World

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

No, BP’s profit hasn’t boosted Starmer’s windfall-tax call

BP’s ‘underlying’ first-quarter profit of $6.2 billion, compared with $2.6 billion in the first quarter of 2021, was a direct reflection of the surge in global energy prices. Coming 48 hours before polling day, it also looked like a gift-wrapped on-time delivery for Sir Keir Starmer and his claim that a windfall tax on ‘excess’ profits of North Sea oil and gas extractors would knock £600 off the energy bills of ‘those who need it most’. Perhaps anticipating the BP announcement, Rishi Sunak last week seemed to trim his opposition to a windfall tax, telling Mumsnet ‘of course that’s something I would look at’ if energy companies fail to invest

Bryan Matthews

The strange return of the Philippines’ brutal Marcos dynasty

For Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr, the frontrunner for Monday’s Philippine presidential election, a reframing of the country’s past has been crucial to securing his future. Last week, he reminded a television audience what a ‘political genius’ his late father, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, was. Bongbong’s revisionist history has infuriated many Filipinos but, it seems, resonated with many more. Polls show that he has a 30-point lead over his closest rival, the current vice-president Leni Robredo, though she has drawn massive crowds and expects a late surge of support. Thirty-six years ago, after the ‘people power’ revolution ended, Marcos Sr’s dictatorship and sent the family fleeing to Hawaii, it seemed

Aidan Hartley

The sin of neutrality

Yet again, millions of civilians across the Horn of Africa are starving. The world blames the crisis on drought and climate change, which nowadays is the way we excuse these countries for environmental mismanagement. But as ever, war is really the single greatest reason why people are killed year after year in this region. And while western countries pour billions of dollars of food aid into Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan, the weapons flooding those states originate mainly from Russia, China, Belarus – and Ukraine. In response to an article I recently wrote in The Spectator about why I think so few African governments condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s new enemy is the French Nigel Farage

First it was the Greens, then the Communists and on Wednesday Jean-Luc Mélenchon bagged the big one, the Socialist party. In announcing an ‘agreement in principle’ between his La France Insoumise (LFI) and the Socialists, Mélenchon became the most powerful figure on the French left and, according to the electorate, the principal adversary of Emmanuel Macron in next month’s legislative elections. The Socialist party’s National Committee will meet in Paris this evening to examine the fine print of the agreement, but they are expected to endorse what is officially called the New Social and Ecological People’s Union. Not that everyone within the party is happy with the alliance. Several senior

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Hands off Dave Chappelle!

The attack on Dave Chappelle last night was chilling. Sure, Chappelle wasn’t hurt. His attacker, having encountered the ire of Chappelle’s quick-witted security team, seems to have come off a lot worse. But the fact that controversial comics are now being physically accosted is deeply concerning. It suggests that the new intolerance, the widespread distaste for anything ‘offensive’, might be reaching its violent stage. Chappelle was recording a Netflix special at the Hollywood Bowl when a man leapt on stage and barged violently into him. According to the LAPD the man was carrying a replica gun that shoots out a knife blade ‘when you discharge it correctly’. So this was a

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

JD Vance and America’s new right

JD Vance, the poor boy turned US Marine turned best-selling author turned venture capitalist turned politician, won the Senate Republican Primary in Ohio last night. In his victory speech, Vance, who Donald Trump endorsed, said: ‘They wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump’s America First agenda …. It ain’t the death of the America First agenda.’ No it isn’t. But it might also spell the beginning of the end of Donald Trump as the de facto leader of the American Right. Because in JD Vance, and in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the increasingly confident ‘America First’ movement has two intelligent leaders who

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Revoking Roe v. Wade is not an assault on democracy

The leak of a draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade has sparked a furious reaction in Britain. Yet for all the backlash in British political circles, the reality is that the proposed shake-up of abortion laws in the United States doesn’t really matter here. Our nominally conservative-leaning parliament just voted to make abortion easier, and the issue is nowhere near as salient for the British right as it is in the US. Those who are furiously denouncing the ruling are wading into an issue that will have little to no impact on their own lives. Yet there is something significant for Brits to take from this furious debate: we’re lucky that

Tuesday

Dan Hitchens

The real question at the heart of Roe v. Wade

There are two possible responses to the sound and fury currently emanating from Washington and from the American media after a leak indicated that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade in the next couple of months. For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Justice Samuel Alito’s 96-page draft judgment points to ‘the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years’. The Guardian’s Moira Donegan believes America is witnessing its ‘final days of reproductive freedom’. The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, always to be relied on for a ludicrous soundbite, declared that ‘London stands with women across the United States today’. Bernie Sanders is calling for Congress to overrule the Supreme Court.

Charlie Peters

British volunteers shouldn’t be fighting in Ukraine

What’s going to happen to British volunteers captured while fighting Russian forces? According to Ukrainian analysts, there is intelligence to suggest that Russia is planning to parade them through Red Square. You read that correctly: Putin is planning to march 500 captured soldiers in the annual 9 May victory parades. Wasn’t this kind of thing always going to happen if British volunteers joined the Ukrainian war effort? And should Foreign Secretary Liz Truss really have said that she ‘absolutely’ backed anyone who travelled to the country to fight Russian troops? Unprepared veterans and untrained civilians really aren’t that much help in the war effort. It’s difficult to co-ordinate in a high stress environment with

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Roe v. Wade and Britain’s non-existent abortion debate

Judge Samuel Alito was incontrovertibly right about one thing in his leaked, draft ruling on Roe v. Wade: ‘Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views.’ Well yes. So we’ve seen with the reaction to the leak – which really is unprecedented. We are reminded that the original Roe v. Wade decision itself was leaked in 1973, but that was just a few hours before publication. A leak at this stage, of a draft opinion which could yet be revised, can only have had one intention: to bring intense pressure to bear on the Supreme Court members who supported the draft to reverse their decision.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The Supreme Court’s abortion bombshell

Abortion is a nuclear bomb of an issue, planted at the core of American liberalism. And it just went off. That’s why police in Washington, DC have put up barriers around the Supreme Court, following the extraordinary leak of a draft opinion that could overturn Roe v. Wade. Everybody now expects protests outside the court and all over the world. The leak itself is an extraordinary story. A draft opinion from a Supreme Court Justice has never leaked before. The fact that it has suggests a serious controversy within the institution. Politico broke the story, and says it obtained the document from a person familiar with the court’s deliberations. Whoever gave

Justice Samuel Alito

Full text: leaked Roe v Wade draft ruling

The leak of a Supreme Court Justice’s draft opinion that would overturn the constitutional right to an abortion has reignited perhaps the most divisive American cultural issue of the last 50 years. Justice Samuel Alito has laid out the case for reversing Roe v Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that enshrined the right of American women to seek a termination of their pregnancy. Alito writes in the leaked document:  It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. Below is an edited extract; the full document is here. Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply-conflicting views. Some believe fervently

Sasha Lensky

Putin has corrupted Russia’s ‘Victory Day’

The Victory Day celebrations on 9 May have been, under Vladimir Putin, through a dramatic mutation. In my childhood, in the late eighties and early nineties, it was, apart from the New Year, by far the best holiday of the year. You normally spent it outside, in excellent May weather with lilac blooming all over and war songs – like ‘Victory Day’ or ‘Katyusha’ – booming out from loudspeakers in the streets. We children presented flowers to the veterans, whose chests were sparkling with medals and decorations. This day connected three generations: the veterans, their kids (our parents) and the grandkids – us. We regarded our grandparents as the ultimate heroes,

Monday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Does China want to change the international rules-based order?

35 min listen

China is often accused of breaking international rules and norms. Just last week at Mansion House, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: ‘Countries must play by the rules. And that includes China’. So what are its transgressions, and what are its goals for the international system? My guests and I try to answer this question in this episode through looking at China’s attitude to and involvement in international organisations, past and present. Professor Rana Mitter, a historian at the University of Oxford and author of China’s Good War, points out that there’s a fundamental difference in China’s approach compared to, say, Russia. ‘Russia perceives itself as, essentially, a country that is really

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

New York has become the city that never eats

Is there anything more extraordinary than dining in New York City? Whether you’re sitting down for the Michelin star experience of a lifetime at Le Bernardin or squeezing in at the counter of Vanessa’s Dumpling House on the Lower East Side ($1 a pop), the New York restaurant combines atmosphere with quality food in a way that few other cities around the world can match. Every cuisine is on offer, 24 hours a day: and if you’re willing to do a little research beforehand, you can all but guarantee yourself a meal worth every penny. Under normal circumstances, cuisine competition between London and New York isn’t really a contest at

Sunday

Emily Hill Emily Hill

The absurd theatre of Amber Heard vs Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp, a Hollywood star whose career currently consists of a perfume advert, is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard, a Hollywood actress who didn’t star in anything before she met him, for defamation. He says that she destroyed his career by telling the world he’s a wife-beater – and he wants $50 million in compensation. She says he is destroying her career by denying it – and wants $100 million ‘for nuisance’. Unfortunately, only one of them is any good at acting – which makes this trial a real nail biter for the folks back home drenched in Dior Sauvage who feel the only crime Johnny Depp ever committed was

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Why terror groups are targeting Chinese nationals in Pakistan

A female suicide bomber killed three Chinese teachers and a local driver at Karachi University in Pakistan this week. The separatist militant group, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for the attack which targeted a Chinese language centre at the university. The Confucius Institute, the BLA said in a statement, was a ‘symbol of Chinese economic, cultural and political expansionism.’ The suicide bomber was a 31-year-old schoolteacher with a master’s degree who read Arundhati Roy and Richard Dawkins. This isn’t Pakistan’s first anti-China attack. The BLA has recently targeted the Chinese consulate, a five-star hotel, and the stock exchange. The group has also targeted and killed Chinese workers employed

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Xi has made his choice: he is sticking with Vladimir Putin

Xi Jinping has made his choice. He is sticking with his ‘best friend’ Vladimir Putin, and no end of Russian atrocities or wishful thinking in the west is going to alter that. Their axis of autocracy presents a far-reaching challenge to western democracies, which the UK in particular is struggling to come to terms with. There has been a chorus of western voices calling on China to act ‘responsibly’, exercise its influence with Putin, and generally live up to its supposed commitment to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. That will not happen. Those principles were always a myth, but fundamentally Xi and Putin have too much in common.

Saturday

Stephen L. Miller

The truth about Biden’s new disinformation tsar

The Biden team is following in Barack Obama’s footsteps by launching a Disinformation Governance Board. And the current administration is even one-upping the former president by employing the Department of Homeland Security to combat what it calls ‘misinformation’. Obama created a website in 2011 called ‘Attack Watch’ to counter what his 2012 campaign would label as smears and lies. In 2013, his advisor Stephanie Cutter was appointed head of his Organising for Action ‘Truth Team’. Just last week, Obama waded back into the debate about ‘disinformation’ without any sense of self-awareness or irony. Biden’s disinformation board is, however, less forthcoming with its own information. Will the department have cabinet members?

Yuan Yi Zhu

Why is Canada euthanising the poor?

There is an endlessly repeated witticism by the poet Anatole France that ‘the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’ What France certainly did not foresee is that an entire country – and an ostentatiously progressive one at that – has decided to take his sarcasm at face value and to its natural conclusion. Since last year, Canadian law, in all its majesty, has allowed both the rich as well as the poor to kill themselves if they are too poor to continue living with dignity. In fact, the ever-generous Canadian state will