World

Sunday

Phillips O'Brien

America needs its allies

There are ‘great powers’ and other powers. This is a truism of international relations thinking for those who espouse a ‘realist’ point of view. And for them, being a great power gives a state enormous advantages. Russia, for instance, was widely called a ‘great’ power before its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 while Ukraine decidedly was not. The results of that analysis were predictable. It was widely stated that Great Power Russia, led by strategic genius Vladimir Putin, was going to steamroller weaker Ukraine in a matter of days. After all, great powers were the alpha males of the international relations world, able to bully lesser powers

Saturday

Eliot Wilson

Why a peacekeeping buffer zone in Ukraine won't work

The 24 hours within which Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine have turned into more than six months of desultory negotiations, and there is still no sign of even a temporary halt to the fighting. This is a blow for the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’, the loose affiliation of 31 countries assembled by Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron to help implement the terms of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. There had first been informal discussions between the UK and France about creating some kind of alliance as early as November 2024, but the Prime Minister formalised the idea in March this year when

Friday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Do mass shootings begin online?

32 min listen

Freddy Gray is joined by writer and internet ethnographer Katherine Dee. She’s written about the Minneapolis school shooting and Robin Westman for Spectator World. Two children were killed and 17 others injured by a killer with a bizarre online footprint: a mix of memes, nihilism, politics and gore references. Katharine argues ‘these shooters are radicalised, but in no particular direction. Their identities fragment. There is a deep fear of being forgotten.’

John Keiger John Keiger

A dual crisis is looming for France

Financial crises are often linked to a political crisis. On 8 September, the French government will submit itself to a vote of confidence – which, by all accounts, it will lose. At issue is France’s parlous financial state, which a minority French government seeks to address. This week, French 30-year bond yields reached levels unseen since the Greek debt crisis in 2011, while the 10-year yield has surpassed present-day Greece’s.  France’s economy minister was quick to warn that France’s lamentable financial position could leave it facing an IMF bailout. This was intended to frighten MPs ahead of the vote rather than reflect reality. Greece was borrowing at near 30 per

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Was the Minneapolis shooting an anti-Catholic hate crime?

‘Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now,’ said Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, standing near the scene of yesterday’s Catholic school shooting in his city. ‘These kids were literally praying.’ I think he was trying to say, ‘This is no time for empty platitudes’ – or something similar. The words sounded horribly glib, though. Of course, the killing of children distresses all good people, and Mayor Frey should be forgiven for an emotional outburst. There is something telling, however, about his kneejerk hostility towards the natural religious response to horror; his instinctive rage against the idea of a God who lets evil happen. We are witnessing a

James Tidmarsh

The folly of blaming boomers for France’s financial crisis

Ministers are packing up their offices. Emmanuel Macron’s government, desperate to shift the narrative and rally support ahead of its confidence vote on 8 September, is now blaming baby boomers for the financial crisis. Prime minister Bayrou is reframing the crisis as the result of decades of policies favouring older voters: generous pensions, protected benefits, early retirement – all funded at enormous cost to younger generations. Bayrou is desperate to shift attention away from his government on the brink and onto a generational blame game for France’s slowing, debt-burdened economy In an appearance on TF1’s main news bulletin on Wednesday night, Bayrou accused the post-war generation of driving the country

Thursday

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why has Putin gone after the British Council in Kyiv?

Is Moscow targeting European institutions in Kyiv in the hope of ‘sabotaging peace’ as Keir Starmer has claimed? Putin probably thinks he’s actually doing the opposite. Last night saw another massive attack on Ukraine: 31 missiles and 629 drones, of which five and 66 got through the country’s air defences, respectively. Many hit Kyiv, where 15 civilians were reportedly killed, including four children. However, particular diplomatic furore has been generated by the two missiles which, at 5:40 a.m., hit a block on Zhylyanska Street, south-west of the centre. This block, stretching across the adjacent Korolenkivska Street, houses both the British Council offices and also the European Union delegation offices. Both

Jonathan Spyer

Iran may be down, but it's not out

The sirens began at about 5 am. A Houthi ballistic missile was on its way, over Jerusalem, in the direction of the coastal plain. After half a minute or so, I began to hear the familiar sound of doors scraping and muffled voices, as people made their way to the shelter.   It has become a regular occurrence. No one makes much of a fuss anymore. For most Israelis, most of the last 70 years, Yemen was a remote country on the other edge of the Middle East, the part facing the Indian Ocean, rather than the Mediterranean. What was known about it consisted of a few items of food

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Which are the 'Twelve Churches' that made Christianity?

40 min listen

What links the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and St Peter’s in Rome with the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and Canaanland in Ota, Nigeria? These are just some of the churches that Anglican priest and writer the Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie highlights in his new book Twelve Churches: An Unlikely History of the Buildings that made Christianity. The Anglican priest and writer joins Damian Thompson on Holy Smoke to explain how each Church not only tells a story but also raises a surprising dilemma for modern believers. Fergus aims to tell the history of the Churches ‘warts and all’ and argues that, from Turkey to Britain, today’s Christians

Iben Thranholm

Denmark’s ‘spiritual rearmament’ is a lesson for the West

Something unusual is happening in Denmark – and other countries across Europe, including Britain, ought to pay attention. This spring, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, stood before a group of university students and made a striking statement: ‘We will need a form of rearmament that is just as important [as the military one]. That is the spiritual one.’ Few expected such words from the leader of the Social Democrats, a party which spent much of the 20th century reducing the Church of Denmark’s influence in public life. Yet this was no passing remark. Just days earlier, Frederiksen had announced a major military build-up: increased conscription, a sharp rise in defence

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Reform’s migration crackdown, South Korea’s school phone ban and Meghan Markle misses Magic Radio

Home Nigel Farage, launching Reform’s policies on illegal migrants, said: ‘The only way we’ll stop the boats is by detaining and deporting absolutely anyone who comes via that route.’ A Taliban official in Kabul responded: ‘We are ready and willing to receive and embrace whoever he [Mr Farage] sends us.’ The government sought to appeal against a High Court ruling which temporarily forbade the housing of asylum seekers in the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex. Protests against asylum hotels and counter-protests continued in several places. The government said it would introduce a panel of adjudicators instead of judges to hear migrants’ appeals in the hope of speeding up the asylum

Wednesday

James Heale James Heale

Labour goes on the Farage offensive

12 min listen

As James Heale writes online for the Spectator today, ‘two issues continue to plague the government’: how best to attack Nigel Farage. and how to frame an incrementalist approach to policy ‘when the national mood favours radical change’. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for UK-EU relations, attempted to tackle both today as he came to the Spectator to set out Labour’s Europe strategy. Labour are pursuing ‘pragmatic alignment’ – what they argue is greater co-operation when beneficial to the British interest. But what does this mean? James joins Michael Simmons on the podcast to unpack the speech. And, on a day when Reform have claimed another defector (this

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France has lost control of its borders

The cynic might wonder if Keir Starmer and his government aren’t a little relieved that France is once more on the brink of political chaos. Now they have a convenient excuse for why waves of small boats continue to land on English beaches. Starmer’s Gallic counterpart, Francis Bayrou, has called a vote of confidence in his government on 8 September. Lose and he will be out, and Emmanuel Macron will be searching for his fifth Prime Minister in 21 months. A source in the British government has said that the turmoil in Paris could undermine the ‘one in, one out’ migrant treaty recently signed by the two countries. ‘We still

James Tidmarsh

Migrant riots have come to Switzerland

A stolen scooter, a police chase, and a fatal crash left a 17-year-old of migrant background dead. Within hours, Lausanne erupted in the worst rioting Switzerland has seen in decades. Two nights of violence tore apart Switzerland’s image as a stable and quiet country. Masked youths, overwhelmingly black, took to the streets, setting bins alight, vandalising buses, and clashing with police using fireworks and stones. By the second night, more than 200 rioters clashed with Swiss police as tear gas clouded the air and water cannons roared through the city. It could very well have been a suburb of Paris or Lyon, but this was Lausanne, just along the lake

Edward Howell

Can Kim Jong-un be persuaded to meet Donald Trump?

Hours after his first bilateral meeting with Donald Trump earlier this week, the South Korean President Lee Jae-myung admitted that he feared that his one-to-one would become a ‘Zelensky moment’. Although the reality was far from the case, it made for somewhat vomit-inducing listening. As Lee showered Trump with praise for his handling of North Korea during his first term, Trump’s ego ballooned one sentence at a time. Monday’s episode was a clear example of how Trump likes diplomacy to be done, but for all Trump and Lee’s calls for talks with Kim Jong-un, both leaders will face the obstacle of North Korea’s recent affirmations of its lack of interest

Tuesday

Eliot Wilson

Trump's military purge is a disaster waiting to happen

The Duke of Wellington, assessing newly arrived British soldiers during the Peninsular War, is supposed to have said, ‘I don’t know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God, they terrify me.’ Having watched Donald Trump greet Vladimir Putin with a red carpet in Alaska a week ago, then direct his secretary of defense Pete Hegseth to sack another general and two admirals, I’m not certain that the US President even knows who the enemy in this case is. Leading the most recent casualties was Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, an experienced intelligence officer serving as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His mortal sin was obvious:

Terry Barnes

Australia has finally woken up to the Iranian threat

Geographically, eastern Australia is about as far from Israel and Gaza as anyone can get. But given the Australian government’s provocative decision to recognise a Palestinian state while Hamas still exists, you could be forgiven for thinking the conflict is being fought on our doorstep. And on Tuesday, it was revealed that, in a very real sense, it is. Thanks to Iran and the IRGC, and at least partly because of the anti-Jewish hostility that has afflicted Australia since 7 October, the Gaza conflict has been brought here In a dramatic press conference outside his Parliament House office in Canberra, Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese, flanked by his home and foreign

Matthew Lynn

Is France about to trigger the next financial crash?

Its debts are out of control. There is very little space left to raise taxes any further. And the political establishment can’t agree on anything apart from postponing the whole issue for another year or two. It is a description that could apply to plenty of countries, and not least the UK. But right now, it is one that applies most acutely to France. With yet another government about to fall, and the CAC-40 stock market index falling sharply, the real question is this: will Paris be the centre of the next financial crash? The French prime minister François Bayrou yesterday took the plucky, if foolish, decision to recall parliament

James Tidmarsh

Is this the end for Emmanuel Macron?

Prime Minister François Bayrou has recalled parliament for a confidence vote on 8 September, betting he can outmanoeuvre a surging protest movement before it paralyzes France. The grassroots ‘Bloquons tout’ campaign, echoing the gilets jaunes and fuelled by the hard left, plans to halt trains, buses, schools, taxis, refineries and ports. It is a general strike in all but name. Bayrou’s move aims to reassert control before chaos takes hold, but with the vote just two days before the open-ended strike begins, failure could topple his government and ignite a broader assault on President Macron’s authority. This morning, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI) announced its plans to file a

Tom Slater Tom Slater

Will Donald Trump meet Lucy Connolly?

‘Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government & politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.’ Britain’s free-speech wars are going global Those 51 words earned Lucy Connolly – a babysitter from Northampton, in the East Midlands – the longest sentence ever handed down in the UK for a single social-media post. Last week, Connolly was released from prison, having served nine months of a 31-month term for “inciting racial hatred.” She will serve the