World

Thursday

James Tidmarsh

Macron survives again – but at what cost?

Sébastien Lecornu’s government has survived a no-confidence vote – but only because Emmanuel Macron shelved the pension reform that once defined his presidency. Today’s motion of censure fell short of the 289 votes needed to bring down the government, sparing Macron for now but leaving his authority weakened. What began as a crusade for fiscal responsibility has ended in capitulation, exposing the fragility of his presidency. If the vote saved Macron in the short term, it exposed how completely he has lost control of his political base Out of 577 members of parliament, 271 voted for censure, leaving the government 18 votes short of collapse. It was not a narrow

Arieh Kovler

Hamas is taking revenge on the gangs of Gaza

As the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into force, perhaps Gazans thought they might finally get some brief moment of peace. If so, they were wrong. Almost as soon as the IDF withdrew to the new Yellow Line inside Gaza, the bullets started flying and Palestinians were once again being killed: but this time, it was Hamas pulling the trigger. Their first target: the Doghmush clan.  Until it took power in a coup in 2007, Hamas was essentially just the biggest armed gang in Gaza, and it hasn’t forgotten this  Like every society, Palestinian society has its faultlines that divide its people into different smaller groups. There’s politics: Hamas,

Eliot Wilson

Nato is far too complacent about Russian drones

Something is afoot in Nato’s airspace – but the alliance’s complacent response to the various incursions is rather troubling. In recent weeks, suspicious drones have intruded into the jurisdictions of Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Norway; identifiable Russian drones were tracked over Romania and shot down over Poland. Three Russian Mikoyan MiG-31 fighters violated Estonia’s airspace and loitered for 12 minutes before retreating when Italian F-35 aircraft were scrambled to intercept them. Putin is testing the alliance, pushing it little by little, upping the ante by increments to see what response he finds You might think that these various incidents would shake Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, out of his usual

Anastasia Piliavsky

Zelensky’s attack on Odesa is a step too far

In a single week, Kyiv has launched a triple attack on Odesa: on its language, history, and elected government. The city, which for almost four years has endured relentless bombardment and held Ukraine’s maritime front, now finds itself besieged by its own capital. With growing calls for an election, Zelensky appears to be clearing the field of rivals The most startling of these moves against Odesa is president Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to strip Gennady Trukhanov – the city’s three-times-elected mayor – of his Ukrainian citizenship and office. The charge is that Trukhanov holds a Russian passport, which the mayor flatly denies. Yet without a court hearing or any due process,

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Chinese spies, Vance’s rise & is French parenting supreme?

30 min listen

‘Here be dragons’ declares the Spectator’s cover story this week, as it looks at the continuing fallout over the collapse of the trial of two political aides accused of spying for China in Westminster. Tim Shipman reveals that – under the last Conservative government – a data hub was sold to the Chinese that included highly classified information; one source describes this to him as a ‘stratospheric clusterfuck’. Why do successive governments seem to struggle with UK-China relations? And, with many unanswered questions still remaining, what’s the truth over this case?  Host Lara Prendergast is joined by the Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman, arts editor Igor Toronyi-Lalic and deputy editor

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Can anyone stop J.D. Vance becoming president?

As Donald J. Trump flew to the Holy Land on Sunday to declare peace, his Vice-President took to the airwaves to address the rumbling civil conflict on the home front. J.D. Vance did not rule out invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act in order to quell the violent protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in several American cities. ‘The problem is the fact that the entire media in this country, cheered on by a few far-left lunatics, have made it OK to tee off on American law enforcement,’ he told NBC News. ‘We cannot accept that in the United States of America.’ This is now Vance’s familiar role. He’s not

Nick Boles

Ukraine must stand as a fortress of European freedom

It is 35 years since I was last in Warsaw and the city is unrecognisable. Back then it was grimy and depressing, full of buildings still pockmarked by bomb damage. Nothing worked and nobody smiled. Now it gleams. The historic Old Town has been lovingly rebuilt and restored. Everything else is new: the cars, the shops, the office blocks and apartment buildings. The fashions are sharp and the teeth are white. It is a powerful tonic for beleaguered liberals. Don’t let the democracy-in-decline-mongers deceive you. Economic and political freedom work. And what the world needs is more of both. In the early 1990s I was sent as a wet-behind-the ears

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Gaza ceasefire, unemployment increases and a Gen Z uprising

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, praised President Donald Trump for the Gaza ceasefire agreement while in India accompanied by a trade delegation of 126. He then flew off to Egypt for the summit at which the peace declaration was signed. Sir Keir asserted that the dropping of a prosecution against two men for spying for Beijing (which they deny) was because China had not been a ‘threat to national security’ when they were accused of espionage between December 2021 and February 2023; Lord Case, the former cabinet secretary, said it definitely had been, and two former heads of MI6 agreed. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, was seen to

The Spectator

The questions the government must answer over the China spying case

Exactly a year ago, this magazine warned that ministers were showing a dangerous naivety towards China. We revealed that the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister were all intent on cosying up to Beijing. They were scornful of the wariness Conservative ministers had shown towards the Chinese Communist party. The Labour leadership believed that their pursuit of growth could be supercharged by Chinese investment. They hoped one of their missions – the drive to decarbonise the grid – could be facilitated by Chinese tech. They thought Tory attitudes to China were warped by ideology and a more pragmatic line towards Beijing would be economically rewarding. A ‘China Audit’

Tim Shipman

Here be dragons: the truth about Chinese espionage

On 3 July a Chinese man, Xu Zewei, was arrested in Milan to face extradition on nine charges relating to the hack carried out by a group called Haf-nium during the Covid pandemic. Western companies had secrets stolen in 2020 and 2021 when a weakness in the Microsoft Exchange servers was exploited. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ, later said 70 British firms had fallen victim to ‘a malicious act by Chinese state-backed actors’. The court documents claim that officers of China’s ‘Ministry of State Security and the Shanghai State Security Bureau directed Xu to conduct this hacking’. China is constantly probing for ‘weaknesses’ in British defences

Wednesday

Georgia L. Gilholy

Why are British aides going on ‘Future Leaders’ trips to China?

What if it were uncovered that staffers for Foreign Office ministers had been flown out to Moscow for lavish grace and favour trips with Vladimir Putin’s underlings? Investigations would be launched and resignations hastily tendered. But we can expect no such outrage when China, not Russia, is the destination. Why funnel money into tackling the CCP’s malign influence while investing in networking trips that fuel its propaganda machine? The ‘Future Leaders Programme’ is organised by the Great Britain-China Centre (GBCC), a taxpayer-funded quango charged with encouraging ‘dialogue’ with China. According to parliament’s register of interests, staffers for Catherine West, then Foreign Office minister for the Indo-Pacific, and for David Lammy, the

Mark Nayler

Pedro Sanchez is compiling a blacklist of anti-abortion doctors

Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist prime minister, has demanded that the regions of Aragon, Asturias, the Balearic Islands and Madrid – most of which are governed by the Conservative People’s party (PP) – compile lists of doctors who refuse to perform pregnancy terminations. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the PP president of Madrid, has refused to publish what she calls a ‘blacklist’. The move is part of Sanchez’s plan to make abortion a constitutional right, following the example set by France last year. Abortion has been legal in Spain since 1985, and in 2010 the 12-week rule, which allowed women to receive pregnancy terminations without having to give a reason, was increased to 14

Yossi Melman

Netanyahu has let a key opportunity slip through his fingers

The refusal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the Sharm el-Sheikh peace summit this week has cast a long shadow over his future – both at home and abroad. After President Donald Trump landed earlier that day at Ben Gurion Airport – at the very moment Israeli hostages began to be released – he invited Netanyahu to ride with him in ‘the Beast’, the US presidential limousine, on the way to address the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. During the 30-minute drive, Trump personally urged Netanyahu to accompany him to the summit. Netanyahu, seeking formal protocol, requested an official invitation. Within minutes, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi telephoned the Israeli prime minister. On

Limor Simhony Philpott

Hamas unchecked is as brutal as ever

As the dust settles on Israel’s phased withdrawal from Gaza under Donald Trump’s hard-won ceasefire deal, Hamas has slithered straight back into the void. Barely hours after the ink dried on ‘phase one’ of Trump’s plan, the Islamist rulers of Gaza unleashed a wave of reprisals against rival Palestinian clans. Accusations of ‘collaboration’ with Israel, or simple refusal to bow to Hamas’s rule, have triggered executions, abductions and what survivors are calling outright massacres. Instead of rebuilding, Gaza is now witnessing a purge. The message is clear: anyone who worked against Hamas during the war will pay for it now. In Gaza City, fierce clashes have erupted between Hamas and

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Middle East experts got Trump all wrong

Whenever Donald Trump proposes a policy that runs counter to the progressive consensus, there are three stages of response: it’ll never work, it’s a disaster, it was our idea all along. We are at stage three on Trump’s truce in Gaza. Antony Blinken, Secretary of State in Joe Biden’s administration, says: ‘It’s good that President Trump adopted and built on the plan the Biden administration developed after months of discussion with Arab partners, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.’ It’s true that Joe Biden secured a two-month ceasefire at the start of the year and with it the release of a sizeable contingent of hostages. It’s true also that Trump’s truce

Tim Shipman

China spy scandal: ‘a masterclass of ineptitude’?

13 min listen

Tim Shipman and Charles Parton, China adviser at the Council on Geostrategy, join James Heale to discuss the ongoing fallout over the collapse of the Westminster spy case. Security minister Dan Jarvis answered an urgent question on the matter late on Monday in Parliament, stringently denying that the government played an active role in collapsing the case. But, as Charles and Tim stress, the case still doesn’t add up. Is it as simple as the government not wanting to offend China? And is the deputy national security adviser being ‘hung out to dry’? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Irwin Stelzer

Can the peace in Gaza last?

He came, he saw, he conquered. That just about describes President Trump’s 12,000-mile round trip from Washington, D.C. to Israel and Egypt. He addressed Israel’s Knesset in Jerusalem, greeted the hostages and their families, hopped on Air Force One for a flight to Sharm el-Sheikh, signed the first phase of a Gaza peace deal, delivered a moving speech, met with the leaders of 27 countries to push the next phases of his 20-point peace plan forward and take a well-earned victory lap, and returned to Washington after what most people would consider a full day. The hope that a ceasefire will eventually reduce the bitter enmity between Gazans and Israel

Bronwyn Jones

Did Blair really rebuild Kosovo?

Donald Trump seems to be questioning Tony Blair’s inclusion in the so-called ‘Board of Peace’ to rebuild Gaza. On Monday, speaking on Air Force One, the President said, ‘I like Tony, I’ve always liked Tony, but I want to find out that he’s an acceptable choice to everybody’. Those backing Blair’s bid to be involved in the peace plan point to his role in rebuilding Kosovo. If he did it there he could surely do the same in Gaza, they argue. But is Kosovo really an example of successful nation building? And how much credit should we give to Tony Blair if it is? Blair may have created a plan

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Thank God for Donald Trump

Imagine, for a moment, the world we narrowly escaped. A world in which Joe Biden, frail and fading, remained in the 2024 presidential race and, with the exhausted assent of a compliant media and a protective establishment, was returned to the White House. A world in which his decisive televised collapse never quite happened or was quickly obscured. In this alternate reality, Biden staggered through the campaign and secured just enough ground to claim victory. If the career diplomats sneered at the ‘real estate men’ entering geopolitics, they may now see: sometimes, it takes builders to rebuild the world Had that happened, the consequences would have been severe, not just

Monday

James Tidmarsh

Macron has to choose: humiliation or defeat?

Emmanuel Macron’s presidency is imploding, squeezed between enemies he can no longer outmanoeuvre. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise, joined by the Socialists, have united to force yet another no-confidence vote, this time set for Thursday. Once the master of France’s centre, Macron’s political survival hinges on a humiliating surrender of his flagship pension reform, or a headlong rush into legislative elections his party cannot win. Macron presents every decision as an act of duty, then retreats when his own powers are threatened. The result is a presidency that has lost its moral centre as well as its political one The Lecornu government 2.0 was meant