World

Monday

Michael Murphy

George Simion: the football ultra who nearly took Romania

Bucharest, Romania Surely it’s only a matter of time before someone writes Children of the Deal: a portrait gallery of populists, showmen and media-savvy impresarios moulded in Donald Trump’s image. When that book appears, George Simion may well warrant the opening chapter. In the basement of a Lebanese restaurant in central Bucharest, he holds court, poised to become Romania’s next president. ‘This is Romanian,’ he says, waving a hand over the mezze. ‘Like the Gulf of America… I’ll have an executive order to declare it Romanian.’ The room laughed. So did Simion. He was joking. Probably. Simion is not, by any conventional measure, a traditional politician. A former football ultra and

Michael Gove

Why is antisemitism so pervasive? Irving v Lipstadt 25 years on

31 min listen

This spring marks the 25th anniversary of the landmark judgment in the infamous Irving v Lipstadt Holocaust denial case. David Irving sued American academic Deborah Lipstadt after she had described him as a Holocaust denier in her 1994 book, for his claims that Jews had not been systematically exterminated by the Nazis. Given the burden of proof in English libel law being on the defence, it was up to Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin to prove her claims were true that Irving had deliberately misrepresented evidence. In 2000, the Judge found in her favour. Deborah Lipstadt and the lawyers that represented her, Anthony Julius and James Libson, join Michael Gove

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Could France’s next president come from the Yellow Hats?

When Donald Trump first burst onto the political scene in 2016, comparisons were drawn with a 1950s Frenchman called Pierre Poujade. The BBC called him the ‘grandfather of populism’, the first post-war politician to lead a revolt against ‘being told what it is acceptable to think about issues like globalisation, migration and Europe’. Poujade was a provincial shopkeeper who was so fed up with what he saw as the corrupt and degenerate Paris elite that in 1953 he formed his own party, the Union de Defense des Commercants et Artisans. In the legislative elections in 1956, they won 2.4 million votes, enough to send 52 MPs to sit in the

James Lewisohn

Danes are baffled by Britain’s hatred of second-home owners

Spring has arrived on the North Coast of Zealand, and my fellow Danes are busily scrubbing down their summerhouses for the season. Villages which were nearly deserted during the winter – Danes can generally only occupy their summerhouses for 180 days a year – are gradually filling up. Sadiq Khan said London’s second homeowners ought to pay “much, much more” than a 100 per cent council tax premium Yet I rather doubt Sir Sadiq Khan, who earlier this month said London’s second homeowners ought to pay “much, much more” than a 100 per cent council tax premium, will be on anyone’s prospective guest list. The current war of expropriation on British second

Saturday

Jason M. Brodsky

Why Iran wants a deal with Trump

For Iran, the re-election of Donald Trump in November 2024 was its worst nightmare. Waking up the morning after the US election, Tehran feared President Trump’s unpredictability – and remembered the hard line he’d taken on Iran in the past and his killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. With Iran already reeling from losing a chunk of its proxy network in 2024, and with its air defences and missiles degraded by Israel, it was in a uniquely vulnerable position. All of this forced a recalibration. Iran’s tactic changed from rebuffing to killing President Trump with kindness. Tehran decided to weaponise diplomacy

Yossi Melman

Israel is at risk of becoming a global pariah

For years, Israel has been compared – sometimes unjustly – to South Africa. This comparison stems from the concept of apartheid. In South Africa, racial segregation was between whites and blacks; in Israel, it’s the discrimination against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Today, however, the validity of the comparison between Israel and South Africa is even more relevant in another aspect: the international isolation and economic sanctions that were imposed on the white minority regime in Pretoria, which ultimately brought about its downfall, are a warning of the future Israel could face. A mix of stubbornness, rigidity, and dogmatism is at the root of Trump’s fatigue with Netanyahu

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France is waking up to the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood

Emmanuel Macron assembled some of his top ministers at the Élysée on Wednesday. Their purpose was to devise a strategy to counter the growing expansion in France of the Muslim Brotherhood. The nebulous organisation, formed in Egypt in 1928, has as its aim a global caliphate and it is in Europe where it is enjoying its greatest success. In many Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is proscribed. The French report describes Britain as an ‘outpost’ for the Middle Eastern branch of the Muslim Brotherhood The Brotherhood’s influence in France was detailed in a 73-page report that was declassified this week by

James Tidmarsh

Brussels is dropping a bureaucratic bombshell on Europe

Brussels makes one thing better than anywhere else: regulation. Reporting duties, due diligence checks, ESG disclosures, and endless frameworks for climate and labour compliance – if it can be mandated, Brussels has a directive for it. Now Brussels has outdone itself with a directive that makes companies legally liable for the behaviour of every entity in their global supply chain. It’s due to come into force in 2027. The law has triggered a rare backlash. This week, Emmanuel Macron has called for it to be taken ‘off the table’. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz has also demanded its repeal. But it seems even the bloc’s two most powerful governments can’t stop this

Sam Meadows

Illegal gold mining is blighting Peru

It was gold that brought the Spanish conquistadors to Peru in the 1500s. More than 500 years on and the precious metal is still causing problems. Gold mining came into sharp focus at the end of April when 13 miners were found, naked, bound and gagged, at the bottom of a mine in Pataz which had been taken by an armed gang. Some bore signs of torture and there was evidence they had been executed. The main suspect behind the attacks was arrested last week. Peru’s illegal gold rush has become increasingly bloody in recent years. Some 39 workers at the Pataz mine have been killed in the past three years,

Friday

Edward Howell

Kim Jong Un is mad about a boat

Kim Jong Un is not a happy man. Only a month after he unveiled North Korea’s first 5,000-ton destroyer, another similar warship was seriously damaged as it was launched yesterday. North Korean state media issued an unusually lengthy report following the destroyer’s failed launch, mentioning how the ship’s hull had been damaged, the ‘launch slide of the stern detached’, and damage to the warship’s bottom had ‘destroyed the [vessel’s] balance’. The exact causes of the accident remain unknown, but the warship would have required expertise to launch successfully. Some of the engineers and scientists involved in the crash will – at the bare minimum – be out of work soon In his response,

Matthew Lynn

The EU could pay a high price for not settling with Trump

The deals have been settled. The exceptions have been made. And supply chains have started to return to normal, while the stock market has recovered its losses. We may have thought the ‘tariff wars’ were over. But President Trump has today resumed hostilities, threatening a fresh round of levies on the European Union. It seems the bloc is about to pay a very high price for not settling with Trump earlier.  The EU is paying the price for failing to get a deal across the line while it still could The President was typically blunt. On his social media channel, he laid into the EU’s obstinacy over trade. ‘The European

Geoff Hill

What Trump gets wrong about South Africa’s white ‘genocide’

There’s a joke in South Africa that it’s so easy to claim asylum here, even the Swiss could do so. It’s easy to believe. At our local shopping centre in Johannesburg, the security guards hail from various safe African countries – Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi. All are on refugee permits that are renewed every few months, often with a bribe. If there’s murderous intent among South Africa’s poorest, it’s not directed at white people There are countless illegal migrants and refugees from as far away as Pakistan and Bangladesh. Ironic then that president Cyril Ramaphosa is making such a fuss about the 49 Afrikaners who have been granted asylum in

Andrew Tettenborn

How Starmer was stitched up over the Chagos islands

Yesterday, following a last-minute flurry of lawfare, the government published the text of its Chagos agreement with Mauritius. Future history books may well cite it as the perfect example of Britain ceasing to be a country that can be taken seriously. This lousy deal essentially amounts to a massive gift from British taxpayers to the Mauritian government, in exchange for being allowed to give up territory The agreement transfers to Mauritius the entire Chagos archipelago, including the Diego Garcia airbase, subject to a 99-year leaseback of the latter. The small print is worth noting. Mauritians and Mauritian companies are to have preference in employment on the base; it is to

Thursday

James Snell

The Chagos deal is a disgrace

It has been in the background for a few months, but it seems Keir Starmer has now decided to resurface and sign his deal to pay Mauritius billions to take ownership of a British territory. The Chagos Islands, and the broader British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), are strategically significant. On Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, the only population either staffs or supports a joint British-American base. A base which is often used by the Americans; the base from which the B-2s ordered to bomb Iran’s nuclear programme might take off. But all of this is to be surrendered to Mauritius and then rented back by Britain. Why? Because

James Heale James Heale

The Chagos deal will haunt Keir Starmer

After months of negotiation, the UK has today signed a deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Under the terms of the agreement, Britain will lease back the military base there for an annual rate of £101 million. The net value of the payments from the UK under the treaty will reach £3.4 billion. Keir Starmer insisted that the Chagos deal is in Britain’s best interests The Prime Minister insists that the deal – which involves a lease on the base for 99 years ‘and beyond’ – is in the country’s national interest. It comes after an ‘advisory opinion’ by the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ), that the Chagos Islands

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

This is what it means to ‘globalise the intifada’

‘Globalise the intifada,’ they chanted. This is what that looks like. Two Israeli embassy staffers gunned down as they left the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgram had been attending an event for young Jews working in foreign policy organised by the American Jewish Committee. One of the focuses of the evening was finding a way to alleviate the humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Yaron and Sarah were not only colleagues but a couple. Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, says Yaron had bought an engagement ring and was planning to propose to Sarah next week in Jerusalem. There will be no next

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The Washington shooting is a chilling warning to Jews everywhere

Waking early on Thursday in London, I read the news on a half-lit phone screen: two people, Israeli embassy staff, gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. A man shouted “Free Palestine,” – of course he did – after he had fired his weapon and walked inside the building – where, in an extraordinary confusion of roles, guests offered him water and comfort, believing he too had been a victim. In a way, maybe he had. A man shouted “Free Palestine,” – of course he did – after he had fired his weapon Though our airwaves and streets have been filled with talk of genocide, that word

Matthew Lynn

Will Wall Street jitters stop Trump’s budget bill?

Donald Trump has already caved in on tariffs, pausing the ‘retaliatory levies’ he announced on ‘Liberation Day’ at the beginning of April. Now the President is under pressure from the markets on spending. As his ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ on the budget goes through Congress, investors are panicking over the mix of spending and tax cuts, with bond yields spiking sharply upwards and equities falling. President Trump will now have to decide whether to yield to Wall Street again – or tough out a potential crash.  The US remains the biggest economy in the world, so investors cannot abandon it completely The post-tariff recovery on Wall Street came to a juddering

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What we know about the Israeli diplomat shootings in Washington so far

The suspect, identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, was seen pacing around Washington DC’s Jewish Museum in the minutes before last night’s attack. According to Pamela Smith, DC’s chief of police, he then shouted ‘Free Palestine’ before shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers – a couple, named as Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who reportedly were soon to be engaged. He then walked into the museum, where he was briefly mistaken for an innocent bystander before being apprehended by the police.  The murdered couple had been attending an event inside the building, described online as a ‘Young Diplomats Reception’ for Jewish professionals between the ages of 22 and 45. Israel’s ambassador

Eliot Wilson

Could the EU sideline Britain in its defence loan scheme?

The Security and Defence Partnership which the government agreed with the European Union this week has had more spin applied to it than a thousand cricket balls. The central argument in its favour, apart from vacuous reiki-like attempts to change the ‘mood’ of relations with the EU, was that it would allow the UK defence sector to engage with the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loan instrument providing €150 billion (£127 billion) for defence procurement over the next five years. It does not do that. You would be hard pressed to realise that the partnership has not succeeded in what many saw as its central purpose. Weasel words came in