World

Wednesday

Matthew Lynn

Trump’s steel tariffs will hurt Britain

Over the course of President Trump’s state visit, we can expect lots of investments by the giants of American industry to be unveiled. Microsoft will announce $30 billion (£22 billion) of investment in new artificial intelligence hubs and tech infrastructure. Google will pump £5 billion into AI in Britain, which presumably means getting some robots to sit in the British Library reading room for a few months until all the content has been scraped. Perhaps by the end of the week, even McDonald’s will have announced plans for a new food court on the A30. But for all the celebration, there will be no progress on the only deal that

Alexander Larman

Donald Trump will be on his best behaviour for King Charles

The Donald has touched down in Britain for his unprecedented second state visit. It makes sense in a way that this most unconventional of American presidents is being granted a privilege that has never been offered to any other US leader, namely a repeat performance of pageantry and pomp that will flatter this Anglophile’s ego to its considerable core. That the event is happening against King Charles’s wishes might bother any other prime minister, but such was Keir Starmer’s desire to curry favour with Trump that he even waved the King’s handwritten invitation on camera. And with that he ensured favourable treatment for the country he is (barely) governing. The

Tuesday

Michael Evans

Trump is living in Putin’s world

It all began with such promise. Donald Trump would sweep away all the failures of past administrations, sit astride the globe like a Nobel Prize winner in the making and solve the world’s seemingly unresolvable security challenges. To be fair, it has only been eight months since he began his second term in the White House. But it is a fact that Trump has struggled to bring the force of his personality and chutzpah to bear in trying to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as he pledged he would in short shrift during his presidential campaign. His return to the White House was supposed to be the start

Monday

Matthew Lynn

Can Trump force Nato to get tough on Russian sanctions?

The pipelines would be sealed off. The supertankers would be left in the ports, and the wells would have to be capped. When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, it was confidently assumed that sanctions on Moscow’s oil and gas industry would be so punishing for its fragile economy that it would quickly force Vladimir Putin to plead for a settlement. Unfortunately, it has not worked out like that. Instead, the sanctions against Russia have been widely flouted. In response, President Trump has demaned that Nato makes them stick. But would sanctions really work and cripple Putin’s war machine?  President Trump was in typically robust form. Over the weekend, he

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Was Charlie Kirk’s murder the senseless act of an internet troll?

We are in the grip of old habits. We assume, most of us, that when a prominent political figure is assassinated, the motive for the killing is political. So it was with Charlie Kirk’s assassin. Before anything was known about the killer, President Trump’s allies and outliers decided that it was a symptom of the murderous violence of soi-disant antifascists on the left. When it emerged, subsequently, that our man was from a republican family and that he potentially may have been part of the white supremacist ‘groyper’ movement, anti-Trump types chalked it up to the violence of the Right.  There may have been more justification for the latter position

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

The AfD’s mission to seduce West Germany is paying off

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party continued its westward march in popularity across Germany yesterday, securing third place in the local elections in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Preliminary results show that, alongside the outcomes of mayoralty and district administrator elections which took place in the state, the far-right party won 14.5 per cent of the vote across the 396 municipalities which went to the polls. The liberal SPD party came in second with 22.1 per cent, while the CDU – the governing party in Berlin – secured a third of the vote, with 33.3 per cent. The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will be breathing a small sigh of

Sunday

Arnout Nuijt

The crime the Netherlands would rather forget

In the early hours of 20 August, a 17-year-old girl set off on her bicycle, making the journey from central Amsterdam to the nearby village of Abcoude after a carefree evening out. What followed was any parent’s worst nightmare. In distress, the girl dialled emergency services, reporting that she was being chased and assaulted by an unknown man. Police rushed to the scene. The girl, known only to the public as Lisa, was found brutally murdered on a notorious stretch of unlit road near the Amsterdam Arena football stadium. The authorities strive to manage the danger as best they can – and continue to avoid naming, let alone addressing, its

Paddy Stephens

The forgotten history of France’s doomed invasion of Taiwan

The French language may not be the global lingua franca it once aspired to be, but I’ve found myself using it in some unexpected places far beyond the Hexagon. Near the busy port of Keelung (pronounced Ji-long), beneath the steep hills surrounding a natural harbour less than twenty miles from Taiwan’s capital Taipei, is a curious burial site. It has the natural placidity of a churchyard, despite its proximity to a main road; trees shade the headstones, whose first line reads “Ici repose…”. This is a French military cemetery. So what is it doing in Taiwan? Few remember this history in Europe, but in Keelung it is commemorated in a

Saturday

Sam Meadows

Javier Milei is struggling

Is patience with Javier Milei finally wearing thin? The bombastic leader of Argentina was sent a clear message of discontent by the electorate last week when he lost the province of Buenos Aires in a landslide local election. Although the contest has little consequence for the national picture, it will be causing consternation in Milei’s camp. The province, which does not include the capital city’s metropolitan area, is home to roughly 40 per cent of Argentine voters. Such a heavy loss just over a month before national midterms is a serious cause for concern. Milei is used to winning. He swept into power in 2023 with a crushing defeat of

Nicholas Farrell

France has become Italy – and not in a good way

France is taking the place of Italy, it seems, as the basket case of Europe. The turn-over of prime ministers in France – five now since the start of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term in 2022  – is worse even than Italy has ever managed. Since the fall of fascism in 1945 Italy has notoriously had 69 governments – roughly one a year – which has made governing a tricky people even trickier. But France has had nearly two a year of late. That France is now, in the words of Marine Le Pen, ‘the sick man of Europe’, is especially pleasing to Italians. Macron, who refuses to step down

Tim Shipman

What does Trump want from his state visit?

16 min listen

Donald Trump touches down in Britain next week for his state visit and political editor Tim Shipman has the inside scoop on how No. 10 is preparing. Keir Starmer’s aides are braced for turbulence; ‘the one thing about Trump which is entirely predictable is his unpredictability,’ one ventures. Government figures fear he may go off message on broadcast – he is scheduled to be interviewed by GB News. A second state visit, especially during a second term, is unprecedented. But, as Tim says, ‘Britishness is fashionable in Washington’ and no-one likes ‘royal treatment’ more than Trump. So, can Starmer take advantage of the President’s ‘love of the deal’? Tim joins

Friday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What’s driving political violence in America?

Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from south-west Utah, has been detained over the shooting of Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of Donald Trump. Author and anthropologist Max Horder joins Freddy Gray to discuss the cocktail of online hate and tribal divisions that’s fuelling America’s new era of political violence.

James Heale James Heale

Will Mandelson bring down McSweeney?

20 min listen

The fallout from Lord Mandelson’s sacking continues. All eyes are now on Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney – could he take the fall for Mandelson’s appointment? As Whitehall editor of the Sunday Times Gabriel Pogrund tells James Heale and Lucy Dunn, Mandelson and McSweeney’s relationship stretches back to New Labour. But, Pogrund warns, as McSweeney lay the foundations for Labour’s victory in 2024, losing him would mark a ‘revolution in the Starmer project’. Plus: after a slew of bad news for the government, there was one Labour victory this week – at the annual Westminster dog of the year competition. Megan McElroy interviews some of the MPs who

Rory Hanrahan

Charlie Kirk could have been president

As with so many political assassinations across the Atlantic – the Kennedys, Martin Luther King –Charlie Kirk’s killer is likely to be some deranged individual, a lone wolf driven by fevered delusions, perhaps, or a sick, mentally ill person. His murder, though, is anything but mundane. Kirk was not just another talking head; he was a phenomenon, a young firebrand, a brilliant, charismatic, honourable man who believed in discourse over violence, who repeatedly warned us that, when we stop talking with those we disagree with, civil wars start. That he was also a young husband and father, whose children will never get to know their dad, is heartbreaking. Kirk helped

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

America’s troubled theopolitics

The bloody ideological instability of the United States – demonstrated this week by the horrific killing of Charlie Kirk – has a root cause that is not widely discussed, except in shallow and polemical ways. The nation of the United States was built on a faultline It is theopolitics. That means the relationship of religion and politics. Of course we are mainly talking about Christianity, which has always been the nation’s dominant religion. It’s a pretty complicated topic, but that’s no excuse for not attempting to grapple with it. There are two main ways in which Christianity relates to politics, and the United States is uniquely conflicted about which of

Stephen Pollard

What’s the real reason Spain and Ireland have a problem with Israel?

What do Ireland and Spain have in common? This week, the answer is Jews. On Monday, Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, came out with a truly bonkers – bonkers shocking, that is, rather than bonkers amusing – statement while announcing sanctions against Israel. Sánchez was angry that he couldn’t nuke the Jews (sorry, Israel): “Spain, as you know, doesn’t have nuclear bombs, aircraft carriers, or large oil reserves. We alone can’t stop the Israeli offensive. But that doesn’t mean we won’t stop trying. Because there are causes worth fighting for, even if winning them isn’t in our sole power.” Such a shame. If only Spain had nuclear weapons, then it could have

Travis Aaroe

The Mandelson ‘joke’ fell flat in Washington

Lord Peter Mandelson is to the “Third Way” what Roger Stone is to populism – an alte kameraden from the freewheeling early days. A pinstriped broker and fixer. Whatever ultimately comes of the association with Jeffrey Epstein that has just cost him his job as ambassador to the United States, that such a figure was ever appointed to the role in the first place is telling. It shows that contemporary Britain is an insular sort of place, virtually deaf to the outside world. To Britain’s political class, Mandelson is something of an in-joke To Britain’s political class, Mandelson is something of an in-joke. He was one of the principal architects of New

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Keir Starmer was a fool to ever tie himself to Peter Mandelson

There is a unique, and bitter, flavour to the corruption of the men of the 1990s. Peter Mandelson – who was yesterday sacked as UK ambassador to Washington – Tony Blair, and the former German and US leaders Gerhard Schroeder and Bill Clinton came from the left, and offered a hard but plausible message to their supporters. The right had monopolised power under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, they said. The only way to win in the late 20th century was for Labour in the UK, the Democrats in the US, and the Social Democrats in Germany to abandon their old notions of standing up to the bosses on behalf of the

Thursday