Politics Archives

Wednesday

February 4, 2026

Can Peter Thiel stop the Antichrist?

Last December, we flew to Los Angeles to interview Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech tycoon and co-founder of PayPal. We discussed globalization, artificial intelligence and the rise of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. But one subject seemed to particularly exercise Thiel: the Antichrist. He promised to expand on this when we next met – which is how we ended up in the back room of a Cambridge college, surrounded by theologians, venture capitalists and AI engineers, to hear Thiel describe the end of humanity. Standing in front of Gustave Doré’s illustration of Satan’s fall in Paradise Lost, Thiel, a can of Diet Coke in his hand, explained why the most

Gavin Mortimer

France has a nasty case of Trump Derangement Syndrome

The French IT giant Capgemini has put its US subsidiary on sale because of its association with the work of ICE in America. All hell broke loose last week in France after it was revealed by the state broadcaster that Capgemini’s software was being used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify foreigners on US soil and track their locations. According to the BBC, Capgemini multi-million dollar contract with ICE was agreed last December and was scheduled to run until 15 March. It has now been curtailed after the company found itself in the eye of a storm following the deaths last month of two anti-ICE protestors in separate incidents

Gavin Mortimer

Why Emmanuel Macron has declared war on X

Investigators from the Paris prosecutor’s cyber-crime unit raided the offices of X in the French capital on Tuesday in what Elon Musk described as a “political attack.” The raid was part of an inquiry into whether X, which Musk has owned since 2022, has violated French law. In particular, the prosecutor’s office said it was investigating complicity “in possession or organized distribution of images of children of a pornographic nature… sexual deepfakes and fraudulent data extraction by an organized group.” X has denied any wrongdoing. Musk and the former chief executive of X, Linda Yaccarino, have been asked to attend hearings in April. Yaccarino, who left the company last year,

Tuesday

February 3, 2026

Alexander Larman

The Epstein files have exposed the extent of Sarah Ferguson’s greed

Since the latest tranche of the Epstein files was released over the weekend, the people who have been most embarrassingly affected by them include former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly styled Prince Andrew, Duke of York) and Bill Gates. Yet inevitably, attention has turned to Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, who is emerging spectacularly poorly from the scandal. This is thanks to a series of revelations that portray her as, variously, greedy, an appalling judge of character and someone seemingly willing to figuratively pimp her children, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, while she sought to obtain the money that she craved from Epstein. Many distasteful

Catherine Ellis

Colombia can’t give Trump the cocaine crackdown he wants

When President Donald Trump hurled abuse at Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro last month, branding him a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” it was strikingly audacious. Trump leaned into bombastic provocation: there is no evidence to suggest Petro himself makes cocaine. And yet, Trump’s claim didn’t come as a shock – the two leaders have spent the past year locked in a volley of barbs with one another. Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing leader, likes to fire back with ideological, often sermonizing lectures on imperialism and US hypocrisy. But tangled up in the rancorous exchanges – many of them about drugs – is a

Monday

February 2, 2026

Corey DeAngelis

Teachers are bringing ICE into the classroom

A wave of school protests sweeping the US in response to the fatal shooting of two anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota has revealed how teachers’ unions have weaponized classrooms for their own left-wing agenda. The unions have revealed themselves as political operatives more concerned with indoctrinating kids than teaching them reading, writing and arithmetic. These disruptions didn’t materialize out of thin air. The teachers’ unions fired the starting gun by blasting out anti-ICE propaganda to teachers, urging them to rally against immigration enforcement and turn schools into battlegrounds for their partisan fights. The National Education Association is also pushing teachers to print out immigration-related political propaganda posters and put them in

Daniel Thorpe

Why Turkey wants to help Iran

The Iranian regime remains firmly in the crosshairs of American bombers. As President Trump mulls whether to strike, Turkey is using every available channel to halt a military intervention. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has personally offered to mediate between Tehran and Washington. At the same time, Turkish authorities have tightened their grip on exiled Iranian opposition figures. Turkey’s sudden support for Iran is not born of friendship. Over the past two decades, the two countries have repeatedly found themselves on opposing sides. In the Syrian civil war, Iran sent Shi’a proxies to prop up the dictator Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey armed and trained Sunni rebel groups. Ankara’s push for dialogue

Patrick West

Woke language obviously doesn't change the way we think

It’s been a cherished belief of progressives over the decades that you change the way we think, and in turn transform society, by changing the kind of language we use. This stretches back to a 1980s strand of feminism determined to jettison default masculine terms such as “chairman” and “headmaster” and replace them with gender-neutral equivalents. Then there are today’s hyper-liberals, who believe they can erase binary thinking on sex by introducing expressions such as “pregnant people” or forgo “he” and “she” altogether and substitute everywhere with “they.” Many radicals have imagined that linguistic revolution is essential to actual revolution. Unfortunately for these idealists, new research suggests that their faith has

Melanie McDonagh

The enigma of Melania Trump

To the question whether the Melania Trump documentary is as bad as the critics are saying, my answer would be: it depends what you’re looking for. My own view is that it’s pretty well what it is billed as: Melania’s take on Melania, with the lady herself in iron control over the direction. So, not a documentary in the normal sense, for better and worse. It’s her account of the 20 days up to and including her husband’s inauguration, with the emphasis exactly where she decides to put it. The benefit of this is that we see what she regards as important, not what other people do. She’s calling the

Sunday

February 1, 2026

John McHugo

Can Syria’s Kurds trust Ahmed al-Sharaa?

Recent weeks have seen a political and military earthquake in Syria. Nearly 14 months after driving Bashar al Assad from Damascus, President Ahmad al-Sharaa is on the point of extending his transitional government’s complete control over the third of Syria east of the Euphrates. For all practical purposes, this will mean the end of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which had been the West’s allies against Isis. Time is being called on the semi-independent and self-declared autonomous Kurdish province of Rojava which has been created by the SDF during Syria’s civil war. In a swift campaign lasting only a few days, the Syrian army unexpectedly swept the SDF out

Margaret Mitchell

The Catholic Church is getting swept away by ICE outrage

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark and a close confidant of Pope Leo, called for the defunding of ICE during an interfaith prayer livestream. “If we are serious about putting our faith in action, we need to say ‘no,’” he said. As Congress debates ICE funding this week, Tobin urged Catholics to write to their lawmakers and encourage them to “vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization.” The scenes from Minneapolis are disturbing, and the dissonance between what I see and what I’ve been told – either by Trump administration officials calling Alex Pretti a “would-be assassin” seeking to “massacre” law enforcement, or by commentators depicting him

Saturday

January 31, 2026

Cockburn

Jeffrey Epstein: pro gamer

One of the many mysteries surrounding the Epstein saga is Jeffrey Epstein the man. Beyond simple hedonism, his motives seem inscrutable – and how did he make his money anyway? The latest cache of released Epstein files has shed new light on his character. Part of what emerges is Epstein the compulsive video gamer, who was banned from online play due to abusive behavior and who liked to cruise anonymous online forums for odd genres of pornography. A December 2013 automated email to Epstein from Xbox Live (the online multiplayer feature for the Xbox console) informed him that he had been banned from the service due to “harassment, threats, and/or abuse of other players.” Trash-talking comes

Alexander Larman

Even in death, Epstein’s influence reigns

It was widely suggested that many powerful people – from President Donald Trump downwards – would have preferred the notorious Jeffrey Epstein files remain sealed for years to come. Now, with the latest and perhaps most shocking release yet, the doors of his squirming transatlantic boys’ club have been blown open. Epstein had a rare quality in life for manipulating and flattering others. His posthumous influence is every bit as malign, to say nothing of humiliating for all concerned. The doors of Epstein’s squirming transatlantic boys’ club have been blown open Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly styled Prince Andrew) is, as expected, front and center in the latest files. His public disgrace

Friday

January 30, 2026

Matt McDonald

Why I’m in the Epstein Files

“Always knew you were a nonce.” That text, from a coworker in London, is how I learned my name appeared in the latest tranche of the Epstein Files. In the moments prior, I had been sweating profusely – unlike a certain former prince. I can explain. First off, “nonce” is British slang for “pedophile.” More important: at around noon today, the Department of Justice released a series of documents relating to the investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex trafficker and financier. Among the documents: an email I sent in June 2020 to a number of senior figures who worked in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of

Freddy Gray

What to make of Kevin Warsh

The news broke this morning that Donald Trump has, after considerable deliberation, settled on Kevin Warsh as his nominee to replace Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve. “I have known Kevin for a long period of time,” said Trump, on Truth Social. “There’s no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best.” “On top of everything else,” added the Commander-in-Chief, “he is ‘central casting’ and he will never let you down.” The use of the phrase “central casting” shows Trump’s reality TV brain at work. The President likes people in major government positions who look the part on screen. Inevitably,

Freddy Gray

Who is the real Melania Trump?

14 min listen

Freddy speaks to the documentary maker Fernando Sulichin who produced Melania, soon to be released on Amazon Prime. They discuss the First Lady, how the ten days leading up to the inauguration unraveled, her relationship with Donald Trump and whether she was sidelined by the fashion industry.

Ben Clerkin

Does America want to re-litigate 2020?

The collective memory of Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen has, for most Americans, been buried if not entirely forgotten. Donald Trump, however, is not the sort of man who moves on from such matters. In his mind, Crooked Joe Biden stole the election from him through widespread voter fraud, at the heart of which was Fulton County, Georgia. And now a succession of court battles that started with him in the dock is ending with Team Trump doing the prosecuting. The FBI and his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, have raided a warehouse in Fulton stuffed with 2020 votes and taken them away in trucks.

Carl J. Schramm

The US has left the World Health Organization. What next?

At this year’s World Economic Forum America’s friends and enemies heard about what some are calling a new world order. In Davos, President Trump advanced his own version of Realpolitik. America has its particular interests and he doesn’t mind being fully transparent about them and the actions they portend. He plainly said that NATO is not forever. His Board of Peace is described as a possible prototype that will displace the UN. Trump has no regard for Biden’s devotion to the “rules based world order” when it really means the US has to pay for everyone else to honor the rules. This is the reason that while the good and great were

Mark Galeotti

Chechnya’s looming succession crisis spells trouble for Putin

For years, we have heard rumors that Ramzan Kadyrov, dictator of Chechnya, is mortally ill. Unlike the lurid tales about Vladimir Putin, these rumors appear to be true, and the Kremlin is bracing itself for a potential succession crisis at the very worst time. This week, one of the official news agencies even quietly updated their canned obituary of him, just in case. This means Putin may soon face a fearsome dilemma: risk losing Chechnya or lose what momentum he has in Ukraine? Daudov won Ramzan’s favor by literally bringing him the head of rebel Suleyman Elmurzayev, who had claimed responsibility for the murder of his father Kadyrov has had

Wednesday

January 28, 2026

Daniel DePetris

Iran is out of good options

Over the last week, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, additional F-15 fighter planes and naval vessels carrying sea-launched cruise missiles have been making their way to the Middle East in what can only be described as a bid by President Trump to squeeze Iran into submission. In case anybody doubted this is what Trump was after, he took to Truth Social early in the morning to send the Iranians a message: give me what I want or face bombing the likes of which you’ve never seen. “A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose,” Trump wrote. “Hopefully Iran will quickly