World

Wednesday

Matthew Lynn

Donald Trump’s tariff talk is just bluster

Donald Trump is campaigning hard on protectionism, promising to bring skilled manual jobs back onshore. What will that look like? Huge tariffs on imports, foreign companies unable to ‘steal’ American jobs, a re-industrialisation of the heartlands of the United States. But here’s the catch: a trade war on the scale that Trump is promising is simply not feasible. He is bluffing.  There is no question that Trump is ramping up protectionist rhetoric. ‘American workers will no longer be worried about losing their jobs to foreign nations,’ he told a rally yesterday. ‘Vote for Trump, and you will see a mass exodus of manufacturing from China to Pennsylvania, from Korea to

Owen Matthews

How Wagner mercenaries abused HSBC and JP Morgan

Whatever happened to the Wagner Group, Evgeny Prigozhin’s shadowy army of prisoners and mercenaries? In the wake of Wagner’s abortive mutiny in June 2023 – and of Prigozhin’s own not-so-mysterious death two months later in a plane crash near Moscow – most of the Russia-based units of the group were rolled into the Kremlin’s official armed forces. In Africa, however, where Wagner built an empire not only of guns-for-hire but also of murky mining and oil concessions, Prigozhin’s former henchmen continue their bloody and lucrative business. And according to a new report by the US-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) part of that business relied on the unwitting assistance of international banks

Michael Karam

Is this the end for Hezbollah?

The recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is a war that’s not yet officially a war, initiated by a political party without a mandate that takes its orders from Tehran, in support of a Palestinian party that few Lebanese care about. Hezbollah was the jewel in the Mullah’s turban It is a decades-old conflict, an exhausting, deadly stalemate, but this recent escalation could prove to be decisive. There’s a chance Israel could finally deliver a dagger blow to Hezbollah. This would be a staggering achievement because the Iranian-backed Shia militant group controls many, if not all, of the levers of power in Lebanon, and has been a constant irritant to

Eliot Wilson

Evacuating Lebanon would test Starmer’s mettle

As the security situation in Lebanon deteriorates, the British government is accelerating plans to evacuate its civilians. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has advised British nationals in the country to leave while commercial flights were still operating. It also said that British nationals should have an evacuation plan, and warned that they should ‘not rely on FCDO being able to evacuate you in an emergency’. It is believed there may still be 10,000 British nationals in Lebanon. As things stand, most major airlines have now cancelled or suspended services to Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport, and many of the remaining flights have sold out. Sir Keir Starmer has said bluntly:

Ian Williams Ian Williams

While Xi reigns, China’s economy is unreformable

It was presented as a bold stimulus to boost China’s ailing economy – but while it excited stock markets in Asia, Western economists were underwhelmed. At a rare press conference in Beijing on Tuesday, the usually gnomic governor of the People’s Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng, unveiled a range of measures designed to ‘support the stable growth of China’s economy’ and see that it hits this year’s target of five per cent growth. There was a time when such measures, which included an interest rate cut and more funds to support the stock and property markets, would have quickened the pulse of investors. But this is unlikely to reverse their

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Joe Biden’s dishonest farewell tour

‘Some things are more important than staying in power,’ Joe Biden just told the United Nations, and the General Assembly broke into sustained applause. Biden left the stage clasping his hand to his chest, so touched that he had so touched the crowd.  ‘It’s your people that matter the most,’ said Biden. ‘Never forget we are here to serve the people. Not the other way around.’ It says quite a lot about the state of modern political leadership that such remarks are construed as moving insight.  Let’s try to put aside how bogus Biden’s departing shtick is. The truth, which we all know, is that he spent the best part

Jonathan Spyer

Can Israel avoid provoking all-out war with Hezbollah?

Israel has carried out its largest-scale operation against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the summer war of 2006. Wave after wave of Israeli aircraft struck at 1,600 targets across Lebanon yesterday with the aim of targeting Hezbollah weapons stores. Nearly 500 people were killed, according to figures issued by the Lebanese authorities. After nearly twelve months of controlled escalation on Israel’s northern border, we are now potentially on the cusp of all-out war.   Israel’s purpose in increasing the pressure on Hezbollah and Lebanon is to drive a wedge between the various components of the Iran-led regional alliance currently engaged against it. Hamas, a junior client of Tehran, launched the 7 October

Michael Evans

What is Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’?

President Zelensky is in the United States for his latest, possibly last, throw of the dice before the American election, in his attempt to prove that victory can be achieved against Ukraine’s Russian invaders. The redoubtable leader of Ukraine has brought what he calls his ‘victory plan’, which embraces every facet of his nation’s future. It includes his strategy for forcing President Putin to end the war and for the West to guarantee his beleaguered country’s long-term security and economic prosperity. It’s a grand vision which he will present to President Biden in the White House on Thursday. There are a number of conditions which are dependent on American support,

Monday

Limor Simhony Philpott

Can Israelis stomach another war?

It was late in 1997 when I got to a small military base on the border between Israel and Lebanon. Straight out of training, my welcome to the base involved sitting in the war room wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest, hoping that the barrage of rockets flying over our heads, courtesy of Hezbollah, wouldn’t hit. It was time of constant clashes with Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Casualties were commonplace. I’ve been to too many funerals and have seen too many parents bury their sons – my friends, peers and brothers in arms – than I’d care to remember. It was also a time when the Israeli public grew

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

The tragic cost of Japan’s floods

Yet another natural disaster has struck in Japan as floods and landslides in the Noto peninsula, precipitated by ‘unprecedented’ rainfall, have killed seven (according to the state broadcaster NHK) with 10 people missing. As usual, these numbers are expected to rise. The Ishikawa area was pounded on Saturday with the heaviest continuous rainfall (540 millimetres in 72 hours in the city of Wajima) since records began. One resident Akemi Yamashita described scenes as ‘heart-breaking’ with the floods, which she saw rising quickly to half the height of her car as she drove through town, like ‘something from a movie’. This latest tragedy is a reminder of how treacherous, climatically and

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is Michel Barnier’s cabinet really conservative?

Emmanuel Macron’s new government marks, in the words of the BBC, ‘a decisive shift to the right’. That is also the view of Le Monde, the newspaper of the French left, which quotes Socialist party chairman Oliver Faure’s description of it as ‘a reactionary government that gives democracy the finger’. This government is not right wing. To quote Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, ‘this “new” government marks the return of Macronism through a back door.’ Eighteen of the 39 ministers are Macronists including those responsible for education, finance, foreign affairs, Europe and defence. Another presidential loyalist is Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the minister for ecological transition, who hates Marine Le

Constantin Eckner

Will AfD voters ever return to the mainstream?

For the second time in three weeks, the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has received a significant percentage of the votes at a state election in eastern Germany. The far-right party won 29.5 per cent of the votes in Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin. Given the polls going into Sunday, the AfD might even be disappointed that it did not place first, rather than second behind the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Even though the SPD won by a slight margin, the pressure on the federal government led by Olaf Scholz and the Social Democrats may increase further in the coming weeks. In the lead-up to the elections, tensions within the

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Olaf Scholz has won a hollow victory in Brandenburg’s state elections

In what will surely come as a relief to the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, his SPD party has won this weekend’s state elections in Brandenburg. Securing themselves another term in power, the party squeaked past the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) with 30.7 per cent of the vote. The AfD missed out by just 1.2 percentage points – less than 26,000 votes – with 29.5 per cent of the vote, denying them the chance of a second victory at state level in three weeks. While it will in all probability take officials a day or two to verify the final result, it appears Sunday’s vote has secured the SPD 32

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Naivety won’t solve Britain’s migrant crisis

Events of the last week have demonstrated the fierce determination of some migrants to reach their European destination of choice. Last Sunday, hundreds of migrants stormed the frontier dividing Morocco from Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the African coast. The Moroccan police fired bullets into the air to ward off the intruders. ‘They do this deliberately to scare and keep us from trying again but it won’t stop us,’ said one of those migrants who had failed to reach Spain. ‘We’ll keep coming back as many times as needed’. A few hours earlier and many hundreds of miles north, a group of around sixty migrants encountered three local men hunting ducks in Tardinghen,

Sunday

Ezekiel T. Reynolds

Why JD Vance ‘created’ the pet-eating immigrants

Last week, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance appeared on CNN’s State of the Union where he was interviewed by Dana Bash. During what could best be described as a testy exchange, Vance said he had ‘created’ the story of Haitian immigrants eating pets. Explaining that statement, he said he ‘created’ the story with memes and tweets, not that he created the substance of the story.  Still, no one listened. In America’s media ecosystem, which has little regard for nuance and context, the proverbial die was already cast. Left-leaning media were quick to point to his statement as proof of the story being completely fabricated. Right-leaning media viewed their reactions as another attempt

Caleb Quinley

The Myanmar junta’s desperate campaign of terror

It was about 9:15pm on 5 September when the roaring sound of a warplane began to hum across the hills. Tucked away in a valley in Pekon Township in Myanmar, on the border with Karenni and Shan states, a community of some thousand people were about to go to sleep. Illuminated only by small solar-powered lights and campfires, mothers and fathers were putting their children to bed. But the junta jet fighter didn’t need light. It had already been given direct coordinates, and it was about to drop its payload directly on the camp. The violence which has plagued Myanmar for over three years had once again come to Pekon.

Saturday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

No, Rich Lowry didn’t say the N-word

Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of National Review, is being cancelled for calling Haitian immigrants the N-word. One problem: he didn’t. Lowry was on Megyn Kelly’s podcast to talk about the claims, amplified by Donald Trump and JD Vance, that Haitians have been snacking on local cats in Springfield, Ohio. He commented on a combative interview Vance gave to CNN’s Dana Bash and scoffed at Bash’s dismissal of the feline-fressing allegations on the grounds that city records only showed complaints about geese. Lowry observed: ‘I think it was in that interview where Dana Bash says the police have gone through 11 months of recordings of calls and they’ve only found two Springfield

Paul Wood

Paul Wood, Ross Clark, Andrew Lycett, Laura Gascoigne and Henry Jeffreys

33 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: as Lebanon reels from the exploding pagers, Paul Wood wonders what’s next for Israel and Hezbollah (1:24); Ross Clark examines Ireland’s low-tax project, following the news that they’re set to receive €13 billion… that they didn’t want (8:40); Reviewing Ben Macintyre’s new book, Andrew Lycett looks at the 1980 Iranian London embassy siege (15:29); Laura Gascoigne argues that Vincent Van Gogh would approve of the new exhibition of his works at the National Gallery (22:35); and Henry Jeffreys provides his notes on corkscrews (28:01).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Ed Nash

Is Israel ready for a ‘new phase’ of war?

The toll wreaked from the events of 17 and 18 September has been extensive. According to the best estimates, more than 3,500 people were injured and 37 were killed. The events I’m referring to, of course, were the sudden and surprise explosions of thousands of electronic devices, carried (in the majority) by members of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Among the injured were the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, who reportedly lost an eye, and allegedly several personnel from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp who sponsor and assist terrorist organisations across the world. It seems that the Israeli intelligence services managed to pull off a huge coup, interdicting supplies of Taiwanese-made pagers and

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Marine Le Pen looks unstoppable

Overlook for the moment the shenanigans surrounding French prime minister Michel Barnier’s attempt to cobble together a new government. One political crisis can conceal another. And a more existential spectre is haunting Paris. Its name is Marine Le Pen. Amidst the chaos, the weakened president and the hapless efforts to form a government, the leader of the National Rally seems to be the only winner. We are embarked on the final phase of the Macron epoch In Paris’s smartest arrondissements, inhabited by the political and media blob who have run everything in France since forever, the unthinkable has become the plausible. The national political nervous breakdown, precipitated by president Emmanuel Macron,