World

Friday

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Who are the Russian NHS hackers?

What do you do if you’re a modern state and need extra capacity in a hurry? You outsource. And if you’re also a kleptocracy, to whom can you turn for this? Criminals. It’s not clear whether Qilin, the Russian hacker group behind the recent attack on NHS suppliers is run, encouraged, or simply given a pass by the Kremlin, but the growing interpenetration of espionage, subversion and crime is a threat we must recognise. Qilin, which engages in ‘ransomware’ attacks whereby it locks up a target’s systems until it pays to have them unlocked – £40 million is the demand in this latest attack – has been active since October

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Is Macron considering using France’s emergency powers?

Does Emmanuel Macron have one more joker to play? Perhaps. His petulant decision to dissolve the National Assembly has been difficult to understand. His political movement looks like it will come third behind the rightish Rassemblement National and the ultra-leftist New Popular Front, a coalition of trots, Antifa activists, and loopy greens. Privately, the polling companies are confessing a lack of confidence in the numbers so far, which show Rassemblement leading, the left trailing in second and Macron’s party in third. We’re waiting for some more authoritative polls at the end of week. The pollsters are struggling to make sense of, in effect, 577 separate elections held across two rounds.

Thursday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why are US universities so anti-Israel?

23 min listen

Freddy speaks to Jacob Howland, Provost and Dean of the Intellectual Foundations Program at the University of Austin, about the spread of college protests across American universities in response to the Israel-Gaza conflict. How have campuses become such hot beds of anti-Israeli sentiment and what has the influence of Marxism been? They also discuss the intersection of personal rights at university with freedom of speech. What influence will Biden’s response have on the Jewish vote for the 2024 election?

Matthew Lynn

Will Christine Lagarde crush Marine Le Pen?

The National Rally is comfortably leading in the polls. The charismatic Jordan Bardella is set to become the next Prime Minister. And Marine Le Pen looks to be heading for power in France. When she gets there, however, she faces a potentially far more lethal opponent than the bruised and increasingly powerless President Emmanuel Macron. The President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde. In reality, the next big issue in Eurozone politics will be whether Lagarde crushes Le Pen – and whether that risks compromising the independence of the Bank for good.  Lagarde has the power to crush Le Pen. The only real question will be whether she chooses

James Kirkup James Kirkup

A Danish lesson for Labour in how to revive Britain’s economy

The coincidence of the 2024 general election and the Euro 2024 football tournament is a great lesson in the myopia of Westminster and its creatures. Somewhere, deep in our hearts, we do know that the vast majority of people in Britain (OK, England and Scotland) are far more interested in the football than in the ups and downs of the campaign. But does that stop us fixating on the minutiae of that campaign? Not at all: for political nerds, this is our championship, after all, one of those (quite) rare moments when all the stars, all the heroes and villains, are on the pitch together, generally kicking lumps out of each

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Why should Putin be allowed to keep seized Russian assets?

The seizure of enemy treasure, formerly known as plunder and pillage, is an ancient tool of war. Though still practised in the world’s nastiest conflict zones, it’s a tricky business within a rules-based international order. The G7’s agreement to lend $50 billion to Ukraine – using income from $300 billion of frozen Russian assets to cover interest and repayments on the loan – is a vivid case in point. And some would say, a lily-livered half-measure. The key feature of the deal is that it does not actually claim ownership of Russian loot – which however ill-gotten is mostly held in EU banks in the form of western government bonds.

Owen Matthews

Zelensky’s peace summit flop

Volodymyr Zelensky’s Global Peace Summit in Switzerland was meant to demonstrate the world’s support for Kyiv and underscore Russia’s isolation. It did the opposite. Russia wasn’t invited. China didn’t send a delegation. Other major countries that might influence the Kremlin – including Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UAE – refused to sign the watered-down final communiqué. According to a former senior member of Zelensky’s administration, Ukraine’s leader had ‘hoped the conference would mark a new benchmark of international support… [but] it just showed how badly we have lost the support in the Global South’. Take Brazil’s President, Lula da Silva. He was one of the first world

The Spectator

Starmer and Le Pen’s similarities

Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election in France is turning out to be a blunder of Sunakian proportions. His second term as president lasts until 2027 and he could have struggled on with a hung parliament in which his was the largest single party. But when Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won 31 per cent of the vote in the European Parliament elections, to his party’s 15 per cent, he decided to call French voters’ bluff. In a parliamentary election, would they really back Le Pen and put in Jordan Bardella, her new 28-year-old party frontman, as prime minister? It is becoming clear that they may well do

Wednesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How to save liberalism

41 min listen

In this episode, Freddy Gray is joined by Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and columnist for The Washington Post. They discuss liberalism, the state of America, and identity politics. They also cover Fareed’s new book, Age of Revolutions, which asks one central question: what are the causes of the seismic social disruptions we are going through and the political backlashes that have ensued? 

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s left-wing coalition would unleash migrant chaos on Britain

Emmanuel Macron has described the left-wing coalition’s manifesto as ‘totally immigrationist’. The Popular Front, which brings together Communists, Greens, Socialists and Anti-Capitalists, was formed at the start of last week to contest the upcoming parliamentary elections. While there has been the odd divergence on personnel – notably who should be prime minister in the event the left wins the election on 7 July – one issue on which the Popular Front is agreed is immigration: the more the better. The French left describes immigration as ‘an opportunity’ for the Republic Its manifesto states that once in power it will establish a maritime rescue agency to help bring migrants across the

Tuesday

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Will French voters be revolted by the new popular front?

The Nouveau Front Populaire has been formed to take on Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in the French legislative elections. It is a coalition of ultra-leftists, woo-woo greens, a candidate who has been identified as an active Antifa activist, the tottering geriatric residue of the French communist party and also many traditional opportunistic socialists. These include former president François Hollande, who has leveraged his support for a safe seat in the Corrèze, and Raphael Glucksmann, who had previously been positioning himself as the sensible face of the left. He has now aligned himself with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the tantrum-prone Gaza-obsessed Trotskyist who rules the hard left France Insoumise. The new

Edward Howell

Why Kim Jong Un is rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin

When Vladimir Putin lands in Pyongyang today on his first visit to North Korea in 24 years, it will be the second time he has met his fellow dictator, Kim Jong Un, in under a year. Even if the summit simply brings more bright lights and signatures, it would be a mistake to dismiss the trip as mere showmanship. The message from the two leaders will be clear: an anti-Western coalition is not merely a fiction, but a worrying reality. Back in 2000, North Korea was six years away from conducting its first – albeit far from successful – nuclear test and struggling to recover from a devastating self-induced famine.

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Kylian Mbappé’s veiled Le Pen warning won’t save Macron

France’s prime minister was out and about on Monday mixing with the proles south of Paris. ‘I’m going to shake your hand because you’re all right,’ said one old man, accepting the outstretched hand of Gabriel Attal. ‘But you’ll have tell the president to shut his trap.’ Attal didn’t quite know how to respond, mumbling that he was campaigning for the parliamentary and not the presidential elections. The old man wasn’t finished. ‘Listen, you’re not doing too bad…but the president, he’s the one causing all the trouble.’ ‘I don’t want to represent a country that doesn’t correspond to our values,’ said Mbappé, a footballer friend of Emmanuel Macron It will

Matthew Lynn

London can thank Macron for becoming Europe’s largest stock market

When Paris overtook London as the continent’s largest stock market two years ago, it was widely seen as a significant milestone in Britain’s relative decline. It was a sign of the City of London’s weakness – and it was evidence that the UK’s departure from the European Union was slowly destroying its once powerful financial markets. But hold on. This week, London has reclaimed top spot. French president Emmanuel Macron’s high-risk gamble on a general election has already backfired, at least financially, and he has now gifted financial leadership back to London.  Thanks to France’s president, the smart money is leaving Europe On Monday, the total value of all the

Monday

Matthew Lynn

France could pay a heavy price for Macron’s Liz Truss-attack on Le Pen

As Emmanuel Macron heads into a fraught election, France’s president is repeatedly warning voters of the calamitous consequences of electing Marine Le Pen’s National Rally into government. In doing so, he is effectively weaponising the bond market. His allies point to what unfolded under Liz Truss’s government. The message to voters is clear: don’t even think about. The debt crisis is largely of Macron’s own making Throwing a ‘grenade’ at those considering backing National Rally might be smart politics, but it is very dangerous economics – and the consequences may be catastrophic for the country he leads. You can hardly blame Macron for panicking: his decision to call a snap

David Cohen

Labour should learn from Jacinda Ardern’s calamitous oil and gas ban

In the UK, the Labour party has pledged to halt any new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, which the Tories today suggest could cost billions in tax revenue over the next ten years.  When it comes to energy policy, Labour could really benefit from looking at what happened when New Zealand’s Labour party tried the same thing in the South Sea.  Six years ago, the Jacinda Ardern government enacted a similar policy in New Zealand. Today, gas-dependent industrial sectors find themselves with something of a python around their necks. Politicians here in this nation of 5.5 million have even begun to openly fret about the country’s ability to keep

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Why the French left hate Macron as much as Le Pen

Over a quarter of a million people marched through France on Saturday and I was among their ranks as an observer. According to much of the media, the march was against Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party, which dominated last week’s European elections. But among the tens of thousands of protestors in Paris I saw and heard as much opposition to Emmanuel Macron. The president’s name was on placards and in chants as the procession left the Place de la Republique for the Place de la Nation. So, too, was Jordan Bardella’s. The 28-year-old president of the National Rally – and the man who Le Pen says will be

Sunday

John Keiger John Keiger

Is France’s left-wing coalition more dangerous than Le Pen?

French and international media cannot break their fixation with the ‘extreme right’. They continue to target the Rassemblement National (RN) as the ultimate menace for the 7 July legislative elections. But as of Friday, a more potent threat to French political and financial stability has raised its head: the radical left-wing ‘New Popular Front’ (NPF). This coalition of greens, communists, socialists and Trotskyists dominated by the radical-left La France Insoumise party (LFI), surprised many by their agreement to field common constituency candidates and a common manifesto.   Following the bitter breakup two years ago of the radical left-wing NUPES coalition, prospects for a new agreement were slim. Something close to civil war had

Monica Porter

Patience is running out with Nato in the Baltic states

You can’t miss the vast banner emblazoned on the high-rise building overlooking central Vilnius. It reads: PUTIN, THE HAGUE IS WAITING FOR YOU. Not one to mince their words, the Lithuanians. And neither are the Latvians or Estonians. In the face of an increasingly menacing Kremlin, the Baltic states – on Nato’s front line against Russian aggression – display an in-your-face bravado, which nevertheless overlays a palpable unease about the future. Many thousands disappeared into its bowels, never to be seen by their families again The threat posed to them by Russia was the issue which dominated much of the debate in the Baltic countries during the lead-up to the