World

Sam Meadows

Milei freed the peso. Argentina’s economy survived

It was Argentina’s ‘liberation day’, Javier Milei proclaimed last week after meeting US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the Pink House, Argentina’s presidential palace. On Friday, he had shocked the country by lifting the cepo – ‘clamp’ in Spanish – which has restricted currency trades in South America’s second-largest economy for so long. ‘After 15 years of capital controls, we have cast off the anvil to which we were chained,’ Milei said. Lifting the cepo was a key part of Milei’s policy agenda. Nevertheless, few expected him to do anything before mid-term elections in October. But doing so was a key requirement of the disbursement of $20bn from the International Monetary Fund, also announced on

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Is the US getting closer to a Ukraine deal?

US special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Russia this morning to meet with Vladimir Putin, as Donald Trump ploughs ahead with his plan to secure a peace deal in Ukraine by hook or by crook. This is the pair’s fourth meeting in nearly as many months. Putin and Witkoff are expected to discuss Trump’s final proposal for a ceasefire in the conflict, which is believed to include American recognition of Russian control over Crimea, along with all territories occupied by Moscow since February 2022, a ban on Ukraine joining Nato and the lifting of all sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated earlier this week that

Jim Lawley

Spain’s defence spending boost pleases nobody

Just a week after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Spain to spend more on defence, the country’s socialist prime minister, has unveiled a massive defence development initiative costing over ten billion euros (£8.5 billion). This new plan raises Spain’s defence budget from a mere 1.4 per cent of its GDP, the lowest amongst Nato’s 32 members, to Nato’s current target of two per cent. When announcing the measure, prime minister Pedro Sánchez notably refrained from mentioning Bessent’s directive or US president Donald Trump’s pointed observation that ‘Spain is very low’ in defence spending. He did, however, frame the decision as a necessary response to new global realities: ‘We are

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

What Pope Francis got wrong about illegal migration

Migrants have been pouring into the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa this month. Over 100 on Monday and 344 on Wednesday; the previous week 269 landed, and at the start of April more than 1,000 arrived in a 48-hour period. They are Eritreans, Ethiopians, Sudanese, Guineans, Moroccans, Syrians, Malaysians, Somalis and Senegalese but the three nationalities most heavily represented are Bangladeshis, Egyptians and Pakistanis. Most told their rescuers that they set out from Libya. So much for Giorgia Meloni’s efforts to persuade Libya to work with her to stem the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. Last year the Italian PM, supported by the EU, signed deals with Libya and Tunisia;

Ukraine

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Why Trump’s team snubbed the London Ukraine peace talks

Has the moment arrived when Donald Trump abandons the last iota of his support for Ukraine in the war against Russia? Taking to his social media platform, Truth, the American President appeared to suggest so. Referring to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump wrote, ‘He can have peace, or he can fight for another three years before losing the country’. The latest trigger for Trump’s ire against Zelensky appears to be the Ukrainian President’s firm rejection of any peace deal that included Ukraine having to concede Crimea – illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 – as legal Russian territory. ‘Ukraine does not legally recognise the occupation of Crimea. There’s nothing

Owen Matthews

Why London’s Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks will fail

There’s one key thing that one should know about Ukraine peace talks scheduled to begin in London today, and that is that they will fail. The reason is simple: Volodymyr Zelensky is being asked to concede Russia’s legal possession of the Crimean peninsula which Moscow annexed in 2014. And Ukraine’s president has said, in the most emphatic possible terms, that he will not do it. Zelensky cannot accept it because such a concession will be political suicide That’s not because Zelensky is pig-headed, a warmonger, or refuses to accept the reality that there is no way for Ukraine ever to recover the lost peninsula. Zelensky cannot accept because such a

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

There was Easter but no truce on Ukraine’s frontline

Kramatorsk, Donetsk region In a wooden Greek-Catholic church on the frontline of a warzone, encircled by red tulips and military vehicles, the priest’s sermon is woven through with the war – just like the soldiers’ Easter baskets, packed not only with paska bread, pysanky and sausages, but also with drones, waiting to be blessed. ‘This drone will be at work tonight – enforcing the ceasefire,’ a soldier whispers to me, smiling. The priest looks over a hundred soldiers in front of him, the church so packed that some must listen from the outside, and says that Ukraine will defeat evil, just as Jesus did. ‘The enemy is killing Him in

China

America

Europe

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The EU’s new travel rules won’t stop illegal migration

Like it or not, for ordinary people, Brexit is about to make itself felt in a way which it has not done so far. MEPs have finally given their approval to the EU’s much-delayed Entry and Exit System (EES), which will now be introduced over a six month period starting in October. It means that from that date, all visitors with a UK passport will have to have a facial scan and their fingerprints taken at the border when they travel to the EU. In the case of Eurostar passengers and those taking Eurotunnel or sea routes, the biometric information will be collected physically in Britain before you leave –

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Meloni’s mission to ‘make the West great again’ will infuriate Macron

Giorgia Meloni met Donald Trump in the White House on Thursday and stated her ambition to ‘make the West great again’. The Italian prime minister is closer to the Trump administration than any other Western European leader, and later today in Rome she will host J.D. Vance. The American vice-president could be described as Meloni’s ideological soulmate, and it was noteworthy that when Meloni spoke of her ambition to reinvigorate the West she added: “When I speak about (the) West mainly, I don’t speak about geographical space. I speak about the civilisation, and I want to make that civilisation stronger.” This will be music to the ears of Vance This

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Britain and France are too scared to tackle the migrant crisis

France has overtaken Germany as Europe’s top destination for asylum seekers. During the first quarter of 2025, France registered more than 40,000 applications, just above Spain (39,318) and Germany (37,387). This is a 41 per cent drop in German applications for the same period in 2024; Interior Minister Nancy Faeser attributed the fall to a ‘strong package of measures, Germany’s own actions and close European cooperation’. Germany has been Europe’s destination of choice for asylum seekers since 2011. The country was considered the most welcoming, in part because of the impression cultivated by the former chancellor Angela Merkel, who issued an open invitation to migrants and refugees in 2015. Successive

Yesterday

Terry Barnes

Do young Australians still care about Anzac Day?

Today is Anzac Day, arguably the most solemnly sacred day in the Australian calendar. At dawn on this day in 1915, as part of an Anglo-French operation, men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on a rocky beach on Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula in the face of murderous fire from Turkish defenders. Many died then and there. Many more were doomed to fight, suffer and die in a losing campaign, pitted against an enemy they scarcely knew, in a European war that could have, should have, been averted in July 1914. The greatest Anzac military achievement of the Gallipoli campaign was a masterly overnight withdrawal, without a single

Samaan Lateef

Will India strike back after the Kashmir terror attack?

India is bracing for a potential military confrontation with Pakistan after a deadly terrorist attack on tourists in India-administered Kashmir left 26 people dead, triggering a wave of national outrage and sharpening regional tensions. The assault – described by authorities as the deadliest attack on civilians in the region in recent years – claimed the lives of 25 Indian nationals and one foreigner. While no group has claimed responsibility, Indian officials have pointed fingers across the border, reigniting old hostilities between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. Addressing a rally in Bihar, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking unusually in English, delivered a fiery speech signalling retaliation. ‘India will identify, trace, and

Owen Matthews

Owen Matthews, Matthew Parris, Marcus Nevitt, Angus Colwell and Sean Thomas

31 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Owen Matthews reads his letter from Rome (1:21); Matthew Parris travels the Channel Islands (7:53); Reviewing Minoo Dinshaw, Marcus Nevitt looks at Bulstrode Whitelocke and Edward Hyde, once close colleagues who fell out during the English civil war (15:19); Angus Colwell discusses his Marco Pierre White obsession, aided by the chef himself (21:26); and, Sean Thomas provides his notes on boredom (26:28).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

James Tidmarsh

The African cardinal who terrifies Macron

Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea in West Africa has been named among the potential successors to Pope Francis and the prospect is sending a jolt through the French establishment. He has accused the West of betraying its Christian roots and described mass migration as a form of ‘self destruction’. He has spoken of immigration as a ‘new form of slavery’ created by Europe’s failure to defend its identity and has called on young Africans to remain in their own countries and build their futures at home. In 2021, during an interview on French radio, he made one of his most quoted comments: ‘If Europe continues in this way, it will

Thursday

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Who do voters trust most on the economy?

12 min listen

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been in Washington D.C. this week at the IMF’s spring meetings, and will meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tomorrow. Cue the ususal talk of compromising on chlorinated chicken. Not so, reports the Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons, who explains that Reeves may offer a reduction in long-standing tariffs already imposed on American cars. But, it’s been a bad week of economic news for the Chancellor as the IMF downgraded the UK’s growth forecast.  We’re also one week away from the local elections – Starmer’s first big test since last year’s general election. The economy isn’t usually the number one issue at local elections but, as More in

Matthew Lynn

Can Rachel Reeves get a US trade deal over the line?

As the Chancellor Rachel Reeves flies into Washington for a series of high-level meetings, there is lots of spin from the Treasury that she is about to tie up a trade deal with the United States. The plan is that it would save the UK from tariffs and may even give a much needed boost to the British economy. But all the evidence we have tells us that Reeves is a terrible negotiator who constantly overestimates her own abilities. It is far more likely she will blow the deal at the last minute.  It hardly sounds like a very promising meeting. On Friday, Reeves is due to meet with President

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

What the exploding DHL packages tell us about the Kremlin

The unfolding tale of incendiary devices planted in DHL packages across Europe not only highlights the dangers of Moscow’s campaign of direct measures against the West. It also suggests that, contrary to more alarmist claims, it is possible for such threats to be deterred and limited. In July of last year, a package bound for Britain ignited in the section of Leipzig airport devoted to DHL cargo freight. Another caught fire later that month in a DHL depot in Birmingham. Two more were found in Poland, one of which set light to a warehouse in Warsaw, while the other was successfully intercepted. After the US government’s quiet intervention, Moscow did

Henry Hill

Conservatives all over the Anglosphere are paying the price for Trump

It is the great good fortune of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to be united by a common language, and a misfortune of even greater magnitude that they share that language with the United States. America is a very different country to the four Commonwealth realms sometimes brigaded together under the ugly acronym ‘Canzuk’. It has a different constitution, a different culture and a very different history. Where for many years the four were partners (if hardly equal partners) in the common project of the Empire, the United States was, from its foundation, a determined and eventually successful enemy of the same. For Conservatives who tend to dream of

Wednesday

Yossi Melman

Netanyahu is facing a brewing military rebellion in Israel

On Monday this week, Ronen Bar, head of Israel’s security service Shin Bet, challenged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire him in the country’s Supreme Court, blocking it – at least temporarily. He was supported in his claim by a number of civic groups and former military generals, including the former senior air commander Nimrod Sheffer, stating that Netanyahu wanted to get rid of him after suspecting that Bar was not loyal to him. The Shin Bet chief provided the court with classified documents showing that Netanyahu wished to turn the agency into his private secret police, like those in some dictatorial regimes. Bar also wrote in his

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Parliament’s moral posturing on Israel is delusional

What’s the point of parliament’s foreign affairs committee holding mock-trial style hearings about Israel’s defensive war against Iranian-backed terror groups? Do its members genuinely believe that such performative enquiries contribute to peace in the Middle East? One wonders how Britain might respond if the Israeli Knesset held public hearings into British issues – on Muslim rape gangs, on two-tier policing, or on the stifling of political speech through Orwellian ‘non-crime hate incidents’. The UK would howl in protest. Yet it presumes the right to dissect Israel’s wartime conduct as if from a position of moral superiority, devoid of historical context and strategic understanding. Some seemed more intent on using me

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Kneecap’s Israelophobia has gone too far

The day after the Nova music festival massacre, the Irish band Kneecap posted a photo of themselves grinning from ear to ear alongside the words: ‘Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.’ The bodies of the 364 revellers butchered by Hamas were barely cold before these rappers from Belfast seemed to give smiley support to the militants who did it. ‘Palestinian struggle’, they called it, when what the rest of us saw was a straight-up pogrom in which Israeli youths were raped and murdered without mercy at a trance festival made into a slaughter zone. Fast forward 18 months and Kneecap themselves are performing at a music festival in a desert. It’s

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Why Kashmir’s jihadists are targeting tourists

At least 26 tourists were killed in a militant attack on the town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on Tuesday. Responsibility for the massacre at the popular tourist destination has been claimed on social media by a militant group called the Resistance Front (TRF), reportedly as a response to ‘Indian settlement’ in the region. According to eyewitnesses, the militants verified the religion of their victims, before eliminating non-Muslims. The massacre was a throwback to the jihadist violence of the 1990s that saw the cleansing of Kashmir’s local Hindu population from the Muslim-majority region. The attack has overlapped with US vice president J.D. Vance’s trip to New Delhi, and Indian prime

Matthew Lynn

Donald Trump has bowed to the markets

A deal will be worked out with China to reduce the tariffs. The chairman of the Federal Reserve won’t be fired. Over the last 24 hours, President Trump has softened his stance on two key planks of his economic policy. It is not hard to work out why. For all the bluster, Trump is ultimately a pragmatist – and that makes him a president the financial markets will live with.  The financial markets have soared today, and the dollar has recovered, while gold, the safe haven in troubled times, has dropped by $100 an ounce. The reason? A dramatic shift in American policy. In China, the escalating trade war had

Alexander Larman

Putin’s tacky gift to Trump reveals his dark sense of humour

For all his many faults, Vladimir Putin is not without a jet-black sense of humour. The Russian president has given Donald Trump a painting. Many might have expected this to be a traditional piece of Russian art, depicting some rural scene, or perhaps something more avant-garde, from the contemporary Moscow movement. But no; Putin has instead sent Trump a picture of the aftermath of his assassination attempt last July. The portrait, by Russian artist Nikas Safronov, is not what most people would call tasteful or accomplished. It depicts the president (notably slimmer and younger-looking than in reality) holding up a clenched fist in a gesture of defiance. Trump stands in

Terry Barnes

Could Trump cost Australia’s Liberals victory?

Since Australia’s general election was called by Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese at the end of March, the contest for the 3 May poll has been an uninspiring one. Voters must choose between a mediocre Labor government that overpromised and woefully underdelivered since coming to office in 2022, and an underprepared and underpowered conservative opposition. Just two months ago, it seemed the electorate’s anger with Labor was going to do what has not happened in Australia since the height of the Great Depression: turf out a first-term federal government. Liberal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, effectively had set the national agenda since Dutton opposed Albanese’s 2023 divisive referendum to give Aboriginal

Jacob Heilbrunn

Why Trump won’t fire Pete Hegseth – yet

On Monday, the liberal outlet National Public Radio reported that Donald Trump’s administration was looking for a replacement for Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. This report may in fact have helped shield Hegseth from being sacked for having arranged a second Signal chat group about impending war plans for Yemen that apparently included his wife, Jennifer, his brother, Phil and personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore. The White House has embarked upon a full-scale offensive to defend Hegseth as a victim of a nefarious deep-state plot intent on undermining the President and his aides. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was first off the mark. She depicted Hegseth as a figure of valour.

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Will Holyrood do anything about attacks on the Supreme Court?

As the independent bar in Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates is by necessity a reserved and disinterested body. It does not issue letters like the one that has gone out this morning to Karen Adam, the convenor of Holyrood’s equalities, human rights and civil justice committee. The correspondence takes issue, in blistering terms, with the conduct of Adam’s deputy, Maggie Chapman, a Green MSP and one of the most vocal proponents of gender identity ideology in Scotland. In a video shared widely on social media, Chapman addressed a rally in response to the Supreme Court’s judgment in For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Ministers, which ruled that the definition of

James Tidmarsh

Pet theft in France is out of control

Dog theft in France is soaring. Animal protection groups estimate that up to 70,000 dogs are stolen each year – nearly 200 a day. The scale of the problem is staggering, and it’s getting worse. Small, high-value breeds are the main targets. French Bulldogs, Pugs, Chihuahuas and Siberian Huskies are among the most frequently stolen. A purebred French Bulldog can sell for up to €2,500 on the black market. Some are resold within hours. Others are trafficked to illegal breeding operations. It is not only dogs that are disappearing. Cats, particularly purebreds, are increasingly being targeted as well. According to animal welfare organisations, the number of cat thefts is rising in

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Could this photo cost Mark Carney victory in Canada’s election?

Caryma Sa’d has captured the definitive image of the Canadian federal election. Over the weekend, the independent journalist posted a photograph from an event in Brantford, Ontario for Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor who has replaced Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister. The pic shows an older gentleman appearing to give two middle fingers to the camera while similarly-aged Carney enthusiasts around him laugh. In isolation, just another snapshot from an ill-tempered election. In the context of this poll, a readymade icon of everything Carney’s critics say he stands for and everything his Conservative opponent Pierre Poilievre is against. Elbows and/or fingers up. #cdnpoli #Brantford

Monday

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

How Pope Francis kept the faith

As timing goes, a pope simply can’t do better than to die just after Easter Sunday. The moral of the thing hardly needs saying. Francis died in Christ and will share His Resurrection. In fact, that’s exactly what several bishops have been observing today. But Francis also had his Good Friday. He was desperately ill in the Gemelli hospital in February, being very close to death in particular on 28 February. But he pulled through with all the drugs and therapies possible, and went triumphantly on. For that’s what he did. That popemobile trip round St Peter’s Square yesterday, the meeting with J.D. Vance, the Easter blessing, the composition of