Politics

Prior to Russia’s invasion in February 2022, few westerners knew much about Ukraine, and even less about Kazakhstan. We all suffer from Moscow-centred perceptions and the bad habit of equating the Soviet Union with Russia.  But now we know that Putin is driven by spurious historical theories, in which Ukraine has no right to exist, one needs to ask how they might apply to other ex-Russian provinces. Nowhere is more affected than European Russia’s eastern neighbour, Kazakhstan, which separates Muscovy from China, in the same way that Ukraine and Belarus divide it from the EU and Nato.   Ukraine is half as big again as France or Germany. But ‘KZ’

When Rishi Sunak delivered his five key pledges at the start of January, the latest data we had for the inflation rate was for last November. It was up 10.7 per cent on the year, having fallen from a peak of 11.1 per cent the month before. Everyone thought this was the start of a fast and spectacular fall, with virtually all forecasts showing a welcome decline in the rate of inflation. Off the back of those forecasts, the Prime Minister oozed confidence when he promised to ‘halve inflation’ by the end of this year. Speaking to an audience in Stratford, Sunak promised that an ‘ease’ to the cost-of-living crisis and greater

Earlier this month, an unarmed Polish aircraft monitoring potential human smuggling and illegal fishing on the Black Sea almost ditched into the sea when a Russian Su-35 fighter engaged it over international waters. It was a reminder that while attention is inevitably focused on the land battles anticipated when Kyiv launches its spring counter-offensive, this is also a war playing out at sea. It was also a reminder that what happens offshore has far wider implications. The twin-engine L-410 Turbolet, more commonly used as a small commuter aircraft, was being used by Frontex, the European Union’s border security agency, as part of its Western Black Sea 2023 operation. It was

The local elections last week proved to be a disappointing night for Reform UK. Prior to polling day, its leader Richard Tice had talked up the ‘huge appetite’ among voters for Reform but the party averaged a mere six per cent of the vote in the wards where it stood. It won just half a dozen seats on on Derby City Council out of 471 hand-picked seats. Ukip, its effective forerunner, lost all its remaining councillors, going from almost 500 in 2016 to zero. Tice’s response was to argue that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ and to focus instead on the next electoral test: the London mayoralty. Petrolhead Howard

Cynically dressed up as a coronation-related gift to the Canadian nation, just days after the coronation, the country’s leader Justin Trudeau has unveiled a Royal Crown of Canada.   Trudeau is paying lip service to the monarchy Canada shares with Britain and the King’s other realms Not a physical gold and jewelled crown, mind you, but a virtual crown, designed to replace St Edward’s crown – the very crown placed on the King’s head a week ago – on Canada’s coat of arms, official documents, and armed forces and Mountie badges and insignia.  This new Canadian crown replaces the crosses and fleur-de-lys of St Edward’s Crown with stylised maple leaves. The rim is

The SNP has announced that if the next general election results in a hung parliament it will, as power brokers, ‘undo Brexit as far as possible’. Alyn Smyth, the SNP’s EU accession spokesperson, said his party would demand the UK has a close relationship with Brussels in any negotiations with a minority Labour government. There might be a few titters at this and jokes about signing cheques that can’t be cashed from a scandal-beset party whose relevance and even long-term viability is in serious doubt. But the SNP clearly think this is a winning strategy that can arrest their decline and boost their chances. Whether it truly is, and whether