Politics

The energy price surge caused by war in the Middle East has sent shockwaves through Westminster. It has pushed up inflation and the cost of borrowing, causing panic in the cabinet and the recognition that government intervention could be needed on a vast scale to support the cost of living. The UK Prime Minister told a private audience: "The assumption that the growth of the developed countries can proceed steadily on the basis of cheap energy has been shattered almost overnight." He further observed: "The problem is not simply one of inflation. It is the whole structure of the economy." In the Treasury there is something approaching a siege mentality. The Chancellor has "to spend [her] time firefighting.

For the first time in memory – and perhaps in history – an American president has attended a Supreme Court argument in person. I recall attorney general Robert Kennedy attending an argument back when I was a law clerk in the early 1960s. But I have seen no record of presidential attendance. Not that there is anything wrong with that, even if it was intended to convey the president’s strong belief in his side of the argument. Any fear that President Trump’s presence would influence the justices was immediately belied by the nature of the justices’ questions – which suggested some hostility to the Solicitor General’s argument limiting birthright citizenship.

Sometimes it’s a wonder Israel can stand with all the self-inflicted gunshot wounds in its feet. Israeli police placed their country in the eye of a diplomatic and religious storm by accosting their most senior Catholic clergymen as they made their way to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Religious gatherings have been restricted during the ongoing war with Iran, which has repeatedly targeted built-up civilian areas including Jerusalem. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Father Francesco Ielpo, Custos of the Holy Land, were prevented from accessing the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday, the day when Christians mark Jesus Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.

The Secretary of War is the face of America’s campaign against Iran. "War is hell, and always will be," Pete Hegseth said recently. He is relentlessly focused on lethality, and decimating the Iranian military. His critics correctly point out that this isn’t strategic thinking, this is a strategy of tactics. Hegseth’s metrics of success appear to be counting sorties flown, ordnance dropped and missiles destroyed. This criticism has been leveled at American strategy makers throughout modern history. During the Vietnam war, the metric of choice was body count. During the global war on terror it was Taliban commanders killed. The difference this time is that these decisions are being made in a hyperconnected battlefield.

“See you in Valhalla” is how Kash Patel said farewell to Charlie Kirk. Unfortunately, it now seems that Patel’s own sanctum has now been breached. Iran-aligned hackers have broken into the FBI director’s personal email inbox and released the contents online. What did they leak? The un-redacted Epstein files? The truth behind the Kennedy assassination? Not quite. None of the 300 purloined emails were even sent during Patel’s time at the FBI. The hackers, no doubt cackling manically while doing so, instead released according to the Guardian: a series of personal photographs of Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, riding in an antique convertible and making a face while taking a picture of himself in the mirror with a large bottle of rum. Take that!

Every drone Ukraine fires at a Russian oil terminal is meant to defund Moscow's war in Ukraine. Right now, each one may be doing the opposite. Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil export infrastructure are intended to starve Moscow of the budget revenues that fund its war machine. The logic is straightforward: disrupt exports, reduce revenues, constrain the war effort. Kyiv has been explicit about this: Ukrainian officials consistently frame attacks on oil terminals as direct hits on Russia's war chest, treating every barrel that cannot be shipped as a ruble that cannot be spent on missiles or mobilization. Reuters puts the scale of that disruption in stark terms – at least 40 percent of Russia's crude export capacity, roughly 2 million barrels per day, is currently offline.