Politics

The Taiwanese rock band Mayday – ‘the Beatles of the Chinese-speaking world’ – are being investigated by the Chinese Communist party for the crime of lip syncing. Local authorities are combing through recordings of Mayday’s Shanghai concerts from November looking for evidence of ‘deceptive fake-singing’, as the CCP calls it, which has been illegal in China since 2009 (although the law is rarely enforced). Last month, an anonymous Taiwan-ese government source told Reuters that the investigation had been cooked up because the pop stars refused a request from Beijing to say something nice about China in the run-up to Taiwan’s election this Saturday. The band found itself at the centre

Last night, the United States and United Kingdom launched a series of missile strikes on Houthi targets in the Yemen. The dramatic strikes are a response to the rise of piratical attacks by Houthis on ships going through the Red Sea. The west’s move risks further regional escalation, as the war in Gaza goes on and hostilities bubble all over Middle East, especially with Iran. But the West is particularly concerned about the Red Sea because it is that most thorny of geopolitical problems – a chokepoint. A chokepoint is a narrow stretch that connects two larger bodies of water. They provide enormous commercial opportunities: some of the world’s great

On the first day back after Christmas, Tory MPs were invited for welcome drinks in the Prime Minister’s parliamentary office. Rishi Sunak – a teetotaller – was not there. Instead, his Chief Whip hosted. Simon Hart told those present that drinks would be held fortnightly since ‘we are one big family, not a series of families’. He was referring to Mark Francois’s eyebrow-raising claim last month that groups of MPs (New Conservatives, the European Research Group, etc.) were the ‘five families’ of a Tory mafia. The Rwanda Bill will return to the Commons next week, so there will be plenty of opportunity for blood feuds to resurface. But despite his