All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The obsession with ‘toxic masculinity’ shows no sign of abating. As reported this weekend, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has warned of ‘the misogyny increasingly gripping our schools’. In response to this threat, the government is to issue guidance for teachers to look out for signs in the classroom of ‘incel culture’ stemming from the ‘manosphere’.
Yesterday we woke to the astonishing news that the rebels from the Syrian opposition had taken Damascus and President Assad had fled. The joy is huge and infectious, even if tempered with trepidation. In 2007, I was assured by a soldier in Damascus that the Ba’athist regime had the solidity of rock. That could be
Well, well, well. In a rather curious turn of events, it now transpires that Rael Braverman – husband of former Home Secretary Suella Braverman – has started campaigning for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. How very interesting… Farage took to Twitter to announce that Braverman had not only been canvassing for the party on the streets
The Iranian-dominated Shia arc has collapsed. The keystone to the arc was Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the partnership that his father Hafiz al-Assad forged with the Iranian regime in the 1980s. That alliance gave Tehran for decades its only state-level Arab ally, one that shares a border with Israel. It was also critical in enabling supply of Hezbollah and providing forward bases and freedom of movement for Islamic Revolutionary Guard personnel.
Deputy PM ‘welcomes the news’ that the Assad regime has fallen Rebel forces in Syria have captured Damascus, and Bashar al-Assad has reportedly fled the capital, ending a regime that begin in 2000. On Sky News this morning, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner told Trevor Phillips she ‘welcomes that news’, but stressed that a political
The Kremlin’s involvement in Syria’s civil war was always, first and foremost, about posing as a great multi-regional power rather than actually being one. Vladimir Putin’s deployment of a single squadron of warplanes to Hmemim airbase in Syria in 2015 brought a gun to a knife-fight. The Assad regime had been fighting insurgents with poison
Iran’s Axis of Resistance is falling apart. Israel has significantly degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities and decapitated its leadership. Hamas has been left decimated in Gaza. The regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has collapsed. Intact for now are the Shiite militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. Such a situation is not only a product
After 13 years of war that began with street protests during the heady days of the Arab Spring and morphed into one of the bloodiest civil conflicts in the Middle East’s recent history, the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian strongman, collapsed in just over a week. Sunni rebels – some of them former jihadists
The astonishing and abrupt fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus is a moment of historic importance for the Middle East, in which the shifting of tectonic plates can be plainly felt. But which plates in particular? And what are the immediate implications? Firstly, it is important just to contemplate the dimensions of what has just
Gradually, and then suddenly, the regime of Bashar al-Assad has collapsed. This century’s most evil tyrant has fled Syria, and Damascus has fallen to the opponents of the regime. Across the country, a new political reality reigns. In towns and cities across Syria, the regime’s torture chambers are being opened, and the prisons liberated. Men
So here we are again – another well-known BBC presenter is facing a growing list of allegations of misconduct, tarnishing the image of the state broadcaster. This time around it’s MasterChef presenter Greg Wallace. In the depressingly familiar pattern of previous scandals, we’ve learned that concerns had been raised repeatedly with the BBC, but no meaningful action
It is 00.40 pm, 26 September 1983. Lieutenant-Colonel Stanislav Petrov, the duty commander in charge of monitoring the Soviet Union’s early warning satellites designed to identify American missile attacks, is carefully checking his panels. Suddenly, the alarms roar into loud action. The word ‘Launch’ flashes onto his screen in large red letters. For the next 15 seconds, one of
Three years ago today, Olaf Scholz was sworn in as Germany’s chancellor. He had narrowly won the election by presenting himself as Angela Merkel’s natural successor. Appearing as the continuity candidate was good enough to clinch it in 2021, but Scholz is unlikely to pull that off again in Germany’s snap election, expected to be held
It was quite possible that Kemi Badenoch could have proved an instant hit with the British public and taken the Tories straight into a sizeable opinion poll lead. External factors could have fallen in her favour, enabling her not only to capitalise on the unpopularity of Keir Starmer and Labour, but also to win back
Not a single home remains intact in the village of Bohorodychne in Donbas, since it was torn apart by artillery back in 2022. There are signs warning about mines everywhere. The local school is ripped apart and burned-out. Military vehicles are camped in the village and in the fields. No shops are open. Even the
The news that President Yoon had instated martial law on Tuesday hit me hard. The last time martial law was declared in South Korea, in May 1980, I was a Peace Corps volunteer living in Gwangju, a city in the south west of the country. Peaceful protests against martial law took place in the city,
When Conor McGregor stood in the dock for his civil rape trial last week, the controversial MMA fighter was receiving the kind of global media attention he had always craved. Just not for the reasons he would have wanted. In court, the 12-person jury found him liable for the rape and sexual assault of Nikita
The late Henry Kissinger said of the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s that it was a shame that both sides couldn’t lose. Much the same is true of the current situation in Syria, where the long established regime of the brutal but secular Assad dynasty looks increasingly likely to fall to a sudden Islamist rebel
Finland’s entry into Nato in 2023 dealt a major blow to Russia in the Baltics. For years, President Putin had warned his Finnish counterparts that a decision to join the alliance would be met with an appropriate response, but the implicit threat has been slow to materialise. In February, Russia reconstituted its Leningrad Military District,
There are unintended consequences, and then there are unintended consequences. What we are seeing in Syria, as Aleppo and Hama fall (and Homs braces itself) to a coalition of anti-regime forces whose DNA is to be found in al-Qaeda et al, is an unintended consequence of Israel’s bombardment in Syria of Iran-funded pro-Assad groups, and
The very wicked French novelist Michel Houellebecq recently asked: “It should be strange for the British: they voted for Brexit to have no more immigrants and you have more?” Yes Michel, it is strange – and not just for Britain. Migration to the western world has reached record levels, despite popular blowback in nearly every
Angela Merkel, who last month published her memoirs on her 16 years as German chancellor, was a great tactician. But she was dead wrong on many of the strategic questions hurled at Germany during her time in charge. Merkel is the architect of a Germany that’s again the sick man of Europe, now in a
Donald Trump is in Paris today to attend the official reopening of the renovated Notre Dame cathedral. The president-elect has what could be described as a love-hate relationship with the French capital. He loves the place but it – more precisely its mayor and most of its right-on residents – hates him. This contempt first
A ceasefire in Ukraine is far from being agreed, yet Poland is already preparing for its collapse. In recent months, Warsaw has been digging an anti-tank ditch along its border with Russia and Belarus – and has decided to extend it to Ukraine. The 400-mile-long ‘East Shield’ will almost double in size and include minefields
As we come to the end of another troubling year, suddenly the news from the film front isn’t all doom and gloom. Cinema audiences may be in steep decline, but there’s one kind doing much better than any other: the family-friendly film. Fans of gratuitous nudity, extreme violence and Gregg Wallace are going to hate me
Justin Welby can’t seem to get anything right these days – not even his own leaving speech. Now the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury has been forced to apologise for the gag-filled monologue he delivered to the House of Lords on Thursday after causing a rather lot of offence with his choice of language. Dear oh
When Keir Starmer announced his ‘measurable milestones’ yesterday, he called them ‘the most ambitious and credible programme for government in a generation’. But are they really so ambitious? Many of them sound remarkably similar to the missions in the Conservatives’ Levelling Up white paper, published just under three years ago – only less detailed and lacking
At least Justin Welby’s valedictory speech went down well in the House of Lords. Speeches from those in the Upper Chamber yesterday praised Welby’s personal qualities and spiritual counsel and his work pushing for social change. There was even a fleeting mention of one of his books. But outside the chamber many of those watching
The evangelical preacher Stephen Green has had his conviction upheld – for standing quite near an abortion clinic in Ealing with a Bible verse in his hands in protest last February. Remarkably, this act is illegal in the UK today. Green argued that he was not protesting about the women entering the clinic, but against the
