Lisa Haseldine is The Spectator's assistant online editor
And just like that, the local elections have rolled around once again. On Thursday 4 May, 230 councils will be going to the polls: over 8,000 seats are up for grabs in England, including 3,365 currently held by Tories and 2,131 by Labour councillors. It will be Rishi Sunak’s first big test, with both parties viewing
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This week: In her cover piece for the magazine, The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls writes that as Labour prepares for government, Keir Starmer is rooting out the far left sections of his party and replacing them with moderates. She is joined by John McTernan, former political secretary to Tony Blair, to discuss the return of the
In a warning to Kremlin critics everywhere, the prominent Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza has today been sentenced to 25 years in a penal colony by a Moscow court. His conviction is based on several charges, all of which he denies, including treason and ‘discreditation of the Russian Army’ – a move that has been
Have cracks started to show in Germany’s traffic light government? Less than 18 months after chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SDP) formed a coalition with the Green and Federal Democratic (FDP) parties, collaboration and harmony have been replaced by division – not least when it comes to the push for net zero. Scholz summoned
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This week: Katy Balls discusses why Humza Yousaf is the Union’s best hope (01:00), Lisa Haseldine reads her interview with former Georgian defence minister David Kezerashvili (07:00), and Graeme Thomson asks whether supergroups are really that super (13:54). Produced and presented by Oscar Edmondson.
In Russia, nowhere – and no one – is safe from the insidious reach of Putin’s war in Ukraine. In April 2022, during a school art class, twelve-year-old Masha Moskaleva drew a picture of a Russian and Ukrainian flag with missiles flying at a mother and child. Inside the flags, she had written ‘Glory to Ukraine’ and ‘No to War’.
David Kezerashvili knows better than most what standing up to Russia entails. He helped to overthrow the Kremlin-aligned Georgian government during the 2003 Rose Revolution. Then he served as Georgia’s defence minister for two years including when Russia invaded in 2008. He eventually fled to London in 2012 when the Kremlin-backed Georgian Dream government accused
China’s president Xi Jinping has arrived in Russia for the start of a three day state visit. The aim of the trip, according to the Chinese, is to strengthen relations between the two countries in a world threatened by ‘acts of hegemony, despotism and bullying’. Xi and Putin will meet in person this afternoon, before holding bilateral talks
With neither the Conservatives nor the Labour party keen to talk publicly at least about softening Brexit, is there a gap in the market for an unashamedly pro-EU party? This is – once again – the hope of the Liberal Democrats. Speaking in York on Sunday at their first in-person party conference since the pandemic,
Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi for a second day. Riot police have used tear gas, stun grenades and water cannons to control the crowds; protestors responded by throwing stones, flares and in some cases even Molotov cocktails. A group of those demonstrating even tried to break into the
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has some awkward explaining to do to Vladimir Putin after a Russian military plane, being stored in Belarus, was reportedly blown up last weekend by Belarusian rebels. According to reports, one of the nine working Beriev A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft (Awacs) owned by the Russian military was attacked
What has Alexander Lukashenko been up to in China? The purpose of the Belarusian President’s three-day visit, according to state media outlet BelTA, was to continue ‘the long-term course of building friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation’ between the two countries. But the truth is somewhat murkier. Lukashenko is Vladimir Putin’s closest ally. He allowed Russian troops to launch
If you read the Russian newspapers this morning, you would be forgiven for thinking today was a day like any other. You would have almost no clue that 24 February marks the one year anniversary of Putin’s bloody, stalling invasion of Ukraine, in which nearly 200,000 of the country’s men have so far been killed or injured. Not a single Russian newspaper
The war with Ukraine is here to stay – and Russians better get used to it. That was Vladimir Putin’s message to the Federal Assembly when he addressed them this morning for the first time in nearly two years. Kremlin watchers looking for obvious signs of where Putin wanted to take his ‘special military operation’
Putin’s war has finally made its way to the Russian home front. A leak from the Kremlin reveals that Russia’s regional governments are being ordered to conduct surveys of and update bomb shelters across the country. Speaking to the independent newspaper the Moscow Times, one Kremlin source said this audit had been going on since at least last spring. Renovating
Nearly 188,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured since the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine eleven months ago, according to the latest estimate by US intelligence. This devastating toll amounts to an average of over 500 Russian dead or wounded soldiers for each of the 341 days Russia has been at war
Is Vladimir Putin finally about to announce a second mobilisation wave? Ukraine has been warning for weeks that up to half-a-million more troops could be forced into the army. Jitters are growing in Russia that a call-up might be imminent: rumours are circulating that the Kremlin might shut Russia’s borders and resort to a second round
A few days after the anniversary of the 6 January events in Washington DC, thousands of Jair Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brazil’s congress, its presidential palace and supreme court to protest against the inauguration of Lula da Silva. They were evicted within hours, but that they got so far – in the face of a heavy
Vladimir Putin’s 36 hour ceasefire in Ukraine, which came into effect at noon today, didn’t last long: less than two hours in, the Russian army broke it. The temporary truce had been announced yesterday by the Russian president to allow soldiers and civilians to celebrate Orthodox Christmas and attend church. But shortly before 2pm local
At one minute past midnight on 1 January, as Putin uttered the last words of his new year’s address, Ukraine sent six Himars rockets into the Russian-occupied territory of Donetsk. Four landed on a vocational school in the town of Makiivka, which had been acting as a temporary Russian military base, reducing its buildings to rubble. The domestic fallout for
