World

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Gavin Mortimer, Colin Freeman, Lawrence Osborne, Lionel Shriver and Anthony Cummins

34 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Gavin Mortimer looks at how the French right can still win (1:48); Colin Freeman interviews Americans who have fought in Ukraine and feel betrayed by Trump (11:01); Lawrence Osborne details his experience of last week’s earthquake, as he reads his diary from Bangkok (18:38); Lionel Shriver defends traditional, monogamous marriage (24:07); and, Anthony Cummins examines media satire and settled scores as he reviews Natasha Brown’s Universality (31:13).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

They think it’s all over for President Yoon – it is now

Yoon Suk Yeol, elected South Korea’s president in 2022, has been removed from office. The Constitutional Court in Seoul has upheld Yoon’s impeachment over his actions in the ultra-short-lived declaration of martial law last December. After lengthy deliberations the court delivered a decisive eight-zero verdict. A snap election must now be held within 60 days with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo serving as acting president in the interim. Yoon’s PPP (People Power party) accepted the verdict and the man himself issued a humble apology to the nation saying, ‘I deeply regret not being able to live up to your expectations. It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The truth about Israel’s ‘bloodlust’ in Gaza

Are we being lied to, or at the very least misled, about what’s going on in Gaza? It increasingly seems so. Israel is carrying out a genocide, cries the activist class. Its pummelling of Gaza is one of the most barbarous onslaughts against civilians in history, they say. New research suggests these feverish claims have no basis in truth. What Israel’s voluble haters call ‘mass murder’ is in fact a pretty normal war. Too many have made themselves the Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas Strikingly, Hamas appears to have quietly dropped thousands of deaths from its casualty figures. Its fatalities list for March 2025 dispensed with 3,400 names that were contained

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Trump has finally ditched Macron for Marine Le Pen

It’s official, the bromance between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron is over. It had always been a rocky relationship but on Thursday it ended in a spectacular fashion. The French president, reacting to Trump’s decision to impose 20 per cent tariffs on all EU products, announced: ‘Investments to come or investments announced in recent weeks should be suspended until things are clarified with the United States.’ A few hours later the American president posted a message on social media in which he reflected on the sentence handed down to Marine Le Pen on Monday. Trump had commented little on her four-year suspended prison sentence and five-year political ineligibility for  misusing

Ukraine

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Ukraine is looking like the loser in Russia-US peace talks

Ukraine’s worst nightmare is coming true: Vladimir Putin has presented the bill to end his war – and Donald Trump is forcing Kyiv to pay it. After 12 hours of talks with seasoned Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia, the US delegation was so worn out and desperate for a win that they agreed to ease sanctions on Russia. In return, Moscow pledged not to bomb civilian vessels in the Black Sea and to halt strikes on energy and oil infrastructure if Kyiv does the same. But soon after the meeting ended, the Kremlin extended its list of demands. Volodymyr Zelensky says this isn’t what Ukraine and the US agreed to

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Putin’s duo are spinning ceasefire talks to Russia’s advantage

The delegation Moscow sent to ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia was clearly well-chosen. Grigory Karasin, for example, the former diplomat (including a spell as ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2000-5) and Sergei Beseda, head of the Federal Security Service’s Fifth Service, especially responsible for penetrating and subverting Ukraine. They certainly seem to be doing a good job of advancing Russia’s interests at the talks. After Vladimir Putin reportedly acceded to a month-long moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure (which both Moscow and Kyiv are already accusing the other side of breaking), the latest round of talks seem to have led to the acceptance of the other leg of this painfully

Eliot Wilson

The problem with Starmer’s peacekeeping plan for Ukraine

Sir Keir Starmer has been tireless in his diplomatic efforts to construct a ‘coalition of the willing’ and send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine. At the weekend, he hosted a conference call with 29 other world leaders, and on Thursday the defence secretary, John Healey, will convene a meeting of military chiefs at the MoD’s Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood ‘to put strong and robust plans in place to swing in behind a peace deal and guarantee Ukraine’s future security’. The Prime Minister’s commitment is firm and public. Along with likely partners France, Turkey, Canada and Australia, the United Kingdom is ready to contribute to a military force of up

China

America

Europe

Andrew Tettenborn

Is Hungary right to quit the ICC?

When Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, who is nobody’s fool, offered Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a state visit to Budapest last year, he knew a storm would follow. Netanyahu has now arrived in Hungary – and the backlash has duly followed. Orbán has vowed not only to ignore the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas; he has said his country will withdraw altogether from the ICC. During a joint press conference yesterday with Netanyahu, Orbán said the ICC had become a ‘political court’. Netanyahu hailed Hungary’s ‘bold and principled’ decision to withdraw from the court.

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Marine Le Pen’s downfall is a gift to the National Rally

Marine Le Pen’s political career ended this morning when a Paris judge found her guilty of misusing EU funds. She was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, two of which are suspended and two will be served under an ankle bracelet. She was also fined €100,000 (£84,000) and disbarred from politics for five years. Few anticipated such a severe sentence – it is one that will send shockwaves not just through France but across Europe. Also convicted alongside the leader of the National Rally were 24 other party members – including eight MEPs – all found guilty of channelling €2.9 million (£2.4 million) of EU money to their own party’s coffers.

Eliot Wilson

Britain’s underfunded army is letting down Nato

The British army is overstretched. This is not breaking news to anyone who takes an interest in defence. Although its budget has grown in real terms over the last decade, it has faced a complex network of problems. In only six of the last 25 years has recruitment exceeded outflow, meaning that the army has been consistently under strength. Meanwhile, two of its three armoured vehicles, Ajax and Boxer, are badly behind schedule. Consequently, the new ‘Future Soldier’ reforms have been disrupted, and the gifting of equipment and ammunition to Ukraine has severely depleted stockpiles. The flair for improvisation shown by good soldiers has done much to conceal the worst

Today

Eliot Wilson

Nato must prepare for America’s withdrawal from Europe

Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, has a reputation for genial flexibility and an ability to evade trouble. During his record-breaking 14 years as prime minister of the Netherlands, he earned the nickname ‘Teflon Mark’. But while Rutte has previously demonstrated a rare ability to mollify Donald Trump, is the Nato chief in danger of being too complacent about what the president might mean for the future of the alliance? Rutte has no excuse for being caught unprepared: he came to the job at a highly challenging time, a month before Trump was elected to a second term as president. Rutte, more than anyone in Europe, knew the extent of

Paddy Stephens

Why did Trump throw Taiwan under the bus?

Things could have been very different. Since the distant days of the first Trump presidency, Taiwanese tech companies have been shifting production from China to Taiwan due to US tariffs and tech controls aimed at China. For the US, that strategy has borne some fruit. Most countries tend to trade the most with their close neighbours. But in February, for the first time in over two decades, Taiwan’s top export destination for goods was not China and Hong Kong, but America, thousands of miles across the Pacific. It was a tremendous victory for America on the frontline of the US-China rivalry. Instead, the arrival of that milestone was greeted with

Robert Taylor

Javier Milei is deluded about the Falklands

Javier Milei might be a Thatcherite economically, but when it comes to the Falklands he’s about as Thatcherite as a bunch of striking miners. In a speech this week to mark the 43rd anniversary of the Falklands war, Milei announced that he would not only fight for as long as it takes to gain sovereignty over the Islands, but that he would persuade the Islanders that becoming Argentinian was actually in their interests. Yes, really. ‘We hope that the Malvinas people will one day decide to vote with their feet for us’, he proclaimed. ‘That is why we seek to make Argentina such a power that they will prefer to

Edward Howell

South Korea must pick its next president wisely

Over 100 days since his impeachment trial commenced, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol was unanimously voted out by the country’s constitutional court earlier today. This is the man whose presidency will be remembered for his infamous declaration of martial law on 3 December last year. For his detractors, today is a jubilant occasion and a day of celebration. For Yoon’s supporters, however, the court’s verdict predictably was a moment of melancholy. The clock is now ticking, as the country has 60 days to call a general election. Not only is South Korea’s political polarisation anything but ebbing, but voters must carefully consider just how beneficial a pivot in political

Yesterday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The BBC isn’t even pretending to be impartial about Trump

If, for some unfathomable reason, you missed Newsnight last night, do make sure you see, somehow, the interview between presenter Victoria Derbyshire and the former deputy assistant to Donald Trump, Sebastian Gorka. Derbyshire has had it coming for a long time. She believes it is sufficient, when interviewing somebody who takes a Trumpish view of the world, simply to screech her idiotic objections and prevent the interviewee from speaking at all. This happens every time a supporter of Trump is allowed on to her show. She is as bad as Maitlis, except without the charisma. Gorka refused to stand for it and told her three times to shut up –

Andrew Lilico

Trump doesn’t understand how trade deficits work

After Donald Trump’s Liberation Day, the US now imposes far and away the highest tariffs of any developed country in the world. In the process of doing so Trump has completely rejected the cornerstone of the World Trade Organisation: the ‘most favoured nation’ principle whereby tariffs have to be the same on all countries you don’t have an explicit trade agreement with. He has also cast aside the US’s system of free trade agreements – for example, imposing tariffs on Australia despite there being a decades-old Australia-US agreement removing tariffs. His reasons for doing this reflect his dissatisfaction with the way the international financial order has worked for many years.

James Snell

Israel is playing a dangerous game in Syria

As Donald Trump’s tariffs dominate the headlines, in the Middle East, Israel is stepping up its campaign against Syria. Israeli air strikes hit targets across the country, including the T4 airbase in Homs, last night. The latest campaign which has been conducted over the last few months – involving dozens of air strikes and the deployment of troops – is a big escalation. The strikes in Syria overnight were intended to deter Turkey from making use of bases inside the country. The bombings were to ‘convey a message to Turkey,’ an Israeli official told the Jerusalem Post. Turkey has made much of its closeness to the new leadership of Syria. It had an uneasy relationship with the now-dissolved

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Japan has been stunned by the Trump tariffs

Virtually the whole world is waking up to the reality, not threat now, of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, but in few places will the sense of shock and resultant anxiety be greater than Japan, where a whopping 24 per cent has been slapped on exports to the US. The Japanese, who have grown used to a decent relationship with successive American administrations and a whopping trade surplus, will have many sleepless nights ahead. The reaction here has not been one of anger or resentment – more stunned bemusement. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who did his best to cozy up to Trump on a recent summit in Washington (he presented Trump

Ian O’Doherty

The growing controversy over Ireland’s neutrality

As the war of words between Donald Trump and the EU continues to escalate, European countries have become increasingly concerned about their military reliance on the United States. As a result, the need to increase defence spending has become a major issue. Germany has abandoned its ‘debt lock’ as it seeks to raise more funds for its military, while Macron has repeatedly spoken of the need to gain more ‘strategic autonomy’ away from America. Now the debate has even spread to Ireland, the country on the furthest western edge of the EU. Traditionally, Ireland has prided itself on its neutrality or ‘military non-alignment’, while also enjoying a long-standing record of

Lawrence Osborne

The day Bangkok crumbled

Last Friday I was on my 15th-floor balcony with an early afternoon coffee, watching dogs play among the banana trees below. It was strangely quiet. Looking across the skyscrapers that form my horizon, I noticed the 137 Pillars – a luxury high-rise hotel famous for its rooftop pool perched 37 storeys above my own street. Down the tower great cascades of water, thousands of gallons, were pouring from that rooftop pool. I looked at the jungle plants on my balcony. They were moving back and forth, the blades of the rubber trees swaying as if issuing a warning, and I felt dizzy. Soon all the towers around me were exploding

Colin Freeman

‘Trump is a coward’: meet the US soldiers who served in Ukraine

The Ukrainians of Alabama are not the kind of lobbyists whose visits strike fear into pro-Trump politicians in Washington. They are an ad hoc campaign group of expats and refugees who do their best to put Kyiv’s case politely to representatives of Congress and Senate. They do, however, have a secret weapon, in the form of an ex-US soldier from the town of Tuscaloosa, whose backstory is the kind the Beltway finds hard to ignore. Alex Drueke, 42, is an Iraq veteran whose ancestors served in every major American war since the War of Independence. Appalled at Vladimir Putin’s invasion, he joined Ukraine’s International Legion, only to be captured on

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How the French right can still win

Dixmont, Yonne It has been a terrible year for the Le Pen family. Jean-Marie died in the first week of January. He was the patriarch who in 1972 co-founded the National Front and grew it into a formidable political machine before handing over to his daughter. Marine took command in 2011 and, through a strategy of ‘de-demonisation’, transformed the rebranded National Rally into the biggest single party in the National Assembly with 125 seats. She has reached the second round of the last two presidential elections, but it won’t be third time lucky for Marine Le Pen. On Monday, a judge disqualified her from politics for five years for misusing

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Terrible Tuesday, W.H. Smith’s rebrand and no e-bikes on the Tube

Home For many, ‘Terrible Tuesday’ began ‘Awful April’ with increased bills for water, energy, council tax (to an average in England of £2,280), road tax, telephone charges, broadband, the television licence and stamp duty. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, spoke to President Donald Trump of the US as makers of motor vehicles, Britain’s biggest export to the US, contemplated American tariffs of 20 per cent on car imports. Matthew Doyle resigned as Sir Keir’s communications director. Plans were afoot to ban cars from Hammersmith Bridge, which has been closed for repairs for six years, when it is reopened. Since there was a ‘draft bill due for imminent introduction that

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Trump is giving us a taste of our own medicine

It seems the US State Department sees an impediment to free speech as an impediment to free trade with Britain. It cites the recent incident in which a woman, Livia Tossici-Bolt, was arrested for holding up a sign as she prayed alone and silently near a Bournemouth abortion clinic. It says it is ‘monitoring’ the case. Many here will dismiss this intrusion as a typically loopy product of the Trump era. In a sense, it is. It is also a spurious justification for American tariffs which are happening anyway. But it should teach us something about how others see us. It is commonplace for British governments of both parties to

Wednesday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Sadiq Khan’s Eid message is a disgrace

London’s Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan published a video online earlier this week to mark the Muslim festival of Eid. Released under the guise of seasonal goodwill, this glib social media greeting is not merely problematic – it is an outright disgrace. Cloaked in the warm language of unity and peace, the Mayor of London delivered a politicised monologue that whitewashes terrorism, stokes division, and fundamentally misrepresents the moral landscape of the Israel–Palestinian conflict. This is not the conduct of a responsible leader. It is the conduct of a man either wilfully blind to barbarity or all too willing to exploit a religious holiday for ideological gain. ‘More than 50,000 Palestinians

Michael Evans

Israel is gambling that military action can end the war in Gaza

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is to launch a large-scale expansion of its military operations to seize and occupy more territory. This is to exploit what the Israeli government sees as growing antipathy towards Hamas among Palestinians in Gaza. It’s the biggest gamble taken by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, since the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was agreed on January 17. Outlining the military plan, Israel Katz, the defence minister, announced that large areas of the Strip would be seized, with Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south appearing to be the principal targets. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had made their way back to their

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Why Israel is ramping up its war on terror

The war in Gaza has entered a more consequential and unforgiving phase. Early this morning, Palestinian sources reported that Israeli tanks had begun advancing into central Rafah, following a night of intense airstrikes across the southern Gaza Strip. This military escalation came after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced the expansion of Operation ‘Oz veCherev’ (‘Strength and Sword’), aimed at dismantling terror infrastructure, neutralising Hamas operatives, and securing areas of Gaza to be integrated into Israel’s defensive perimeter. The underlying reality remains: no state can allow a terrorist group to operate with impunity from its borders while holding its civilians hostage The campaign, described by Israeli officials as an effort

James Tidmarsh

Marine Le Pen is in a race against the clock

Marine Le Pen is fighting back, launching an all-out counterattack against a Paris court’s decision to suspend her from politics. ‘We won’t let the French people’s election be stolen,’ she declared at an RN meeting the morning after her conviction, calling the ruling a ‘nuclear bomb’ dropped because ‘we’re about to win’ the presidency. Time, though, is her real enemy. The presidential election’s first round is set for April 2027, with candidates due to declare by early January. Le Pen has just 21 months to overturn her conviction, but French criminal appeals typically take 18 to 24 months – too long unless the court fast-tracks it or it’s scheduled with political

Jacob Heilbrunn

Trump’s tariffs are coming back to bite him

Liberation Day? Pshaw. President Trump may be gloating about imposing sweeping tariffs on America’s allies and adversaries abroad, but he is beginning to face blowback at home for his strange farrago of policies that are upending the federal government and threatening to plunge America into a self-induced recession. First Senator Cory Booker raised the flagging spirits of Democrats by holding a 25-hour speech denouncing all things Trump, thereby setting a record for the longest floor speech in Senate history. Next, in two key special congressional races in Florida, Democrats did not win but narrowed the gap sufficiently in red districts to cause palpitations among Republican politicians heading into the midterm

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Are Western companies heading back to Russia?

Ever since Donald Trump’s now-infamous phone conversation with Vladimir Putin last month, Russia has been buzzing with speculation that Western companies which left the country after the 2022 invasion, especially US ones, will be returning. For some, this is a dream, for others a nightmare. Either way, it seems to be an overblown prospect fuelled by a refusal to accept just how toxic the Russian market will be for the foreseeable future. Under the headline ‘Now Hello Again? How American Companies Will Return to Russia,’ the popular tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets yesterday confidently asserted that ‘American business wants to return to Russia, but now the game will be played by Russian rules’.