International politics

Saturday

Nick Cohen

A Rough Guide to Tyranny

There is an over genteel style in English argument which acts like a sedative. Just when you think that a proper debate is getting going, one of the participants will say, ‘I am not sure that we’re really disagreeing.’ I am afraid I must use this tired line, if only for a moment. Matthew Teller criticises me for writing about the indulgence of dictatorships by his fellow writers in the guidebook game, by saying : ‘Guidebooks exist to help people find a room, have a meal and get a drink, with the added bonus of directions to a quiet beach or a pretty village. A paragraph or two of political

Friday

Alex Massie

Yes, Pussy Riot were – and are – right – Spectator Blogs

One of the happiest things about writing for the Spectator is that there is no editorial line. Indeed the editor is always pleased by an intra-mural rammy. So there’s this: Dennis Sewell’s argument that Pussy Riot, the only all-girl Russian punk band you’re likely to have heard of, have been asking for trouble and deserve some of the trouble they’re receiving is the lamest sort of counter-intuitive, concern-trolling journalism. It helps pay the bills, mind you, so there’s that too. Having typed the obligatory “Of course Putin is ghastly” paragraph (or, as Sewell puts it, the Russian president is “a nasty, unscrupulous weasel” which, perhaps unwittingly, makes Putin seem a

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Julian Assange has nowhere left to run

Julian Assange is one of my best enemies.  For my part it was hatred at first sight.  He was only slightly slower on the uptake.  Our relationship was consummated last year when we debated in London, and he fluttered those strange dead eyes at me, and threatened to sue me, and then didn’t, and I wrote about it afterwards and revealed to the world (or Spectator diary readers at least) that his backstage chat is like aural rohypnol. Anyhow – in recent months I have not had the time to keep my hatred active.  Partly because Julian has now even discredited himself with the left.  Indeed, even the poor man

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

What lonely planet are they on?

A few years ago, I wrote a piece about the Lonely Planet guide to Burma. I looked at how the supposedly right-on publishers sweetened the rule of the military so that western tourists could travel with a clean conscience. The crimes of the junta — which had the appropriately sinister name of the Slorc — could be discounted, the guidebook said. Tourists should not worry about the conscripted workers who built their hotels because forced labour is ‘on the wane’. Maybe Lonely Planet had an ideological reason to whitewash dictatorships, I speculated. Or perhaps it was a cheapskate enterprise that did not much care what it published, as long as

Saturday

Deroy Murdock

Paul Ryan, the right choice

Congressman Paul Ryan (R – Wisconsin) has not courted much of a profile outside America, so I doubt many CoffeeHousers will be familiar with him. But rest assured: he is an excellent choice for vice-president. Here’s why. The 42-year-old is not a neophyte, having served in the House of Representatives for 13 years. He has cross-party appeal: he represents a Democratic district that he nonetheless has won comfortably on seven occasions. Ryan knows how to listen to and speak to Democrats. This is a priceless skill for a Republican running for the second highest office in the land. Two traits define him: his striking command of public policy (especially on

David Blackburn

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s big idea

Mitt Romney has broken the habit of a lifetime and taken a risk. But it’s an intelligent risk. That at least is the view of some commentators on hearing confirmation that Romney has appointed Paul Ryan as his running mate. Niall Ferguson tweeted earlier: ‘Romney gets it right with Ryan. Now this election gets serious. It’s a straight fight between radical fiscal reform and Europeanization.’ David Frum makes a similar point (albeit with a clear note of scepticism) in a blog post for the Daily Beast: ‘This election—which Romney once intended to make a referendum on Obama’s record—will now become a referendum on Paul Ryan’s bold budget ideas.’ Frum provides

Jonathan Jones

Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan

Mitt Romney will announce his choice of running mate at one o’clock this afternoon, but members of the campaign have already confirmed his identity: Congressman Paul Ryan. I reported yesterday that the Republican right has been pressuring Romney to pick Ryan, and it looks like he’s bowed to that pressure. Despite having served as chairman of the House Budget Committee for the past year and a half – and his high profile role in budget negotiations – Ryan is still relatively unknown. A new CNN poll shows that only 27 per cent of Americans have a favourable view of the Congressman and 19 per cent an unfavourable one, which means

Tuesday

Paul Ormerod

Who will rule the 21st century?

This is a nice big question to ponder on the holiday beach or in the rented villa. A vast amount has already been written on the rise of China and whether the US will be replaced as the global superpower. And where exactly does Europe fit into all this? It is easy to make a case for American weakness. The twin deficits of the balance of payments and the massive public sector gap between expenditure and income, the increasingly divided and embittered nature of policy discourse in the country, growing cultural fragmentation. The image of a divided nation appears to be supported by what has happened to the choice of

Wednesday

Rani Singh

Pranab Mukherjee’s potential as president

Congress party Pranab Mukherjee’s victory in the Indian presidential election this week allowed the party to exhale for a nanosecond amid the gloom of stalled economic reform and political paralysis. As the country watched the pomp and pageantry of the presidential swearing-in today, the tectonic plates of power in India started to shift again. The Indian National Congress Party, the ruling coalition UPA’s majority stakeholder, has managed to rewind to 15 years ago. When Sonia Gandhi took on the presidency of the near-dead party in 1998, it resuscitated and took power; first in 2004, then 2009. It is now withering. Perhaps if Congress were not so weak, shrewd tactician Mukherjee would

Wednesday

Shiraz Maher

Has the Arab Spring given way to an Islamist Winter?

The obituary of the Arab Spring has already been written by many commentators who see political Islamists as the only winners of unrest in the Middle East. The Arab Spring, it is said, has given way to an Islamist winter. With the Brotherhood installed in Egypt and Islamists from the Ennahda party driving through their agenda in Tunisia, this is a tempting conclusion to reach. Yet, provisional results from the Libyan elections warrant a reassessment of what is really taking place in the region. Mahmoud Jibril, who served as Prime Minister in the aftermath of Gaddafi’s demise, will almost certainly secure a majority once the results are finalised later this

Friday

Rani Singh

Mukherjee can’t change India’s political paralysis

The Indian president lives in a Lutyens palace formerly occupied by the country’s viceroys, replete with ballroom, cinema, and Mughal gardens. I’ve been inside to interview the current incumbent, Pratibha Patil. With 360 rooms, it’s a big house for a small person and you can get lost – indeed recently, Patil reportedly did go missing for three hours until located by a team of commandos. The Head of State is somewhat removed from the cut and thrust of Indian politics so presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee is looking forward to relaxing  there after the election on July 19, 2012.  Like an endlessly sliding Sid the Sloth in Ice Age, The Congress-led

Monday

Douglas Murray

The Arab Winter, continued

Back in November I wrote a cover story for The Spectator arguing that the trend in North Africa for those countries which had thrown off their dictators appeared to be more in the direction of Winter than that of Spring. Since then there have been many developments, including the first round of the Egyptian Presidential elections where the field is led by the Muslim Brotherhood candidate.  And now, in a new development reported by Raymond Ibrahim over at the Gatestone Institute, we learn about the first beheading of an ‘apostate’ convert to Christianity over in Tunisia   I recommend you don’t watch the video that he links to in his

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

When spring doesn’t turn into summer

A high-ranking member of Hosni Mubarak’s disgraced government, or someone from the Muslim Brotherhood? It’s hardly an enviable choice — but that is the choice facing Egypt in next month’s Presidential election, after the official results of the preliminary vote were released yesterday. For obvious reasons, neither candidate much appeals to the freedom-loving younger generation that set the country’s revolution a-rolling in the first place. So, overnight, we’ve seen a return to protests, anger, fire, etc. This is still an immensely divided polity. As grim as the situation is, it will come as little surprise to Spectator readers (or to anyone, really). The magazine has carried a number of articles

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

The Syrian tragedy continues

Last Friday, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, produced a gloomy 13-page report about the situation in Syria. ‘The overall level of violence in the country remains quite high,’ he wrote, before adding that ‘there has been only small progress’ on Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan. And then, as if to prove his point, around 90 people — children among them — were killed in the town of Houla. The government has denied responsibility for the atrocity, instead blaming ‘terrorists’. But, whoever or whatever it was, you get the picture. It’s a bloody and terrible mess. The question that has loomed across this weekend is: what now?

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

The IMF is losing patience with Greece

Much ado about Christine Lagarde’s interview with the Guardian this morning — and understandably so. After all, the head of the IMF is normally so restrained and delicate, yet here she lets that drop. When it comes to Greece, she says, ‘I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education… I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.’ And she also stresses that the Greek people should ‘help themselves collectively… By all paying their tax.’ Common

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Iran and oil are still on the agenda

For all the talk about Greece and France and the Eurozone, it’s telling just how much our politicians are focusing on Iran. Indeed, some of the most concrete political settlements of the past few days have concerned that turbulent state. On Friday, the US Congress approved a Bill which included the blunt reminder that, ‘It shall be the policy of the United States to take all necessary measures, including military action if required, to prevent Iran from threatening the United States, its allies or Iran’s neighbours with a nuclear weapon.’ And the G8 subsequently put out a statement about oil reserves that clearly had Iran in mind. ‘Looking ahead to

Friday

James Forsyth

Merkel heads to the G8

I doubt that Angela Merkel is looking forward to the G8 summit very much. It will mostly consist of the other world leaders telling her to give ground on austerity. But I suspect that Merkel won’t budge much, if at all. She clearly believes that the Greeks can be whipped into line by telling them that the election is really a referendum on euro membership. Hence both her suggestion of a simultaneous referendum on election-day and her backing for the European Central Bank cutting off support to Greek banks which shows that while there’s no formal mechanism for ejecting a country from the single currency there are ways of doing

Tuesday

Jonathan Mirsky

Chen Guangcheng: a blind, Chinese Houdini

Even in a Beijing Spring of ceaseless surprises, the escape of the blind dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng from rural house arrest into American protection was a sensation. The sensation soon turned into a catastrophe for him and humiliation for the United States. After his astounding escape 2 weeks ago from 18 months of house arrest and arrival at the US embassy in Beijing, Chen stated he had no intention of leaving China. Six days later he was assured by his American hosts, who now say he had cancer, that he must go to a Chinese hospital for treatment and be reunited with his and then would be free, perhaps to

Sunday

James Forsyth

What Hollande’s victory means

Tonight’s election results mark the next challenge to the euro. In France, the Socialist candidate François Hollande has won. Having campaigned on changes to the fiscal compact, Hollande will have to deliver something on this front. But Angela Merkel, with her own elections next year, will not want to agree to anything that appears to be a watering down of the pact. I doubt, though, that there’ll be that much market reaction to Hollande’s victory. City sources say that it has been priced in for while and that there is an expectation that Hollande will merely accept some window-dressing about growth being added to the agreement. But what could set

The Spectator

Science or starvation | 6 May 2012

Here, for CoffeeHousers, is an extended version of the leader column in this week’s magazine. It takes on the green fundamentalism which stupidly aims to put a stop to genetically modified foods: At the end of the month, a group of shrieking protestors are planning to descend upon a field in Hertfordshire and, in their words, ‘decontaminate’ (i.e. destroy) a field of genetically modified wheat. The activists, from an organisation called Take the Flour Back, claim to be saving Britain from a deadly environmental menace. But in reality, these self-appointed guardians of Gaia are threatening not only to undo hundreds of man-years of publicly-funded research but also helping to destroy