World

When the Aukus trilateral security pact was signed between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom in September 2021, Emmanuel Macron was furious. France’s president took Australia’s decision to terminate France’s ‘contract of the century’ to supply diesel-powered submarines to Canberra personally. The French have since declared the incident officially closed, although Macron – as he is wont to do – still bears a grudge. But as Aukus’ importance increases – and the alliance morphs into something that could shape the West’s coordinated response to regional strategic threats – it’s time for Macron to bury the hatchet. For now, Macron’s reluctance to forgive and forget is proving problematic. Any association,

There’s an irony in the timing of Silvio Berlusconi’s death at the age of 86, coming on the same weekend that saw the (at least temporary) exit from politics of Boris Johnson. For in many respects, the Cavaliere (‘Knight’) as he was universally known in Italy, was an even more flamboyant role model for our former prime minister. Berlusconi, who led four Italian governments, blurred the lines between showbusiness and politics until they became all but invisible – in much the same way Boris Johnson has in Britain. True, Boris may not yet be as wealthy as the billionaire Berlusconi, who was Italy’s third richest man. Boris’s short reign at the

Silvio Berlusconi, who had three spells as Italian prime minister, has died at the age of 86. Boris Johnson, at the time editor of this magazine, and Nicholas Farrell were summoned to interview him in 2003. It is twilight in Sardinia. The sun has vanished behind the beetling crags. The crickets have momentarily stopped. The machine-gun-toting guards face out into the maquis of myrtle and olive, and the richest man in Europe is gripping me by the upper arm. His voice is excited. ‘Look’ he says, pointing his flashlight. ‘Look at the strength of that tree.’ It is indeed a suggestive sight. An olive of seemingly Jurassic antiquity has grown

‘Cead Mile Failte’, which means ‘a hundred thousand welcomes’, is a sentiment the Irish have long held dear.  We pride ourselves on our welcoming nature, our music, our famous pub culture and the fact that the average tourist will be almost overwhelmingly love-bombed by locals who are happy to see a new face and will want to regale them with tales of local lore.  But recently it seems that Ireland may have used up its welcomes and is, instead, retreating back into the dark terrain of nativism and suspicion of foreigners.  For a country that liked to boast about its welcoming nature, the last few weeks have seen the rise

What are the politics of your bicycle? An interesting question. I’d like to say that mine is an expression of a basically conservative temperament, with its ability to endow individual liberty, its lack of imposition on established cities and countryside, and its preservation of fine and noble sporting traditions.  On the other hand, the bicycle has a long progressive heritage. The suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst was a keen member of a socialist cycling club, known for its group renditions of ‘England, arise! The long, long night is over’. And as the gauche but committed cyclist Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated, ‘socialism can only arrive by bicycle’, in the famous words of Chilean politician