklands (its ‘tech hub’), which can cost around

Monday

Jonathan Spyer

Success for Syria’s rebels is far from guaranteed

Syrian Sunni Islamist fighters are continuing to consolidate their gains in Syria’s Aleppo province. Almost the entirety of Aleppo city, sometimes called the capital of Syria’s north, is now in the hands of the Turkey-backed fighters. Russian and Assad regime airstrikes have begun in earnest on opposition-held parts of the country’s north west. The lightning advance of the insurgents has now slowed down. Fresh from their triumph in Aleppo, the Sunni fighters sought to push into Hama province further south. Elements of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS – or the ‘Organization for the liberation of Syria/the Levant’), which is spearheading the push south, entered the suburbs of the city but were

David Christopher Kaufman

Why Joe Biden was right to pardon Hunter

President Joe Biden’s unexpected pardon of his son, Hunter, on federal gun charges may appear as the ultimate example of lawfare hypocrisy, but it’s really the best outcome for everyone – including Donald Trump. Despite indications that such a pardon was unlikely, Biden – who infamously declared on X in May that “no one is above the law” – now believes that Hunter was “unfairly prosecuted.” Jail time would have kept the Biden family in the spotlight long past their expiration date “I believe in the justice system,” Biden said on Sunday while announcing an end to his son’s legal drama, “but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this

Francis Pike

Why the West must back Syria’s Bashar al-Assad

I had a nasty shock when I switched on my TV on Sunday. It was clearly a propaganda film with hijabed women standing amidst the rubble of their former homes extolling Hezbollah’s victory over the invading forces of Israel. Except it wasn’t a propaganda film; it was a BBC news report from Lebanon highlighting the plight of the de-housed Hezbollah-supporting Lebanese.  Of course, there was no report on the 60,000 Israelis who are still too frightened to return to their homes in northern Israel. They have good reason. Over the weekend, Hezbollah troops broke the ceasefire agreement and fired rockets into northern Israel. However, the anti-Israel bias of the BBC

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The Oxford Union has disgraced itself

The chamber of the Oxford Union, that once-proud institution, has been breached by the forces of bigotry, hatred, and mob rule. Invited to speak against an anti-Israel motion, I attended with three colleagues, each bringing unique expertise and experience to the room. But what unfolded on Thursday night was not a debate at all. It was an assault on the very principles the Union once claimed to uphold, presided over by organisers who behaved more like a mafia than custodians of an august society dedicated to free speech. This was an extremist mob dressed up like a wolf in black tie The motion for debate was itself a grotesque provocation: “This

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Joe Biden was always going to pardon Hunter

Joe Biden’s whole presidency has been built on untruths. We were led to believe, for instance, that since 2021 the Commander-in-Chief has been fit and well enough to serve, when everybody could see that he was not.  So the latest proof-of-dishonesty over the pardoning of Hunter Biden comes as no great surprise. Of course, Joe was going to grant clemency to his errant and only living son. He just pretended he wouldn’t all year for electoral reasons. The maudlin love of the father used to dress up the presidential deceit ‘I believe in the justice system,’ said the president in a statement. ‘But as I have wrestled with this, I also believe

Sunday

Nicholas Hopton

A pause between wars

‘What is to stop it happening again?’ was the pertinent question put to me by a Lebanese friend this week as we discussed over a mezze the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Given what we know of the terms agreed between the combatants, the answer seems to be, ‘Not a lot.’ Generally, I am not one to pour cold water or see the glass half empty. But beyond welcoming a cessation in the brutal meeting out of death by bombardment on the civilians in both Lebanon and northern Israel, it is hard to see the ceasefire agreement as sustainable in the long term.   Since Hezbollah weighed in

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is ‘testosterone politics’ surging?

56 min listen

Freddy Gray is joined by Charles Cornish-Dale, an academic and bodybuilder known for writing under the pseudonym Raw Egg Nationalist. On the podcast they discuss the recent surge in testosterone politics on the right, what’s behind the fall in male testosterone levels, and why this could lead to the end of humanity… 

Edward Howell

South Korea’s balloon barrage has hit a nerve in the North

Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has long been confined to her brother’s not-insignificant shadow. But, in recent weeks, Yo Jong has shown that she is far more than just her brother’s ashtray-carrying secretary. She has launched a series of fiery rhetorical attacks against South Korea, accusing “South Korean scum” of “polluting the inviolable territory” of the North by distributing “political and conspiratorial” material. The target of her ire is leaflets denouncing her brother’s regime, which have been distributed using balloons across the Korean border. Yo Jong’s way with words shows that she is a chip off the old block. Yo Jong’s way

Saturday

Ian O’Doherty

Irish politics is stuck on a loop

It’s Green bin day! That was the general refrain of many Irish political wags as the country continues to tally the count from Friday’s election. The first indicators from the exit polls were that the Green party who had been minority, but deeply unpopular, members of the governing coalition had just been hammered by the voters. Speaking at the main count centre in Dublin’s RDS, an ashen faced party leader Roderic O’Gorman admitted that ‘this has not been a good day for us’. On this point, he is certainly correct. They are now on course to lose eight of the twelve seats they had previously held and he ruefully admitted

Michael Murphy

Ireland’s voters have chosen to stick with the devil they know

At first glance, Ireland’s general election has bucked global trends: the centre has held. If the exit polls are borne out, the century-long dominance of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael appears set to continue, with another coalition government likely. But storm clouds are gathering. The most recent ill-winds stirred when Simon Harris, the Taoiseach, faced what is perhaps the most exotic and daunting task for Ireland’s liberal establishment: an unscripted interaction with a voter. Today, Ireland voted sheepishly for the status quo In a painfully awkward exchange at a Cork supermarket – later immortalised online – Harris transformed from the ‘TikTok Taoiseach’ into Ireland’s answer to The Thick of It. Confronted

Ian Williams Ian Williams

The corruption scandal gripping Xi Jinping’s army

In an effort to create a cutting edge force, the Chinese Communist party (CCP) has spent billions of dollars expanding and modernising its armed forces at a pace rarely seen in peace time. But on the evidence of the last few days, the most cutting edge features of its top ranks remain corruption and political intrigue. Miao Hua, one of China’s top commanders has been suspended and is under investigation for ‘serious violations of discipline’ – CCP-speak for corruption, according to the defence ministry. Miao, a navy admiral, is one of six members of the party’s powerful central military commission, chaired by President Xi Jinping. He was also head of

Jane Stannus

Prepare for the National Suicide Service

Tragically, British lawmakers voted on Friday in favour of a bill legalising medically assisted dying. Despite all the talk of ‘safeguards’ and determination to make it ‘the best bill it can be’, the horses are out of the stable now. Once assisted suicide is enshrined as a moral good for even the tiniest, most carefully screened subset of the population, pro-euthanasia campaigners have won the war. It’s all over but the shouting. There will be more battles to come, of course, as the inevitable attempts to expand the subset of those thought to be ‘better off dead’ moves from terminally ill adults, to suffering adults, to ‘mature minors’, to infants and the

Charles Lister

Syria’s conflict is heating up once more

Since March 2020, Syria’s conflict lines have been frozen, as Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States held together a series of ceasefires and security understandings. That all changed this week, when a broad coalition of armed opposition groups launched a surprise and daring offensive west of Aleppo city. As ‘Operation Deter Aggression’ was launched on Wednesday morning, the goal was to expand opposition control of Aleppo’s western countryside, from where Syrian regime forces had been indiscriminately shelling civilian areas for years. Many would have assumed that goal was ambitious, but within three days, more than 80 villages and towns had been captured. Syrian regime forces and their Iranian proxy

Robert Service

How to negotiate with Russians

Russians are notorious for an aggressiveness at the negotiating table. In 2017 I met a group of diplomats from eastern Europe who highlighted this. They made the point that western commentary understates, if anything, the Russian habit in official talks to insult and intimidate. Apparently Putinite finger-wagging is the least of it and street-language curses and threats are completely normal. Countries to the east of the river Elbe are still regarded in the Kremlin as Russia’s eternal zone of influence. But Russian politicians also know how to diversify their table manners. They can recognise an opportunity when they see one, and Vladimir Putin expects to deploy gentler manners with Donald