America

The headline in the Guardian could not have spelt it out more clearly: ‘World leaders rush to congratulate Lula on Brazil election victory’.  From North America to Europe to Australia, the sigh of relief that Lula had beaten Jair Bolsonaro in last October’s general election was audible. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was cock-a-hoop, so too French president Emmanuel Macron, who heralded the turning of a ‘a new page’ in Brazil’s history and declared. ‘Together, we will join forces to take up the many common challenges and renew the ties of friendship between our two countries.’ It turns out the friendship Lula values most isn’t with Macron or anyone else in

Many Brits who’ve outstayed their welcome in the Old Country head across the Pond for pastures new and the chance of a fresh start. The Pilgrims, Thomas Paine, John Oliver. Could former prime minister Liz Truss be the next to follow that well-trodden path?  Since her astonishing fall from grace last September, when she managed just forty-four days as prime minister, Truss has found a couple of excuses to come to Washington. The latest DC think tank to welcome to the most impactful economic mind of the last decade is the Heritage Foundation, who had Truss give their 2023 Margaret Thatcher Freedom lecture last week.  The auditorium was three-quarters full

So what did everyone learn from the massive trove of more than a hundred top secret US documents a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman apparently put on a gaming server to wow some fellow God-fearing gun enthusiasts? Both little and a lot. Despite some clumsy cut-and-paste editing of casualty figures, as well as some carefully-worded claims that, as a British defence official put it, ‘a significant proportion of the content of these reports is untrue, manipulated, or both,’ the Americans are shamefacedly admitting that these are genuine documents. There will no doubt continue to be suspicions in some quarters that there is some baroque plot at work, whether a Russian long

As Joe Biden tours Northern Ireland this week to mark the 25-year anniversary of the ​​Good Friday Agreement, the big question is not what he might say or do while abroad, but rather what he will decide to do back at home. Will he be running for president again? The question emerged after Biden told NBC over the long weekend that he has ‘plans’ to run again, though he won’t be formally announcing anything yet. These hints have been dropping for months, from both Biden and his wife. But others are more sceptical. The simple fact of his age – Biden is the oldest president in American history – and

A few years ago, I posted this riddle on Twitter: What’s easier to roll than an Easter egg? Answer: Donald Trump. Now, I can add: What’s easier to roll than Donald Trump? Answer: Republican voters. Democrats are playing Republicans like a fiddle. The left’s sole objective is to make Trump the Republicans’ 2024 presidential nominee. He’s already lost three election cycles for the GOP — why not make it four? A month ago, things were looking bad for the Democrats. Immediately after Trump announced for president last November, he may as well have gone into the witness protection program. Even Fox News cut away from his announcement speech. He had to have

It was a bright blue-skied July day in 1861, so the Washington elite decided to have a picnic and take in a battle. They brought sandwiches and opera glasses to admire the scene of Union recruits, who had signed up for 90-day enlistments, march by in their unblemished uniforms to put the rebels down. But the Confederates at Bull Run had other ideas. They brought reinforcements – and by the afternoon, a rout was on. Union soldiers threw down their weapons and fled, as picnicking senators tried ineffectively to block the road and threatened to shoot deserters. They came out expecting a lark, and instead saw the nation torn asunder. This

The American rule of law, which seems so precious to holier-than-thou Democrats these days, depends above all on one thing: a belief among the majority that while no one is above the law, it will be applied fairly to those it does affect. Whether you loathe Trump or love him, you know this: what is happening in Manhattan right now is unfair and inconsistent with a nation that once prided itself on believing in the rule of law. Who amongst Americans is still a believer today? The previously sealed indictment shows that Donald Trump was charged with 34 felony counts for falsification of business records. This crime is normally prosecuted in New

They have come from far and wide today to see the elephant in New York City. The #Resistance that promised so much from its dawning days, which turned the fever dreams of millions of Donald Trump-hating Americans into a cash machine for books, non-profits and cable news, has come to its apex. They’re actually doing it! They’re indicting the Orange Man. And the people are coming to town to see it. The #Resistance has come a long way since Chuck Schumer told Rachel Maddow that then-President-elect Trump was ‘being really dumb’ to attack the intelligence community which has ‘six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.’ It has meandered

The United Kingdom has become a member of a free trade bloc embracing 500 million consumers. And it isn’t the European Union. No wonder, then, that some Remainers are feeling triggered by Rishi Sunak’s success in steering Britain to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). David Henig, UK director of the European Centre For International Political Economy and a longtime Remainer, griped: ‘It assists particularly those companies with trans-Pacific supply chains…The UK is mostly involved in European supply chains. And that’s why the economic impact is trivial. It could even be negative.’ The FT’s chief feature writer Henry Mance even used an old skit from Father Ted in

Shall we talk about double standards? People scoff at ‘whataboutery’, yet sometimes an iniquity towards one side becomes so absurd it’s sillier not to talk about it. And when it comes to American politics, the Democrats, and the indictment of President Donald J Trump, right-wing Americans have a point. This is a ‘weaponisation’ of the justice system and the unfairness of it reeks.    Two weeks ago, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee revealed that the Biden family had, through an associate, received more than $1 million dollars from a Chinese energy company. The documents show that, from 2015 to 2017, Joe Biden’s brother Jim, his son Hunter, and his deceased

They’re calling it ‘revenge travel’: the desire to make up for the touring opportunities we all lost when we were locked down in our pandemical homes. As a keen professional traveller, I confess I’ve got a fearsome case of this bug: I’ve spent the past 20 months going just about anywhere I can, playing catch up. Here’s a brief list of the cities I have visited since mid-2021: Tbilisi, Seville, Munich, New Orleans, Lisbon, Reykjavik, Bangkok, Yerevan, Rome, Istanbul, Athens, Da Nang, Nashville, Los Angeles, Florence, Phnom Penh, Tucson. I could add a dozen more, but you get the gist. I’ve missed a terrific number of domestic social engagements; but

Three children and three staff have been shot dead at a school in the United States. The pupils who died at the Covenant School in Nashville were all just nine years old. The attacker was Audrey Hale, a 28-year old transgender ex-pupil, who was armed with three guns, including a semi-automatic rifle. Hale was shot dead by police during the incident yesterday morning. America’s tragedy is that such appalling incidents just keep happening. Only last week, a 17 year-old wounded two support staff at a high school in Denver; in February, three students were fatally shot at Michigan State University; in January, two teenagers were killed in a ‘targeted shooting’