World

Friday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How the National Rally were discredited by the French media

The day after the French left had pulled off a sensational victory in the parliamentary elections one of their newly-elected MPs sent a tweet. Faced with the seemingly unstoppable rise of the National Rally, Macron reverted to ‘moral arguments’ Aurélien Rousseau had triumphed in a constituency south of Paris, and he wanted to express his ‘gratitude’ to the media for their ‘indispensable’ work. He name-checked a good proportion of the Fourth Estate, including all the regional press, local radio stations and the national newspapers Le Monde, La Croix, Libération and L’Humanité. Rousseau wasn’t the only member of the left-wing New Popular Front coalition who had good reason to thank the media for their work. Throughout

Jacob Heilbrunn

Joe Biden is in denial

Donald Trump had good reason to gloat over Joe Biden’s press conference flub referring to ‘Vice President Trump’. It was preceded earlier in the day by Biden calling Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky ‘President Putin.’ Biden, in other words, was at it again. But Biden adeptly seized the opportunity to offer a little lesson in foreign affairs in his presser at the Nato summit in Washington, zooming from Ukraine to China to Israel. Along the way, he got to flash his bona fides, including the declaration that he has spent a grand total of 90 hours speaking with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Biden was a man on a mission. His campaign

Thursday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

What explains Trump’s silence?

As the Democrats go into a very public meltdown about Joe Biden’s fitness to be their presidential candidate in November, there is an unusual sound emanating from Donald Trump: silence. In the 2016 campaign and across four years in the White House, Trump proved himself incapable of message discipline, venting against fellow Republicans on social media and turned press conferences into rambling denunciations of the latest character to displease him. This behaviour regularly handed Democrats and journalists the chance to shift the news cycle from issues difficult for them (e.g. immigration) and onto issues difficult for the GOP (e.g. Trump’s intemperance and Republican infighting). Few presidents have so routinely undermined

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What will the Democrats do next?

29 min listen

As speculation over whether Biden will remain in the presidential race continues, Freddy Gray speaks to journalist and founder of News Items John Ellis about what could happen next. How did Democrats end up in this situation and who holds the most power in influencing Biden’s decision? They also look ahead to next week’s Republican National Convention and discuss who is in the running to be Trump’s VP. Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons.

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Macron is looking increasingly desperate

President Emmanuel Macron finally broke his silence and rediscovered the magical breath of his ‘baraka’ as he took to the airwaves last night. He gave an inspiring speech offering a new political settlement to reunite the French, calling on his nation to be steadfast and confident in its greatness. Correction: Macron did nothing of the kind. Instead, far away at the Nato summit in Washington, he sent a desperate letter to local newspapers promising that something will turn up. Eventually. What Macron is hoping for now remains enigmatic and implausible This letter to the electorate is the most tone-deaf declaration so far from a president who has led France into a

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: Starmer’s first steps, Biden’s wobble and Australia’s egg shortage

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, appointed several ministers who are not MPs, but will be created life peers. Most cabinet posts went to MPs who had shadowed the portfolios, but as Attorney General he appointed Richard Hermer KC, a human rights lawyer, instead of Emily Thornberry, who said she was ‘very sorry and surprised’. James Timpson, the shoe-repair businessman and prison reformer, was made prisons minister. Sir Patrick Vallance was made science minister. The former home secretary Jacqui Smith became higher education minister; Ellie Reeves, the sister of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, became minister without portfolio. The government dropped the phrase ‘levelling up’. The Chancellor

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

What I saw at the Okhmatdyt bomb site

Kyiv For weeks, Kyiv had felt relatively safe compared with just about everywhere else in Ukraine. People had adjusted to wartime life as the city’s air defences managed to intercept most of Russia’s missiles and drones. There had been a sense that things were improving. This was shattered on Monday morning when a missile struck a children’s cancer hospital in the capital. Okhmatdyt is the largest paediatric clinic in Ukraine, the equivalent of London’s Great Ormond Street. Each year, it treats more than 20,000 children with the most serious health conditions. That Russia had targeted it came as a shock but not a surprise: some 1,700 medical facilities in Ukraine

The Spectator

Why don’t international laws apply to Russia?

The Kremlin has denied it targeted the Kyiv children’s hospital that was struck by a missile on Monday. It was aiming at legitimate military and civil infrastructure targets, it says, but the missile was intercepted by Ukraine’s Nasams defence system and the debris fell on the children’s ward. This is an easily debunked lie. The Spectator’s correspondent Svitlana Morenets was nearby and reports in these pages that there is plenty of video evidence to show exactly what happened: a perfectly intact, precision-guided Kh-101 missile going exactly where it was aimed. It is a war crime to target hospitals, yet Russia does so and still a European head of government, Viktor

Wednesday

Lee Cohen

Biden’s leadership, not his health, is America’s biggest problem

Since Joe Biden’s now infamous debate performance, the Democratic party has been having palpitations about his candidacy. But all brouhaha about Biden’s decline has distracted the public from critically examining his administration’s more significant failures. Democrats now talk as if the only problem with Biden is his ability to convince the public that he’s fit to serve. But a fish rots from the head and, thanks to his inept leadership, Biden’s government has weakened America’s security, its economic stability, and its international standing. These shortcomings should not be ignored. The failing policies of the Democratic left have made America less safe and less prosperous. One of the most contentious issues of

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Emmanuel Macron is cornered

They’re playing with a Rubik’s Cube in Paris trying to cobble together a government. An Italian-job technocratic government? A national government of all talents? A wonky coalition in the hope that something turns up? Perhaps France might discover, like Belgium, that it does better with no government at all.  Emmanuel Macron, who has provoked this political nervous breakdown, normally rushes onto television to treat French voters to his subtle thoughts, and perhaps he will break his silence and confide in us. His prolonged silence has nevertheless been telling. He’s cornered. Why he did this is inexplicable. He’s become the chained duck Obviously by any rational criteria of job performance Macron is guilty

Tuesday

Eliot Wilson

What will Starmer’s fellow world leaders make of him at the Nato summit?

In Westminster, Sir Keir Starmer is still in the honeymoon period as Prime Minister. In Washington, where Starmer heads for the start of the Nato summit today, the welcome is likely to be somewhat less warm. The new British team, made up of Starmer, foreign secretary David Lammy, defence secretary John Healey, and Nick Thomas-Symonds, now Cabinet Office minister in charge of ‘European relations’, will be greeted with courtesy and encouragement. But the red carpet won’t be rolled out: Nato leaders liked, rather than loathed, Rishi Sunak’s government. They felt him to be a man with whom they can do business. They will be eager to know if the same

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The ugly selfishness of France’s politicians

France play Spain this evening in the semi-final of the European football championship, and there may be a smile on the faces of some of the French players. Several have been social media in the last 24 hours, expressing their satisfaction with the success of the left-wing coalition in the election.  ‘Congratulations to all the French people who rallied round so that this beautiful country of France does not find itself governed by the extreme right’, said Jules Koundé. Aurélien Tchouaméni, who, like Koundé, plays his club football in Spain, called the result a ‘victory for the people’. Sunday night’s result was not, as Tchouaméni claims, a victory for the

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Real Biden has crashed – but Artificial Biden is just getting started

Everybody knows that Joe Biden isn’t really there. His denials of ill-health are in fact a symptom of it – he clings angrily to his delusions because that is what people do when their minds go. And since he seems so immovable, the question is whether Democrats can somehow buy into Biden’s alternate reality again in time for 2024. Can the party re-delude itself into thinking that he is somehow reversing the ageing process, even if that makes them look and sound ever more ridiculous? What we’re seeing is the increasingly disembodied Artificial Biden who will fight the rest of this campaign And the answer is: yes, they can! We

Monday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

How China’s electric cars dominated the world

34 min listen

The EU and US are turning up the pressure on Chinese made electric cars, as I discussed with my guest Finbarr Bermingham on the last episode.  In this episode, I want to take a closer look at how China has come to dominate the global electric car market. Chinese EVs make up 60 per cent of worldwide sales, and a third of global exports. Its leading brand, BYD, now regularly gives Tesla a run for its money in terms of number of cars sold.  How much of a role do subsidies play, versus other factors like its control of rare earths or lower labour costs? Is there really an overcapacity issue

Daniel Thorpe

Violence surges against Syrian refugees in Turkey

A wave of violence targeting Syrian refugees is spreading through Turkey, triggered by allegations of the sexual harassment of a child by a Syrian man in the city of Kayseri. The child, also Syrian, was related to him, according to the authorities. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, 3.1 million Syrians have been granted temporary protection in Turkey, according to official figures. But now there are growing public demands for them to return to Syria, fuelled by both the governing and opposition parties in Turkey. As reports of the incident in Kayseri snowballed on social media, mobs combed the streets, attacking and burning houses, businesses, and

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The Democrats’ greatest fear about Joe Biden

Stick or twist? The gambler’s choice is the Democrats’ awful dilemma as the US presidential election draws ever closer. Do they stick with Joe Biden, their painfully decrepit Commander-in-Chief, who is losing in the polls? Or twist and gamble on replacing him, which could tear the party apart and make Donald Trump’s victory even more likely? The President may already be on borrowed time The news over the weekend showed that the Democrats are already at war with themselves. Biden’s ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos did little to reassure the President’s anxious supporters and Sunday brought more news of House Democrats, and other senior Democratic figures, calling for him to make way. A newly hatched plan for

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Le Pen is still the biggest winner in France’s elections

Ignore most snap verdicts from last night – the big winner in the French parliamentary election was still Marine Le Pen, whose third-place finish was perfectly placed. True, egged on by polls showing it on the verge of an absolute majority, the Rassemblement National (National Rally) over-promised and underdelivered. But, in the topsy-turvy world of French politics in 2024, to lose was to win. Dirty work is about to be done at the Elysée Le Pen fought a competent campaign and her voters aren’t blaming her for failing to take the top of the podium. She’s demonstrated again that she’s highly resilient. Not achieving a majority has done her a

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron has left France in chaos

Over a photo of a pensive Emmanuel Macron, the headline on the front of one French tabloid this morning asks: ‘And now, we do what?’ Good question. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal will tender his resignation to the president this morning, although it is by no means certain it will be accepted. Macron could ask him to stay in his post while a government is formed and the Olympics run their course. That may take time given that no party emerged from Sunday’s second round of voting as dominant. In terms of seats won, no single party enjoyed a better night than the National Rally The left-wing coalition of Socialists, Communists,

Sunday

John Keiger John Keiger

Is France heading towards its Sixth Republic?

Against a backdrop of considerable tension – barricaded city centre shop-fronts and 30,000 police on standby – a radically divided France has voted in the second round of the legislative elections. To general amazement, the largest party in the National Assembly is the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) – but none of the major political groupings is able to form a majority government.  So what happens in France now? Who will actually govern? France will probably be ungovernable for some time to come First in line to form a government must be the New Popular Front. But unlike Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) or Macron’s Ensemble, no putative prime minister has

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France stunned as Mélenchon’s Popular Front comes first in election

In a sensational result that not even Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself could have imagined, his New Popular Front looks set to come first in the French elections. Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble party is forecast to be second forcing Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), which led the first round, into third place. Mass tactical voting to stop the RN seems to have worked far better than anyone expected. Rather than simply deprive the RN of an overall majority, we have a hung parliament with no clear sense of what happens next. Macron must now negotiate with parties to try to form a coalition government. ‘The will of the people must be strictly