America

Thursday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Putin is watching Trump attack Zelensky with glee

Britain might not even be close to putting boots on the ground, but proposals by Keir Starmer to send UK troops to Ukraine have already been rejected by the Kremlin. Put forward by the Prime Minister as part of a plan to send a 30,000-strong European peace-keeping force to the country in the event of a ceasefire with Russia, this idea is ‘unacceptable’, the Kremlin has said. Reacting to plans reportedly being prepared by Prime Minister Keir Starmer with leaders on the continent (some of whom have already refused to involve their countries in), Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said such a proposal was ‘a matter of concern’ as it would

Owen Matthews

The Trump-Zelensky train wreck will cost Ukraine dearly

Where did it all go wrong between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky? Just a week ago, Zelensky was speaking of his ‘respect’ and ‘friendship’ for Trump and of his hope that the new US administration would ‘stand by Ukraine … to make a just and lasting peace’. Yet in the course of just 24 hours, the Trump-Zelensky relationship spiralled into a nose-dive before definitively crashing and burning with a devastatingly vicious post by the US President on his Truth Social media platform. In an incoherent and error-filled statement, Trump blasted Zelensky as ‘a dictator without elections’, a ‘modestly successful comedian’ who had ‘talked the United States of America into spending

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Does Trump want to strike an Arctic oil deal with Putin?

The decision by Donald Trump to hold peace talks with Russia on ending the Ukraine war – without Ukraine actually being present – is starting to look even more disgraceful. It transpires that the war was not the only item on the agenda in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. A significant part of the day’s business seems to have been discussing oil deals in the Arctic. According to Kirill Dmitriev, who heads the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Russian and US delegations took the opportunity to talk about reviving joint exploratory operations such as that between Rosneft and Exxon Mobil, which was called off in 2018 following the imposition of sanctions

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

J.D. Vance didn’t go far enough on Europe

In January last year the European Union revealed that it had dreamed up a ‘secret plan’ to sabotage the economy of one of its member states. Brussels was growing impatient with the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had shown the temerity to dissent from EU orthodoxy on a number of issues. In this particular case it was Orban’s continued use of the veto to block a £50 billion aid package to Ukraine that had angered the bureaucrats and liberal politicians. According to the Financial Times, the EU’s strategy in response would involve targeting Hungary’s economy, weakening its currency and reducing investor confidence. Some £20 billion of funding for Hungary

Wednesday

Matthew Lynn

Is X still worth £38 billion? Elon Musk thinks so

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, his many critics gleefully predicted a catastrophe. We were told that everyone would quit the site for its rivals, such as Bluesky and Mastodon. The rebranding to X made Musk the object of ridicule. Musk was warned that he was unlikely to see a return on the $44 billion (£38.1billion) he had splashed out on the site. But hold on: today brings news that Musk is attempting to raise extra cash for his site at the same valuation as what he bought it for. Musk’s critics will no doubt say he is deluded. But his business acumen speaks for itself: this is a

Patrick West

Why is Tom Hanks mocking Trump supporters?

We have long become accustomed to actors holding and sharing their progressive political views. So when David Tennant opened the Bafta awards on Sunday with a dig at Donald Trump, repeating the line that the American President is a dangerous moron, many people were annoyed, but few were surprised. Mechanically reciting fashionable mantras is what actors do, and Tennant, hitherto known for his vocal support for the trans movement, is no exception. The entire film Team America: World Police (2004) was founded on this reality about thespians.  When his counterpart on the other side of the Atlantic, Tom Hanks, did similarly at the weekend, there was, however, genuine shock. Appearing on

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Was ‘free trade’ really working?

29 min listen

Oren Cass, founder and chief economist of think-tank American Compass, sits down with Freddy Gray at the ARC conference in London. They react to the announcement by President Trump over the weekend of reciprocal tariffs: the decision by the US to match import duties levied by other countries.  What’s the strategy behind Trump’s decision? And what could the consequences be for American companies and for global trade? They also discuss the broad political consensus behind free trade in the US since the 1990s. Given the ‘lived reality’ that faced many American investors and companies – for example competing with Chinese Electric Vehicles – was the free trade really working anyway?

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Vance criticises Britain: is this a new era for free speech?

15 min listen

The fallout continues from US vice-president J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. Criticising Europe over what he sees as the retreat of free speech, he singled out the case of Adam Smith-Connor in the UK as something that worries him about the direction that Britain is heading in. Smith-Connor was arrested in 2022 and prosecuted for breaching an abortion buffer-zone in Bournemouth. Freddy Gray speaks to Paul Coleman at the ARC conference in London. Paul is executive director of ADF International, a faith-based legal advocacy organisation that has been advocating for Smith-Connor. What is the truth behind abortion buffer-zones? Is this part of a wider ‘censorship industrial complex’?

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Is Trump’s hostile takeover of Ukraine a trap?

That Donald Trump’s vision of the presidency is less statesman and more CEO of USA Inc. is evident in the terms of the deal he tried to foist on Ukraine last week. As talks begin between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia, a leak reveals that Trump wanted Kyiv to sign away much of its mineral resources to Washington. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected this piece of blatant economic colonialism, but the Ukrainians expect further such demands to come. This is the essence of Trump’s brave new world The draft frames this as the establishment of a joint investment fund such that ‘hostile parties to the conflict do

Monday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Rob Henderson on Musk, monogamy & meritocracy

36 min listen

Political commentator, and author of Troubled, Rob Henderson joins Freddy Gray from the ARC conference in London. They discuss the political reaction to the news that Elon Musk has allegedly had his 13th child – are there signs of a new, more permissive conservatism? They also discuss Trump’s administration so far – particularly his flurry of executive orders – with critics decrying them as the tactics of a populist, yet supporters approving of the speed of activity. What’s the psychology underpins these political viewpoints? Vice-President J.D. Vance’s speech in Munich over the weekend has also left many European leaders reeling – but should they really have been surprised? Produced by Natasha

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Europe should listen to America’s uncomfortable truths

The response in Europe to J.D Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last Friday was one of predictable outrage. Media outlets described it as a ‘rant’ or a ‘sermon’, and politicians and diplomats queued up to criticise the vice-president of America. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, accused the Trump administration of ‘try[ing] to pick a fight with us, and we don’t want to a pick a fight with our friends’. Apparently, there were ‘dry laughs’ from some of the audience when Vance talked about ‘shared’ values. European diplomats have laughed at Trump before, notably in 2018 at the UN General Assembly, when

Sunday

Julius Strauss

What Putin wants and what America will do

If I had a penny for every time I have been told that Russian President Vladimir Putin only wants respect. Or that he is only interested in eastern Ukraine. Or that if Kyiv is only denied NATO membership then he will call off the tanks. Well, in the last seven days US President Donald Trump has given Putin all this and more. And, though it is still early days, so far the war is showing no sign of slowing. And what has the man who wrote The Art of the Deal asked for in exchange for all this diplomatic largesse? Absolutely nothing. In fact, the only substantive demand Trump has

Iain Macwhirter

Elon Musk is America’s Trotsky

I never imagined that I would see a real revolution, at least not in the West. Sure, when I was a student, I fantasised, along with a number of my Edinburgh University lecturers, about a socialist revolution in the UK. Expropriate the expropriators! Ban the bosses! Nationalise everything and abolish money. But, of course, nothing so dramatic ever happens in mature liberal democracies. Except that it just has. Okay, the Trump takeover of the US government is hardly a communist revolution, and Elon Musk is not immediately obvious as a reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, but what is happening right now is revolutionary – just not quite in the way my

Friday

James Heale James Heale

The UK’s balancing act over Trump’s ‘Ukraine peace plan’

13 min listen

Leaders from around the world are gathering at the Munich Security Conference, with the UK represented by Foreign Secretary David Lammy. All attention has turned to Ukraine, given statements this week by President Trump that he had spoken to Putin (and later Zelensky) about ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump’s statements, for example that NATO membership should be off the table, put him at odds with European allies. The UK signed a joint statement with leaders from France, Germany and others, that Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity are unconditional. Is the UK walking a tight-rope between the US and Europe? Where does this leave the NATO alliance? And, with a strategic

Thursday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Britain’s bureaucratic bloat, debating surrogacy & is smoking ‘sexy’?

40 min listen

This week: The Spectator launches SPAFF The civil service does one thing right, writes The Spectator’s data editor Michael Simmons: spaffing money away. The advent of Elon Musk’s DOGE in the US has inspired The Spectator to launch our own war on wasteful spending – the Spectator Project Against Frivolous Funding, or SPAFF. Examples of waste range from the comic to the tragic. The Department for Work and Pensions, Michael writes, ‘bought one Universal Credit claimant a £1,500 e-bike after he persuaded his MP it would help him find self-employment’. There’s money for a group trying to ‘decolonise’ pole dancing; for a ‘socially engaged’ practitioner to make a film about someone else getting

Dalibor Rohac

Trump risks playing into Putin’s hands on a Ukraine peace deal

With the phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the quest for a peace deal for Ukraine is off to a troubling start. The conversation hinted at an eventual normalisation of United States-Russia relations and signalled that negotiations are likely to be led over the heads of Europeans – and Ukrainians – and possibly without input from Trump’s own Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg.  ‘As we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine’, Donald Trump wrote after his conversation with the Russian leader. ‘President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’ We both believe very strongly

Paul Wood

Does Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

Donald Trump told reporters this week that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to free some of the Israeli hostages in Gaza. But, he went on, ‘they’ll never give it to me’. Trump’s chances of putting on white tie and tails in Oslo have receded to a distant speck with his plan to Make Gaza Great Again – by removing the Palestinians.  This proposal may have doomed the brittle ceasefire and jeopardised further hostage releases. It has made the prospect of a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel vanishingly small. It might also end up destabilising Jordan and Egypt. But the agent of chaos in the Oval Office

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Is Pope Francis Rory Stewart in a frock?

Imagine living in your own holy fiefdom, with some of the strictest security on earth, and lecturing other nations about how to deal with illegal immigration. That’s Pope Francis for you. There he is in the Apostolic Palace, sentries at every door, wagging his be-ringed finger at Donald Trump’s America for its ‘mass deportation’ of undocumented aliens. Even for a Pope this is some next-level cant. You can’t help but marvel at the sheer sanctimony of Francis’s position The pontiff’s latest bout of Trump Derangement Syndrome came in a letter to America’s Catholic bishops. He said he is watching closely the ‘major crisis’ unfolding in the US, by which he

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Will flattery buy Zelensky help from Trump?

For all the efforts on every side to manage expectations, there is a sense that some kind of Ukraine deal – even if more likely a ceasefire rather than some comprehensive settlement – is coming. With the risk that this is, as Vladimir Putin would prefer, a decision made between Moscow and Washington, over Kyiv’s head, the Ukrainians are scrambling to gain traction on the process. We have already had Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion that the United States could get priority investment access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth. Now in a set-piece interview with the Guardian, he has offered a finely-balanced mix of flattery and entreaty in the hope that even a