World

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Sir Keir’s tax warning, Russian air attacks and another prisons crisis

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, speaking in the garden of 10 Downing Street, warned that the Budget in October is ‘going to be painful’, and that ‘things will get worse before they get better’. ‘I didn’t want to means-test the winter fuel payment, but it was a choice we had to make,’ he said. ‘A garden and a building that were once used for lockdown parties are now back in your service.’ Meanwhile, it was discovered, a pass to Downing Street had been given to Lord Alli, the Labour peer and party fundraiser, who gave £10,000 to the Beckenham and Penge constituency party; the seat was won by

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Is Germany’s far right about to go mainstream?

‘We need to deport, deport, deport!’ Björn Höcke, leader of the Alternative für Deutschland in Thuringia, emphasises each word with a clenched fist. It’s a hot Saturday evening in the small town of Arnstadt and Höcke is launching the AfD’s state election campaign. His branch of the party has been categorised as ‘indisputably far right’ not just by the press but by German domestic intelligence. Nonetheless, it’s leading in the polls ahead of three east German state elections, two of which take place on Sunday. Höcke could well end up ‘Minister President’ of Thuringia. Germany, which Keir Starmer visited this week, is struggling not just with economic difficulties but with

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Afrikaners have been endlessly maligned

This I began writing two weeks ago as an overnight guest in a cosy cabin on a farm beside an endless dirt road in the most remote part of the north-western Cape Province in the country of my birth, South Africa. To many eyes this might seem a landscape of utter desolation: hot, dry and windswept scrubland plateau, flat as far as the eye can see but cut by deep, rocky canyons tight with the most intense and diverse profusion of succulents on the planet: flowering aloes, spiky aloes, furry aloes, ground-creeping aloes and the strange giant palm-like aloe, the Quiver Tree. Jostling among them, the thorn bushes are murderous.

Wednesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What’s behind Starmer’s ‘reset’ with Europe?

16 min listen

Keir Starmer has been in Germany today visiting Chancellor Olaf Scholz, before heading to Paris to meet President Macron. This is part of his plan to ‘reset’ relations with Europe – but how close does he want to get to the EU? And, given Brexit wounds are still raw, what’s achievable?  James Heale is joined by Katy Balls and Sophia Gaston, head of the foreign policy unit at Policy Exchange to discuss. Produced by Megan McElroy and Patrick Gibbons. 

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Britain should exploit the mess Macron has made of France

Whether one is a Leaver or a Remainer, for most Britons Brexit has not worked out the way they wanted. The blame for the imbroglio can be shared between Westminster and Brussels. Keir Starmer has stated his intention to ‘turn a corner’ on Brexit and he launches that mission today in Berlin when he meets German chancellor Olaf Scholz. Among the items on the agenda are trade relations and immigration in what Starmer calls a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity’ to restore a good working relationship. Macron’s credibility has been on the wane within the EU long before this current crisis There is another reason why now is a propitious moment for Starmer

Ross Clark Ross Clark

A trade deal with Germany can only mean one thing

Britain will not be rejoining the EU, the single market nor the customs union – that ship has sailed, and all we seek now is a closer relationship with the EU. So Keir Starmer assures those who feel a little suspicious about his multiple meetings with Olaf Scholz in the weeks since becoming Prime Minister, the latest of which took place this morning. All he seeks, he says, is a better trade deal which would allow better access to EU markets for UK firms. Maybe Starmer dreams at night of being paraded through the streets of Brussels as the man who engineered Britain’s return to the EU Maybe Starmer dreams

Terry Barnes

Australia’s ‘right to switch off’ will be a disaster

For a great many, their job is their vocation. It’s not just what they do for a living, it’s a key part of defining who they are as a person. These people love what they do and, if the need is there, willingly work over and above their standard working days to ensure that a task or project is completed on time and done well. They take pride in their work and, when a client or customer is happy with the service given, they take deep satisfaction in that. They feel validated not just as workers, but as people. They live to work. Australian unions are delighted with the potential

Tuesday

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Zelensky says Kursk offensive is collateral in a victory plan

At a press conference in Kyiv today, Volodymyr Zelensky spoke about his strategy to end Russia’s war. He has a plan which he says he will present next month to Joe Biden and to the two contenders to succeed him: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. He also confirmed The Spectator’s report that the objective of the Kursk operation is ‘one of the key points’ as collateral in a negotiation which, he says, will ‘force Russia to end the war through diplomacy’. Zelensky’s peace plans have often seemed overly ambitious We’re now in week four of the battle in the Kursk region, with Ukrainian forces taking control of about 100 Russian

Niko Vorobyov

The rise of Isis in Russia’s prisons

On Friday, a hostage crisis unfolded at the IK-19 prison colony near Volgograd, the southern Russian city once known as Stalingrad. Four convicts – who declared themselves members of Islamic State – took 12 of their wardens and fellow inmates captive. In one video a guard can be seen lying in a pool of blood, his throat slit. Three more hostages lost their lives before special forces stormed the penitentiary and neutralised their captors with extreme prejudice. Friday’s incident follows an earlier hostage-taking by Isis two months ago at a detention centre in Rostov, where all six jailhouse jihadis were gunned down by police. These events pose the question: what’s happening in Russia’s prisons?

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

French Jews are living in fear

The Paralympics begin in Paris tomorrow but the feel-good factor generated in France by the Olympic Games at the start of the month has long since evaporated. Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, was perhaps a little premature in declaring on August 7 that the success of the Games had ‘crushed the far-right’s message’. That message, according to Hidalgo, is one of negativity and division, challenging the prevailing progressive view of France as a country of happy multiculturalism. By far-right she meant the ten million plus people who had voted for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in July’s parliamentary elections. ‘Something incredibly positive is happening, and even good news,

Monday

Jonathan Spyer

Iran and Hezbollah don’t want a war with Israel

Hezbollah’s response to the killing of senior official Fuad Shukr, when it finally came, was a more minor event than anticipated. For weeks, both the Lebanese Shia Islamist group and its Iranian patron have been threatening a terrible revenge for the recent assassinations in Beirut and Tehran. It is now clear, however, that neither Hezbollah or Iran wishes to risk a descent to all put war at the present time. Iran appears to have relegated its response to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran to some point in the future. Hezbollah, meanwhile, sought to target two sites of high significance – the Mossad headquarters, and the HQ

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

John Mearsheimer on Ukraine, Israel-Gaza and the US election

44 min listen

Professor John Mearsheimer joins Freddy Gray to discuss the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza, and the influence of both on the US election. The Israel-Gaza conflict has led to internal divisions within the democratic party, how will Kamala Harris deal with this? And as the Russia-Ukraine conflict shows no signs of ebbing, what does he see as the west’s role in the war?  Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons.

Jim Lawley

Is anti-tourism becoming Spain’s Brexit?

Believing that membership of the European Union was undeniably beneficial for the UK economy, many Remainers struggled to understand why the majority had voted against it. One hypothesis was that ‘Leavers’ felt they’d missed out on the benefits – that perhaps people who thought the wealth hadn’t been spread around fairly had voted for Brexit in order to teach the greedy elite a lesson. Here in Spain, it’s tourism that, to the authorities’ surprise, has suddenly proved unpopular. It’s easy to see why they considered tourism to be undeniably beneficial. After all, it accounts for about 13 per cent of GNP and a quarter of the new jobs created in

David Loyn David Loyn

Ignoring the Taliban won’t end their reign of terror

The Taliban have always had a strange misogynist world view, weirdly preoccupied by sex. The first time they were in power in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the governor of the western province Herat banned women from walking or talking in the street outside his office, in case he was distracted by footsteps ‘or hearing the sound of their laughter’. The Taliban attempted to control every aspect of life. But it has taken until now, three years into their second period of power, for them to impose the full set of restrictions they imposed then.  The last three years have been bad enough, particularly for women and girls, banned from

Sunday

Owen Matthews

The arrest of Pavel Durov raises awkward questions

Pavel Durov, Russian-born founder of the Telegram messaging and social media app, has been arrested in France for failing to comply with official demands to regulate content posted by users on his app. According to a warrant issued by France’s Ofmin – an office tasked with preventing violence against minors – Durov’s alleged offences include abetting fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organised crime, child pornography and the promotion of terrorism. The arrest of the 39-year-old Durov – a French, Saint Kitts and Nevis and United Arab Emirates citizen – is set to become a battle royal between advocates of free speech and those who seek to regulate it. Elon Musk, owner

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon bring Jerusalem one step closer to regional dominance

As the dust literally settles across southern Lebanon in the aftermath of the Israeli airstrikes, we are starting to see an answer to the question of whether this will be the escalation that leads to all-out war. Hezbollah has declared an end to the first phase of revenge for Israel’s assassination of its most senior military commander Fuad Shukr, who masterminded the killing of 241 marines and 58 French soldiers in 1983, in Beirut last month. Its planned attack on the headquarters of Mossad and Unit 8200, Israel’s fabled military intelligence directorate, has been averted. Casualties appear to have been very limited. Jerusalem’s spy chiefs have flown to Cairo to

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The Islamists want to silence music the way they have free speech

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday at a festival in Germany that left three people dead and many more wounded. In a statement they said one of their ‘soldiers’ carried out the attack ‘as revenge against Muslims in Palestine and everywhere’. As soon as news broke of Friday’s attack in the town of Solingen, fifteen miles east of Düsseldorf, seasoned observers of Islamist extremism knew who to blame. Despite the risible posturing of western governments in recent years that far-right fanatics pose as great a threat to our way of life as Islamic extremists, the people aren’t fooled. It’s not the far-right who have murdered

Eliot Wilson

The EU finally takes the Red Sea crisis seriously

An oil tanker carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude oil is on fire and adrift in the Red Sea, after Houthi militants based in Yemen apparently caused three explosions on board. The Greek-flagged MV Sounion now represents a ‘navigational and environmental hazard’, according to the European Union’s naval mission in the region, Operation Aspides. It went on to warn that the fire ‘could lead to a severe ecological disaster with potentially devastating effects on the region’s biodiversity’. This is a serious situation. Houthis attacked the vessel on Wednesday, following which the crew – 25 Filipino and Russian sailors and four private security contractors – was taken off by a French warship

Julius Strauss

How life carries on near the Kursk front line

Sumy, Ukraine In the city of Sumy, the jumping off point for the Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Kursk region, the night is punctuated by the sound of explosions, the staccato fire of anti-aircraft batteries, and occasionally the whir of Iranian-made Shaheed suicide drones. In a parking lot in the east of the city a dozen cars were burned to a crisp on a recent Saturday morning, incinerated by one of Moscow’s Iskanders, a hypersonic missile that travels at Mach six and has a range of more than 300 miles. Meanwhile in a basement cellar in the city dozens of young Russian conscripts, taken prisoner in Kyiv’s recent land-grab, were being

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

The allure and terror of Mount Fuji

Six men have died on Japan’s iconic Mount Fuji since the start of the climbing season in July. This figure, two more than last year, is especially worrying given that steps had only recently been taken to mitigate the dangers of climbing the mountain. Various restrictions were introduced earlier this year to deal with overcrowding, which has become a feature of the mountain. A cap of 4,000 climbers a day was imposed along with a fee of 2,000 yen (£10). A website giving advice about weather conditions and congestion on the mountain was set up. Prayers were offered in an official ceremony before the climbing season opened. The lesson from