Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Cockburn

Spencer Pratt teams up with Karen Bass’s brother to sue Mayor for ‘reckless negligence’ during fires

Spencer Pratt may not be the next mayor of Los Angeles. But he’s not letting his primary defeat subdue him into silence. On Saturday, Pratt announced his plan to team up with Karen Bass’s brother to sue the Mayor for her carelessness during the Palisades fire. “I am proud to be teaming up with Karen Bass’ brother in suing his sister for her reckless negligence that led to the destruction of our homes. I hope their Thanksgiving dinner isn't too awks. I know ours hasn't been the same since last year…” Pratt said on X yesterday. Last month, Mayor Bass’s brother Kenneth sued the City of Los Angeles, the state of California and other agencies involved in the wildfires for their handling of the crisis.

Terry Barnes

How many people did Australia’s backpacker murderer kill?

Australians are known for world-class performances in many fields. Mostly, our achievements are a source of national pride, but one field of achievement causes us only horror and shame. Our serial killers are some of the most prolific and brutal anywhere. And none are more brutal or prolific than the late, unlamented, Ivan Robert Marko Milat. Milat took his victims into the forest bound, terrified and subjected them to unspeakably sadistic torture The facts of Milat’s known killing spree are gruesome and horrific. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Milat turned the Belanglo State Forest, a bushland reserve off the main highway to Melbourne, and 80 miles from Sydney, into his personal killing field.

Sam Leith

Will Keir Starmer’s under-16 social media ban actually work?

Today, with much fanfare, the British government is rolling out its new policy to protect young people from online harms. Here is a political/legal move for which I am the target audience. I have three teenagers, and for those not so afflicted, let me tell you that keeping them from spending all day, every day goggling at one piece of tech or another is an infernal game of whack-a-mole. Item: Child One, Instagram. Very, very occasionally, she forgets to delete her browser history and Ctrl-H yields page after page after page, hour after hour, of Instagram hits. If you restrict or remove the phone app, it will be re-downloaded or the site opened instead in a browser window.

Atbin Moayedi

Sweden shows that not all immigrants are the same

I’m just going to say it. Not all immigrants are the same. I know that reading that might make you feel uncomfortable, particularly if you’re white and American and therefore more vulnerable to cancel culture and snowflakery. But it’s true. Some immigrants are simply better than others. And by better, I mean that immigrants from certain nations and cultures are more likely than others to integrate and make a positive contribution to their new country. Sweden is a useful terrarium of immigration; the good, the bad and the ugly Sweden is a useful terrarium of immigration; the good, the bad and the ugly. I was born in Sweden to Iranian parents in the early 1990s.

Yesterday

June 15, 2026

Max Horder

Is the White House trying to hurt Anthropic?

The US government has finally intervened in the AI regulation question, albeit in the kind of haphazard, incoherent, and possibly corrupt manner in which the Trump administration tends to wade in to anything related to the stock market, particularly on a Friday evening before it closes. The US Department of Commerce announced that Fable, Anthropic’s hardened version of the underlying model Mythos, was indeed far too dangerous to be released to the general public. Then they issued a blanket export control directive saying that no “foreign nationals” should be allowed to use the new product. So Anthropic, most of whose employees are foreign nationals, had no option but simply to turn Fable off.

Maximillian Garely

Trump is treating AI like a nuclear bomb

Initially, AI’s critics insisted that artificial intelligence was just another software product. AI was presented as a huge commercial opportunity, sure. It was presented as a tool through which humans could enhance their lives, but ultimately it was still understood as a statistical program that knew how to spell. Thanks to the Trump administration’s Anthropic export ban, that illusion is dead. The more powerful the technology becomes, the more determined governments are to control who can access it The United States government ordered Anthropic to suspend access for non-US persons to Fable and Mythos 5, its most advanced models, after officials raised national-security concerns. Whatever one thinks of the decision itself, its significance is hard to overstate.

Sunday

June 14, 2026

Maximillian Garely

Trump’s birthday UFC fight is a seminal moment in US politics

The UFC event today at the White House has been widely dismissed as an absurdity. Inevitably, the administration’s critics have portrayed the event – officially part of America’s 250th celebrations but curiously taking place on Donald Trump’s 80th birthday – as an odious example of Trumpian excess. Supporters, meanwhile, celebrate it as evidence that Trump is uniquely in touch with ordinary Americans. Politicians are increasingly asked to function as cultural icons But what media commentators think of the UFC event is beside the point. The significance of this event lies not in the UFC itself, but in what it shows us about the changing nature of political authority. Beneath the headlines and Reddit threads, American politics is undergoing a profound change.

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is Trump’s birthday extravaganza his last hurrah?

In January 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt held a toga-themed birthday party at the White House to mock the accusation that he was an incipient dictator. Donald Trump is doing him one better. The President celebrates his 80th birthday today. As such, his plans for Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts today in an octagon on the South Lawn of the White House are reminiscent of the extravaganzas of the Emperor Commodus, whose rule prompted Gibbon to warn: Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. For America’s semiquincentennial, Trump gave UFC head Dana White permission to construct an arena on the South Lawn of the White House that is known as "The Claw.

Friday

June 12, 2026

Tim Shipman

‘I identify with Daenerys Targaryen before she went mad’: an interview with Kemi Badenoch

There was a moment backstage, before I interviewed Kemi Badenoch for a Spectator event, when I felt like John Sergeant with Margaret Thatcher bearing down on him as he pronounced her leadership in difficulty. I suggested to Badenoch that she was a rare example of a politician I had changed my mind about. “You mean you were very negative before?” she said, fixing me with the full alpha female glare. I muttered something placatory, but the truth is that a year ago I thought she was rubbish – and that was the mainstream view in her own party. She was arrogant, flat-footed, absenting herself from a stage that was being dominated by Nigel Farage, resistant to advice, convinced she was great at PMQs when even Keir Starmer was wiping the floor with her.

James Heale

Can Reform see off the threat from Restore?

Nigel Farage has always prided himself on being able to see off any threat from his right flank. But now a new force has emerged in the form of his ex-colleague Rupert Lowe. When the two Reform MPs fell out 15 months ago, friends shared memes of Farage’s past fallen rivals ascending to heaven. “Come and join us, Rupert!” they exhorted. Instead, Lowe fought back, setting up his own party, Restore Britain. In the Makerfield by-election on June 18, one poll puts Restore on 7 percent – enough to stop Reform and hand the seat to Labour’s Andy Burnham. Restore’s strategy is simple: use Farage’s playbook against him. Like Farage, Lowe has put his faith in social media, building up a noisy following that can then be turned into a campaigning force.

Freddy Gray

Will peace be the perfect gift for the President?

Donald Trump’s 80th birthday is this weekend, and what better present for a struggling octogenarian Commander-in-Chief than a peace deal with Iran, signed if not quite yet sealed and delivered. There is, I’m told, some late scrambling over "semantics" in the so-called "memorandum of understanding" between America and Iran, and lingering issues over the language concerning the "nuclear dust" – i.e., Iran’s enriched uranium. But the rest is all but agreed. J.D. Vance could fly to Europe to sign a deal tomorrow – or if not it will be Trump as he attends the G7 in Evian near the Swiss Alps on Monday. Trump really wanted to stage a peace photo-op with Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei but had to be told that would not be possible.

Mark Galeotti

What Tommy Robinson really sees in Russia

Everyone who is everyone – within a certain political and social fragment – has been in Russia this past week. Conservative American conspiracy theorist Candace Owens; Errol Musk, father of Elon; toxic “manosphere” influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate; and Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist. Robinson told the Guardian that he had traveled to Moscow “to see how this country got itself so well on to the straight and narrow and see the beauty of a civilized society here.” In the process, he was walking a well-trodden path of westerners heading to Russia to see exactly what they want to see. Once it was socialists like Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who found Stalin’s regime “the very opposite of a dictatorship.

Thursday

June 11, 2026

Jacob Heilbrunn

Are hostilities in Iran really about to cease?

Donald Trump is trying to wriggle out of his self imposed Strait-jacket. After a renewed round of bombing Iran and bluster about seizing Kharg Island, he has now announced that is all over, including a planned attack tonight: “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening.” Is it back to the future again? Or are hostilities really about to cease? Any cessation will incense the war hawks in Washington who helped propel Trump into this misbegotten conflict in the first place.

donald trump peace foreign policy cease iran

Andrew McQuillan

Why is it mainly loyalists rioting in Belfast?

Monday’s alleged attempted beheading in North Belfast was not the first time an act of brutality has taken place in the area. During the Troubles, it was one of the most violent and dangerous parts of Northern Ireland. Robert Curtis, the first British soldier to be killed in the Troubles, was shot by the IRA in New Lodge. North Belfast was also the grim stage for many of the brutal sectarian killings carried out by the Shankill Butchers. In North Belfast, the loyalist ceding of ground to nationalists has been compounded by the impact of immigration It is a deeply deprived part of the city and the population shifts and turmoil of the late 1960s and early 70s turned it into an ethnic and confessional maze.

Freddy Gray

How to save American farming

Farm bankruptcies in the US have risen by 50 percent in the past year. Soybean farmers lost an average of $100 per acre in 2025, according to the Department of Agriculture, while corn growers are set to lose $150 per acre this year. Meanwhile, the national beef herd is at its lowest level since 1950 and retail prices have jumped by 40 percent in the past 18 months. Freddy is joined by author and farmer Joel Salatin who wrote about this in the magazine.

Michael P. Gibson

The rise of Palantir Derangement Syndrome

A late spring outbreak of righteous indignation is affecting the United Kingdom. It’s yet another variant of Palantir Derangement Syndrome. Virologists tracked this smug neurosis as it jumped across the Atlantic from the American left to British Labour. Symptoms include selective blindness, performative anguish, a hilarious inability to grasp the facts and Tourette’s-level outbursts of repetitive left-wing clichés. Earlier this month, a committee dominated by British Labour MPs who are infected by PDS called for Palantir to be stripped of its £330 million deal to help British hospitals save the lives of patients. The House of Commons science, innovation and technology committee accused the American tech giant of having a “clear mismatch” with British values.

Gavin Mortimer

Should Europe shelter Sudan’s refugees?

The Sudanese man who is in custody in Belfast, Northern Ireland, settled in the city after traveling through Paris and Dublin. In 2023, he was given asylum by the British Home Office. That same year, Sudan descended into civil war, a conflict that continues to rage with appalling accounts of barbarity. On the one side are the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and on the other the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Caught in the middle are civilians, particularly women and children, who are being abused by both sides. Earlier this year, the UN’s Human Rights Council accused combatants of displaying "utter disregard for human life.

Wednesday

June 10, 2026

Daniel DePetris

Trump can’t give up on diplomacy with Iran

The New York Knicks may have lost Game 3 of the NBA Finals, but President Trump was still in a somewhat buoyant mood. Negotiations with Iran were going swimmingly, Trump claimed to reporters as he was headed back to Washington, so much so that an agreement could be reached in two or three days. Two days later, though, and a deal remains just as elusive today as it was last week and the week before that. In fact, not only is diplomacy apparently stuck, but the United States and Iran are increasingly taking shots at each other. The April 8 ceasefire is still in effect but resting on weaker foundations.

Edward Howell

Can China keep North Korea in check?

When Xi Jinping visited North Korea in June 2019 for his first state visit, he would not have expected nearly seven years later that the hermit kingdom would be in an alliance with Russia. As Xi concluded his second visit to the country yesterday, the Chinese president’s pledges to "strengthen strategic coordination" and "uphold regional peace and development" with his North Korean counterpart emphasized how Beijing wants to ensure that its northeastern neighbor does not cross any red lines. With Beijing having been Pyongyang’s largest economic partner for nearly two decades, Xi’s visit serves as a clear reminder to North Korea that China wants to maintain close ties and, crucially, ensure stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Brendan O’Neill

Belfast and the truth about ‘alien cultures’

How would you describe a culture where women are flogged in public for "inappropriate dress?" A culture where one woman suffered 40 lashes from a leather whip for the crime of wearing trousers and a T-shirt? A culture where a man who lies with a man risks being whipped a hundred times before being put in a dank cell for five years? A culture where apostasy is considered such an abominable sin that even a heavily pregnant woman could be sentenced to death for supposedly committing it? The good people of Belfast are well within their rights to ask whether men from such a culture should be living on their streets Personally, I would call such a culture "alien.

Keith Kellogg

Trump’s ballroom drone port is no joke

When Donald Trump unveiled plans for a counter-drone installation on the roof of the new White House ballroom, critics called it theater. They may be right about the installation. But they are wrong about the threat. I have watched the character of warfare change faster in the past four years than in the previous forty. In Ukraine, a one-way attack drone that costs a few hundred dollars routinely destroys Russian armored vehicles worth millions. Both sides now field these systems by the hundreds of thousands. Entire stretches of the front are governed not by artillery or air superiority in the traditional sense, but by small, expendable aircraft that soldiers can carry in rucksacks and launch from tree lines.

Tuesday

June 9, 2026

Cockburn

HelloFresh’s stomach-churning Pride ad

HelloFresh is a popular food-delivery service that has simplified home cooking with its pre-prepared ingredients. Yet this month, Pride Month, the company ignited a mixture of reactions by posting the following statement on its Instagram: We know eating isn’t always a top priority this month. We respect that. But for those of you who are... prepping... we have an extensive lineup of high-fiber recipes available. Happy Pride. Since posting the gratuitously sexual advertisement on June 5, the company has elicited over 4,500 comments. Some have doubled down on their support, writing comments such as, “I wHOLE thank you for your support and service,” “This is iconic” and “This is the most supportive pride post from a brand I can think of.

John Fund

The urgent case for fixing California’s broken elections

When late arriving ballots in the race for Los Angeles mayor turned dramatically against conservative Spencer Pratt last week, Donald Trump reacted with his usual subtlety. “They’re cheating on the election,” said the President, as it became clear Pratt would be knocked out of the runoff for the November general election. Democrats were quick to respond. California Attorney General Rob Bonta dismissed claims of vote fraud as “a figment of the imagination of Trump and others involved in that conspiracy theory.” Bonta is right there’s no direct evidence that fraud swayed the LA mayor’s race. But California’s notorious tardiness in counting votes has been almost universally ridiculed and has undermined public trust in elections.

Christopher Caldwell

The case for the administrative state

By dismantling the Deep State, Donald Trump may inadvertently have undermined his own claim to rule. A chain of unintended consequences is visible in the Supreme Court case Trump vs Slaughter, due to be decided this month. It began with Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter in the early days of his second term. She sued, federal judges backed her and Trump sued back. He asserted the right to fire anyone he wants. Trump’s view is that the president is boss of the whole executive branch – there can no longer be bureaucrats and regulatory boards with special status and guarantees against firing. Americans get to vote for the people who rule them. In that sense, Trump has been trying to make the country more democratic.