World

Tuesday

James Snell

America’s flip flopping has exacerbated Venezuela’s tragedy

Amid New Year celebrations, and a tide of high-profile obituaries, you might have missed something small and far away, but nonetheless significant. The opposition in Venezuela has dissolved its government-in-pretence. By 72 votes to 29, the country’s national assembly voted its parallel government out of existence.   Juan Guaidó can no longer say that he is Venezuela’s legitimate president-in-waiting. Venezuela has, for many years, been a basket case. A country with immense natural resources and an energetic population, it has long languished in poverty. Many have starved, millions have fled, disease and distemper have stalked the land – and, as always in dictatorial societies where economic woes translate into popular discontent, savage brutality has been issued

Steerpike Steerpike

Leo Varadkar (belatedly) admits his Brexit mistakes

They say time can be a great healer. And, in the case of Leo Varadkar, it seems that even the most festering of wounds can be fixed by a brief stint away from the premiership. Varadkar, who became Taoiseach again in December, was one of the great antagonists in the Brexit battles during his first stint as Irish leader between 2017 to 2020. He suggested that Europeans no longer felt welcome in Britain, accused Leavers of ‘chasing unicorns’ and claimed last July that the government was not being ‘even-handed’ on post-Brexit arrangements. The Taoiseach has now accepted that the protocol which he negotiated with Boris Johnson is ‘too strict’ So

Ben Domenech

Trump’s war on pro-lifers is a sign of desperation

Donald Trump just made his first significant political error of the 2024 nomination battle, and it’s a doozy. After being asked about the abortion issue, Trump took to Truth Social to post the following: ‘It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms. I was 233-20! It was the “abortion issue,” poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters. Also, the people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the US Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared,

Sunday

Gabriel Gavin Gabriel Gavin

The year the Russian empire really collapsed

In a quiet suburb of Moscow, a twenty-minute metro ride from the Kremlin, is the Soviet Union’s answer to Disneyland. Between a budget supermarket and a teacher training college is the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy, known to locals by its Russian-language acronym, VDNKh. The ‘Kh’ is said like you are clearing your throat. Every year, tens of thousands of visitors pass under the triumphal arch that stands at the entrance to the VDNKh. It looks like London’s Marble Arch and is topped with two gold-plated proletarians holding up a bundle of wheat. Past it, there’s stalls selling hot dogs, an imposing statue of Lenin, and a water fountain

Saturday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Podcast special: Britain’s role in the global economic recovery?

35 min listen

Covid 19 has been a crisis without borders. In a highly interconnected world, every country has felt the impacts of the pandemic, from supply chain disruption to low productivity and high inflationary pressures. Should the post-pandemic economic recovery be a global project? For decades, the UK has been a key player on the economic world stage but is this still relevant today at a time when the UK faces domestic financial challenges and global supply chains are decoupling? Or can the ripple effect of lending a hand to one economy, become a good investment for Britain’s future? The Spectator’s economics editor, Kate Andrews speaks to Simon Clarke, MP for Middlesborough South

Thursday

Andrew Downie

Rest in peace, Pelé, the undisputed King of football

When Lionel Messi won the World Cup for Argentina earlier this month, it not only filled the last hole in his trophy cabinet, it also seemed to end the debate over who was the greatest footballer of all time. Football fans have debated for years about whether Messi was equal to Pelé and Diego Maradona, the two long-standing candidates for one of sport’s most futile and yet most sought-after titles. By finally winning the World Cup, fans and pundits the world over ruled en masse; Messi was now the greatest. Pelé’s death on Thursday will reopen that debate and hopefully give pause to those who have sided with the Argentine

Wednesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is global warming behind America’s snowstorms?

Is there any weather condition which cannot be blamed on anthropogenic global warming (AGW)? No, it seems, judging by the reaction in the US liberal press to the snowstorm which has engulfed much of the US over the past few days. According to Bloomberg it is all down to a loopier-than-normal jet stream, “the kind of event that could become more common as climate change accelerates”. A similar claim was made by Eric Mack, a correspondent on Forbes, who wrote this week that the poles are warming disproportionately and that, “studies [he didn’t say which ones] have shown that all this unusual and rapid warming in the north affects the jet stream

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What Meghan Markle’s digital army has in common with trans activists

If Meghan Markle’s army of digital defenders didn’t exist, we’d have to make them up. Otherwise, the never-ending controversy over Harry & Meghan, the royal-couple-turned-Netflix-show, would not really be controversial — and all the tens of thousands of media articles, such as the one you are now reading, would be not just pointless but defunct. There would be nobody to argue with and nothing to argue about – apart from Brexit, obviously, and Matt Hancock.  Markle’s digital army does exist, however. They are, like radical trans activists, a minority who manage to make a lot of noise – chiefly because most of us derive considerable satisfaction from the shared feelings

John Keiger John Keiger

All is not well in Macron’s France

The relationship entertained by French elites to their homeland is very different from their English counterparts. ‘England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality’, wrote George Orwell in 1945. That derisory sentiment continues today among Britain’s urban elites. French elites by contrast – though they can be highly critical of their country among themselves – do not shy from exalting its status abroad. French nationalism, born of the French Revolution, only came to be embraced by the right a century later. From then onwards, basic patriotism crosses political boundaries. While Britain’s position is not rosy, France’s is certainly no better Elite francofilia has

David Gunnlaugsson

Why Britain will feel the cold more than Iceland this winter

A winter of discontent is underway in Europe. Germany, France and Britain are the biggest economies in Europe: all face a battle to keep the lights on over the coming months. There are warnings of energy rationing, blackouts and the forced closure of factories as the continent weans itself off Russian gas. How did it come to this? The countries that drove the industrial revolution are out in the cold. Europe is stuck in a quagmire of its own making. But these countries could do worse than look north – to Iceland – for inspiration on how to make it through winter. As the name suggests, my home country can

Tuesday

Tirthankar Roy

The Raj revision: why historians are thinking again about British rule in India

Is there anything good to be said of British rule over India? The verdict of many politicians, museum curators, TV presenters and even journalists in India is clear: the Raj existed only to exploit and oppress. It caused poverty and famine in the east, and made the western world richer. The writer and politician Shashi Tharoor in a best-selling book Inglorious Empire blames the Raj for ‘depredation’, ‘loot’, ‘rapaciousness’, ‘brutality’, and ‘plunder’. He is far from alone in that withering verdict: social media posts spread similar messages with religious zeal. Oddly though historians have moved away from similar damning verdicts on the Raj. Over the last 40 years, more evidence

Monday

Robin Ashenden

Putin’s unholy alliance and the sins of the Russian Orthodox church

Travel the length and breadth of Russia – as you could fairly easily before the outbreak of war last February – and you will find, in many cities, a museum called Russia: My History. These institutions have a clear message for visitors. Empire-building luminaries like Ivan the Terrible and the despots Nicholas I and Alexander III are depicted as heroes. Vladimir Putin is also exalted. The territorial gains strong rulers can achieve are something to celebrate, as is the state religion they aggressively propagate. But what many visitors don’t know about these modern-day monuments to expansionism is the hidden hand that helped curate them: the Russian Orthodox church. Orthodox patriarch Metropolitan

Seth J. Frantzman

Most-read 2022: The drone era has arrived

We’re finishing the year by republishing our ten most popular articles from 2022. Here’s number six: Seth J. Frantzman’s piece from March about how Ukraine’s use of drones changed the war against Russia. The Ukrainian airforce has so far held out in the battle for the skies. Russia continues to rely on missiles for deep strikes into Ukrainian territory while the defenders have been able to contest the airspace by employing drones. Ukraine has proven a turning point in the age of drone warfare. The first great drone superpower, the United States, used its unmanned aerial vehicles in places like Afghanistan where few fighters had the technology to shoot them

Sunday

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Most-read 2022: Why are so few Americans willing to defend their country?

We’re finishing the year by republishing our ten most popular articles from 2022. Here’s number seven: Lionel Shriver’s piece from March on fighting for your country. For many of us war voyeurs watching the news with a glass of sherry, admiration of the little-engine-that-could Ukrainian fighters is underwritten by unease. As families escape to safety, plenty of feisty Ukrainians are remaining behind to battle a far more powerful aggressor, and they’re not all men, either. The question nags, then: in the same circumstances, would we stick around to defend our homelands, or would we cut our losses and get out? Earlier this month, that’s precisely what a Quinnipiac poll asked

Saturday

Nicholas Farrell

Qatargate has exposed the staggering hypocrisy of the European left

Ravenna, Italy Everyone in Britain has focused on what the Qatargate corruption scandal reveals about the European Union – but not on what it tells us about the European left. The fact is that all those so far accused of taking bribes from Qatar and its ally Morocco are left-wing MEPs – or former MEPs – and their assistants, or else bosses of left-wing human rights charities or trade union leaders. Most are Italians who are members, or ex-members, of Italy’s post-communist party – the Partito Democratico (PD). The hypocrisy of these prize exponents of the Euro left – some of whom, according to leaked transcripts of their interrogations, have already

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

China is obscuring the scale of its Covid wave

One University of Hong Kong model has forecast that there could be up to a million Covid deaths in China over the coming months. That would be a political problem for the Chinese Communist Party, which prides itself (or tries to) on its competence. But it turns out the CCP has a rather elegant solution: stop counting cases, and you won’t see the scale of the deaths either. Nobody knows for sure how high case numbers in the country are right now. At the beginning of December, the National Health Commission announced that it would no longer count asymptomatic cases. But even if you’re symptomatic, you’re unlikely to be counted in the

Joe Wallen

India’s war on Christians

Christmas is usually Nayomi Gracy’s favourite time of year. But this year, Gracy is feeling more fearful than cheerful. Right-wing Hindu groups have recently led a succession of violent attacks against her Christian community in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. When she attends church in her home city of Bangalore on Christmas Day, the congregation will be guarded by armed police. ‘It is a mental torture. They say we cannot go to church or they will kill us but the police have promised to protect us and to help us,’ said Gracy. India’s historic Christian community dates back to 52AD. It is believed the Apostle Thomas, better known as Doubting

Friday

Frank Furedi

Qatargate and the dubious moral authority of NGOs 

The Qatargate scandal haunting the European Union is not merely about corrupt politicians and officials. The deplorable role of a non-governmental organisation is at the heart of the scandal, which highlights the interlocking of NGOs and EU parliamentarians and decision makers. The most interesting feature of the corruption scandal surrounding the detention of the EU parliament’s vice-president Eva Kaili and politicians and EU apparatchiks is their connection to a supposedly squeaky-clean NGO called Fight Impunity. The current president of the organisation is Pier Antonio Panzeri, 67, a former Italian leftist MEP. He was arrested after €600,000 in bank notes was found in his house in Brussels. He and his wife and daughter are alleged to have received bribes from a Moroccan diplomat. Even more interesting is the revelation that

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Life is hard for Bethlehem’s Christians

O Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie: except the place is, in fact, buzzing in the run-up to Christmas. I had to squeeze between groups of American tourists to get into the little Church of the Nativity, built on the site where Christ was born. When I made it in, I created an impediment to the flow of pilgrims by kissing the ground near the star marking the place of his birth. Everyone who followed me did the same, with some effort on the part of the chunkier pilgrims.   It’s good news that Bethlehem is getting back to business. The shops selling nativity figures, Christmas decorations,

Robin Ashenden

My year of running from Putin

What a difference 12 months makes. Last year, at the Ikea in Rostov-on-Don, South Russia, I splashed out on some especially good Christmas decorations. I had an eight-year-old, half-Russian daughter growing up in that city, and wanted a tree and lights that were made to last and could be brought out each December as a kind of ritual.   Just over two months later, as Ikea closed its doors following Putin’s war, I took the decorations out and chucked them in a skip. My daughter had fled for Italy with her mother, my ex-partner, and my four years in Rostov – the cosy-melancholy city in which I’d planned to make a