World

Wednesday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Grok’s praise for Hitler wasn’t a ‘glitch’

We are deep into the AI boom – an age in which large language models have moved from novelty to necessity at a pace that has outstripped our capacity to reflect or adapt. There is breathless enthusiasm, endless hype and a sense that caution is for the timid and delay for the doomed. But sometimes, something happens to make people look up from the dashboard and realise they’re hurtling down the motorway with no map, no brakes and a robot at the wheel. Grok’s behaviour is a mirror held up to its creators, its users and the polluted ecosystem from which it learns So it is with Grok, Elon Musk’s AI

Anne-Elisabeth Moutet

Jonathan Miller truly understood France

The last time I talked with The Spectator columnist Jonathan Miller was perhaps ten days ago, just before his unexpected death this week. He had a pre-digital habit, very 1980s, of ringing you up to chat, moan, laugh, explain, badmouth and joke for over an hour at a time. When he rang it always took me a couple of minutes to get reaccustomed to the colder waters of analogue conversation; but then we would have these long rambling discussions that don’t much happen anymore. He’d sent me successive manuscripts of his book, Shock of the News: Confessions of Troublemaker, which he polished and repolished into the version coming out in three weeks’

Matthew Lynn

Will Trump’s pharma tariffs destroy the Irish economy?

Japan will take it in its stride, even if its automakers might be hit. China will absorb the extra costs, and the UK has already managed to secure its own trade deal. President Trump’s tariffs have largely been shrugged off by the US’s major trading partners. We may, however, soon see one exception. His imposition of huge levies on pharmaceutical manufacturing may kill the Irish economy. Ireland has been running what amounts to a clever tax wheeze Amid the latest round of tariffs, there is one of genuine significance. President Trump is planning to impose a 200 per cent tariff on imports of drugs, and possibly semi-conductors as well. In

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron won’t fix the migrant crisis

The French have so far been underwhelmed by Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Britain. The late Queen was universally admired on the other side of the Channel. Less so Charles, who in the eyes of the French lacks Elizabeth’s grandeur and wisdom. There are also more pressing issues, such as the spreading wildfire that has covered the city of Marseille in a cloud of smoke and ash. Then there is the news, splashed across this morning’s Le Monde, that the poverty rate in France has reached 15.4 per cent, the highest level since records began in 1996. Furthermore, the gap between the wealthiest and poorest 20 per cent has increased

Alexander Larman

King Charles’s bromance with Macron is true soft power

As the once-promising bromance between King Charles and Keir Starmer appears to be fading, the monarch has found another leader on the world stage with whom he has a greater amount in common. As the state visit of the French President Emmanuel Macron gets underway with much earnest discussion about what this particular cross-Channel ‘special relationship’ involves (and a great deal of relief that Macron, unlike Donald Trump, can be trusted to behave himself and conduct himself with dignity and restraint on the world stage), the most important personal relationship is not that between Starmer and Macron, but between the Frenchman and the British king. When Charles made his speech

Lara Brown

Museums like the V&A shouldn’t be allowed to return ‘looted’ treasures

Henry Cole, the first director of what would become the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), could never have imagined that in his place would follow a man who seems determined to rail against the safeguards that have helped keep the museum’s collection intact. But this, sadly, appears to be the task Tristram Hunt is committed to. Hunt knew the law before he took the job Hunt, director of the V&A since 2017, has declared the 1983 National Heritage Act which prevents him from returning artefacts to their country of origin, to be ‘outdated and infantilising’. In fact, it is a key reason why collections, including the V&A’s, have been maintained. Britain is

Tuesday

Madeline Grant

Emmanuel Macron would love to be King

When Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito visited Windsor Castle in the early years of the 21st century, the Queen Mother gave orders that, over where he would give his speech, should be positioned the sword with which the Japanese forces had formally surrendered to Lord Mountbatten in 1945. Only an intervention from her daughter prevented this plot from becoming a reality. If I were the King I’d be counting the spoons this evening This afternoon, President Macron gave his speech underneath a statue of an old Queen. The verb in French cuisine for such unnecessary but beautiful touches like this is ‘historier’. True, Elizabeth I was more francophone than most of

James Tidmarsh

Remembering Jonathan Miller

The long-time Spectator contributor Jonathan Miller has died. James Tidmarsh remembers him here: Jonathan Miller liked to say that Emmanuel Macron was the gift that never stops giving. ‘The Spectator can’t get enough of him,’ he told me. ‘Macron serves up fresh spin, scandals and missteps, an endless supply of stories for any journalist willing to look behind the official line.’ When we first crossed paths on X, we’d swap messages about ministers, café gossip, and the small absurdities that make French politics so irresistible. Jonathan was usually in his village in the Languedoc sunshine. He loved it there and seemed content when describing the rhythm of village life. Jonathan Miller

Matthew Lynn

Why aren’t the stock markets spooked by Trump’s new tariffs?

As President Trump unveiled his latest round of tariffs last night, investors barely paid any attention. The stock markets barely moved. The currency markets remained sleepy. And most of the traders in the global financial markets went back to planning their summer holidays. Compared to ‘Liberation Day’ back in April, it was a damp squib. Have investors learned to shrug off Trump’s obsession with levies on imports? They certainly matter far less than he thinks they do.  It was a typically eccentric performance. Yesterday afternoon, the White House fired off a series of letters imposing new tariffs on some of America’s main trading partners. Japan faces 25 per cent tariffs,

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why Putin’s elites keep dying

Although I suspect few readers’ hearts will bleed for them, it’s been a bad week for Russian elites. There has been a spate of real or apparent suicides and the arrest of a gold magnate as he prepared to leave the country. On Friday, Andrei Badalov, vice president of Transneft, Russia’s largest state-controlled pipeline transport company, fatally fell from the window of his apartment in Moscow. This makes him the eighth senior Russian figure to die in this way since 2022. Although the police say he left a suicide note, by now the suggestion that foul play is at work has become something of a tasteless meme. This is a

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Japan is running out of time to save itself from Trump’s tariffs

‘This is a serious situation for Japan’. That was the verdict of the business editor on NHK’s morning news programme today. Given the normally exquisite understatement of Japanese broadcasters, this kind of language suggests a full-blown crisis is looming. The crisis in question is the Trump administration’s declaration that it would be slapping a 25 per cent duty on all Japanese goods (separate to sectional tariffs already in place) to kick in from 1 August. This outcome is not set in stone and there is still the possibility of further movement in the remaining three weeks or so. But with Trump calling Japan ‘spoiled’ in recent soundbites and the Japanese

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

The Dubai influencer craze can’t end soon enough

Marcus Fakana, a British 18-year-old, has been in prison in the United Arab Emirates since December. His crime? Having consensual sex with a 17-year-old British girl on a trip to Dubai. Now, thanks to the granting of a royal pardon by Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Marcus has been freed and is back home in London. The merciful monarch did this as part of a tradition of releasing lesser miscreants during Eid, the feast that marks the end of Ramadan. Dubai comes with considerable risks – fun, fun, fun with a side order of mediaeval theocracy The freeing of Fakana is further confirmation – as if it were

Eliot Wilson

Europe must prepare to support Ukraine without America

It is unquestionably the case that people who should have known better were blinded by the Capri-Sun King’s glare when they reassured us that Donald Trump would not abandon Ukraine, that a second Trump administration would not really cut off military aid to Kyiv or effectively offer a free pass to Vladimir Putin. Yet that is what is happening. Last week the US Department of Defense halted a planned delivery of air defence missiles and precision munitions to Ukraine, the third time this year that such a stoppage has been put in place. The weaponry was part of a supply programme agreed under President Biden, but was halted as the

Monday

David Loyn David Loyn

The UN has become the Taliban’s lapdog

Britain and other western nations have abandoned the women of Afghanistan in pursuit of a UN programme of engagement with the Taliban that has demonstrably failed. For the fourth time since the Taliban takeover in August 2021 representatives of the few countries that still have an Afghan policy met the Taliban again in Doha last week. The UN plan is to engage the Taliban to encourage them to ease lives for women, and move towards wider political representation. But instead the Taliban have doubled down since the last Doha meeting. They are refusing to talk to the political opposition, and have imposed a new law that enshrines the 100 restrictions

Terry Barnes

Australia’s ‘mushroom murders’ fascination is poisonous

After an eight-week trial followed avidly around Australia and the world, and a week’s jury deliberation, Australia’s answer to Lucrezia Borgia today has been found guilty of murdering three of her dinner party guests and attempting to murder the fourth. The jury of five women and seven men decided, beyond reasonable doubt, that the presence of fatal death cap mushrooms in the beef wellington that Erin Patterson, 56, cooked for her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, her sister-in-law Heather Wilkinson, and Heather’s husband Ian, was no tragic accident. The jury was satisfied that, coolly and deliberately, Patterson’s toxic beef wellington killed three of them and almost killed Ian Wilkinson too.

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Israel steps up its campaign to destroy the Houthis

Last night, Israeli fighter jets struck multiple military targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime in Yemen, marking one of the most expansive and targeted responses to date. Among the sites hit were the ports of Al Hudaydah, Ras Isa, and Salif, as well as the Ras Kanatib power plant. The IDF confirmed that the Galaxy Leader, a commercial vessel seized by the Houthis in November 2023 and repurposed for terrorist use, was also among the targets struck. The Israeli military described the operation as a direct and forceful response to the repeated missile and drone attacks launched by the Houthis against Israeli territory. The Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia operating

Sunday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Could Hebron join the Abraham Accords?

You’ve heard of the two-state solution (or delusion, as I call it). But have you heard of the eight-state solution? Or the Palestinian Emirates plan? This is the idea of Professor Mordechai Kedar, who I spoke to in February 2024, just four months into the war started by the Palestinians on 7 October, 2023. If his vision once seemed outlandish or unrealistic to many, it now seems considerably less so in light of the fascinating developments emerging from Hebron. Hebron’s most powerful clan leaders, led by Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari, have issued a public declaration of intent to break away from the Palestinian Authority A Wall Street Journal report explains that

Nigel Jones

History does not favour Musk’s new America party

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has announced that he intends to create a new third party in the US called the America party. After his own poll on X showed that two out of three favoured the venture, the outspoken billionaire has now put his money where his mouth is and taken the plunge to found and finance his new party. Although the 54-year-old owner of X, Tesla, SpaceX and other hi-tech enterprises has been a US citizen since 2002, because he was born in South Africa he cannot run for president himself. But he says he will fund the new party after spectacularly falling out with President Trump

Liz Walsh

Ireland will regret its planned Israeli settlements trade ban

If Ireland’s foreign affairs minister expected plaudits from EU leaders for the republic’s looming ban on Israeli settlement goods, he was sorely disappointed. Ireland, Simon Harris pontificated in Brussels, ‘is the only country in the entire European Union that has published any legislation ever in relation to banning trade with the occupied Palestinian territories, but it’s pretty lonely out there.’ Frankly, this is hardly surprising when you take your country on a solo run into perilous economic and diplomatic territory. The Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025 (PIGS) will ban goods produced, or partly produced, in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It applies

Kevin Toolis

The terrifying crimes of the Latvian KGB

For a gateway into hell, the innocuous brown wooden front door of 61 Freedom Street in downtown Riga is surprisingly narrow – just two feet across. Known as the Corner House, the two-foot-wide door into the old KGB Latvian HQ would be easy to miss amidst the wide boulevards and the ornate, art nouveau, balconied apartments and shops of the Latvian capital. Beyond that narrow threshold there is no mistaking that you’ve entered a world of terror But beyond that narrow threshold there is no mistaking that you’ve entered a world of terror. The tiny, barred reception area beyond the entrance door is no more than a human cage, where desperate