America

In Sergio Leone’s epic spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Blondie, played by Clint Eastwood, and Tuco, played by Eli Wallach, are rival hunters for stolen Confederate gold. The treasure, they discover, is buried in a huge Civil War cemetery. Unfortunately, they have no idea exactly where. Having earlier taken the precaution of emptying Tuco’s revolver, Blondie turns to him and utters the immortal lines: ‘You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns. And those who dig. You dig.’ This week has seen good, bad and ugly moments in geopolitics. And it’s ended with Donald Trump playing Blondie and

Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night was the most powerful, rousing, and pointed of any presidential address in decades. The first line captured the theme of the night. “America is back…and we are just getting started.” It ended with a peroration that his administration would “take up the righteous cause of American liberty,” and “fight, fight, fight for a country our citizens’ believe in and deserve.” Our country’s “Golden Age,” he said, ”has just begun.” Dozens and dozens of applause lines were planted throughout the speech as Trump laid out his ambitious agenda and his accomplishments so far. It was not the dull laundry

So it turns out he wasn’t bluffing after all. Six weeks after taking office, Donald Trump has made two big decisions overnight: pausing all American aid to Kyiv and imposing 25 per cent tariffs on Canada. Both will cause consternation in Whitehall – but it is the situation in Ukraine which is of most immediate concern. Less than 24 hours after Keir Starmer unveiled his ‘four-point plan’ in parliament, it already risks falling apart. Speaking in the Commons, the Prime Minister said yesterday that the West must keep military aid flowing to Ukraine. Asked by Stephen Flynn about the prospect of a pause in contributions, Starmer replied ‘As I understand it,

During the early days of the Gaza crisis, there was an unofficial refrain doing the rounds in the Foreign Office: ‘Foreign policy doesn’t win votes – but it can lose them.’ In recent days, the same could be said of Ukraine’s peace negotiations. The drama between Presidents Trump and Zelensky which played out in the Oval Office on Friday horrified Westminster. Both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch were quick to signal their support for Zelensky, aware that – three years after the war with Russia began – public support for Ukraine remains rock solid. It poses a difficulty for Nigel Farage That poses a difficulty for Nigel Farage. The Reform

Opponents of Keir Starmer would be well advised to concentrate on his many real weaknesses rather than inventing non-existent disasters just to bolster their own prejudices. The British radical online Right spent the last 48 hours not only hoping for the UK Prime Minister to be humiliated by Donald Trump, but then pretending he had been even when he clearly hadn’t. The reality is that Starmer’s visit to Washington DC was very successful, at least in the short-term.  As well as establishing an unlikely public rapport with Trump, the Prime Minister advanced a promising dialogue on tariffs and trade and got the President to endorse his Chagos Islands deal. British

Fresh off the back of a summit with Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Washington, the President of the United States granted The Spectator’s US Editor-at-Large Ben Domenech an exclusive interview in the White House. One of the most pressing topics discussed by Starmer and Trump was support for Ukraine in its efforts to resist Russia’s invasion – and America’s threat to throw in the towel as Europe’s peacekeeper. It was time for Europe, Trump told The Spectator, to step into the breach. Trump’s inability to resist promoting the superiority of American support for Kyiv aside, he is correct ‘They have to step up, but they also have to get equipment,’ the President said. ‘They

Keir Starmer could not have dreamed of a better press conference with Donald Trump. Much of its success was not down to luck, either: the Prime Minister has meticulously prepared for these talks both in terms of substance and (very important) superficialities such as flattering the President. But instead of appearing to be a sycophant who just says whatever Trump wants to hear, Starmer ended up looking as though he was the one in control of the relationship. The President came into the press conference telling journalists that Starmer is a ‘very tough negotiator, however I’m not sure I like that, but that’s OK’. It was exactly the kind of

Donald Trump really knows how to wind up his political opponents. That has to be the only rational explanation behind his decision to share on social media a video – apparently AI-generated – of what a US-owned Gaza Strip could look like in the future. It is 35 seconds of unadulterated visual idiocy, veering from the bizarre to the senseless. Why do it? What is the point, exactly? The video starts with the territory in ruins after the war with Israel, with the caption ‘Gaza 2025… What’s next?’ The US president is shown sharing a cocktail, topless and poolside, with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. These are not flattering

Emmanuel Macron’s lightning visit to the White House was a tour de force of French diplomatic energy, skill and bravado. Whether Macron has managed to convince Donald Trump of the need to involve Kyiv and Europe in US-Russian negotiations on the war in Ukraine will become clear in the next fortnight. But what it demonstrated forcefully was the striking humiliation of the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the slothful incompetence of diplomacy in London and Washington. It is a stark warning of how President Macron and the EU will run rings round the Labour government and its ‘reset’ with Brussels. The Labour government announced some two weeks ago a Keir Starmer visit