Us politics

We’re closing 2017 by republishing our twelve most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 6: James Bartholomew on the liberal elite’s reaction to Brexit and Trump: Enough! Enough! For months, the so-called liberal elite has been writing articles, having radio and TV discussions, giving sermons (literally) and making speeches in which it has struggled to understand those strange creatures: ordinary people. The elite is bemused by what drives these people to make perverse decisions about Brexit and Trump. Are they racist, narrow-minded or just stupid? Whatever the reason, ordinary people have frankly been a disappointment. Time, ladies and gentlemen, please! Instead, let’s do the opposite. Let’s try to explain to ordinary

Christmas in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth has, once again, been overshadowed by politics. The latest controversy surrounds Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The mayors of Bethlehem and Nazareth responded to Trump by toning down Christmas celebrations in a show of solidarity. Outside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, the lights on the giant municipal Christmas tree were briefly dimmed in the run-up to Christmas in protest. In Nazareth, a traditional Christmas singing and dancing event was called off as a result of Trump’s remarks. In Jerusalem, the celebrations are also muted. There is little sign of Christmas events in the historic Old City, where Christ once walked

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, likes to make a stand. Specifically he likes to present himself (and the city in which he has been elected Mayor) as an antidote to global concerns about immigration, human unpleasantness in general and Donald Trump in particular. For instance, on the BBC on Sunday morning he explained his opposition to President Trump receiving a state visit to the UK. Though he added: ‘If [Trump] wants to meet with the Mayor of London, of course I’d be happy to meet with him and show him parts of London where Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, members of organised faiths and those that aren’t, don’t just

Britain First hasn’t really taken off as a political movement in Britain, but it has caught the attention of the most powerful man on the planet. Today President Donald J Trump decided to brighten his and everyone else’s morning by retweeting three videos, posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, purporting to show Muslims doing horrible things. One is a video that shows a young thug – ‘a Muslim migrant’, according to Jayda – beating up a boy on crutches, the other shows a Muslim cleric smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary and saying Takbir, and another shows Isis-types throwing a boy from a roof and

The big story that British journos are now desperate to break is ‘How Russia hacked Brexit’. Once that rolls out, Britain can be like America, where nobody knows if Vladimir Putin is their true master or just the bogeyman of a paranoid elite. But newspapers should be wary: Russia collusion stories can make the press look deeply silly. Mr Steerpike hears, for instance, that this summer the New York Times fell hook, line and sinker for a great Trump-Russia hoax in London. Apparently, an unknown source contacted the Gray Lady to say he had Russia-related kompromat material which could bring down the US President — but he had to give