World Archives

Sunday

24 Apr 2022

Apres Macron, the radical left?

Bof! That useful French word – an older and slightly less irritating version of the American-English ‘meh’ – is how many people feel about the re-election of Emmanuel Macron. The centre holds even as things fall apart – in 21st century France, anyway. It was inevitable and in the end easy. Mainstream commentators, almost unanimously pro-Macron, have spent the last few days trying to inject a sense of drama into the vote by suggesting the threat Le Pen posed was great. But it was painfully obvious that Macron would win. At 44, he will almost certainly still be President in 2027, when the constitution (as currently composed) will compel him

Georg Löfflmann

Germany’s military muddle over Ukraine

The reluctance of chancellor Olaf Scholz to provide heavy weapons to Ukraine is now coming under increasing fire from abroad and within Germany itself. Prominent politicians from the liberal FDP and the Greens, the coalition partners of Scholz’s Social Democrats in Berlin, have criticised the chancellor for his lack of leadership, and complain that Germany is lagging behind other major western powers in supplying weapons. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the flamboyant chairwoman of the defence committee in the German parliament, hit out at the chancellor’s ‘deafening silence’ on the subject. German media have claimed that a list of available military equipment offered by the German defence industry had been cut back by

Ian Williams

China’s demographic time-bomb is ticking faster

The latest warning was stark – that China’s population will shrink this year, more than a decade faster than forecast, and the country will become a ‘super-aged’ society by 2035. The economic implications will be a ‘huge thing’. This came not from what Beijing has dismissed as ‘western doomsayers’, but from Zheng Bingwen, director of the Center for International Social Security Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and one of China’s most respected observers of population trends. He said the ratio of pensioners to workers will rise to 25 per cent in 2030, is expected to exceed 43 per cent in 2050, and is happening much faster compared

Jonathan Miller

Is this the end of Marine Le Pen?

Today’s election in France is likely to be a joyless, miserable affair for the electors who will dutifully turn out. The outcome is preordained. French voters who supported the re-election of Emmanuel Macron are unlikely to exhibit much enthusiasm when he wins tonight. If there are fireworks in the streets this evening, they’ll probably be aimed at the police. Those who voted for Marine Le Pen will have equally little to celebrate. They may avert the humiliation of the 66-34 per cent defeat in 2017. But this will be the third successive defeat for Mme Le Pen, following five failed runs by her papa, Jean-Marie Le Pen. This hereditary candidacy

Saturday

23 Apr 2022

Damian Reilly

Trump, Piers Morgan and the power of self-publicity

If ‘real recognise real’ – by far my favourite piece of modern American vernacular – then Donald Trump’s latest tiff with Piers Morgan seems final. ‘I don’t think you’re real’, the former President spits angrily in the excitingly edited promo for their upcoming interview, shortly before seeming to storm off set – a choice of words suggestive of a fundamental re-evaluation. Did Trump until this surreal moment of tabloid TV consider Morgan – a person with whom he has spent many hours over more than a decade – a man of great honour and integrity? Did he feel he had been tricked into doing the interview on a false premise?

Stephen L. Miller

The sad demise of Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart made one of the biggest career follies in the history of infotainment when he walked away from the Daily Show in 2015, removing himself from the Donald Trump presidency. It’s a mistake from which he’s never recovered. Ratings for the Daily Show tanked as a then-unknown replacement host (Trevor Noah) took over, while just about every late-night comic adopted Stewart’s model of faking the news (Late Night with Seth Meyers, the Colbert Report, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and a dozen others). Journalists admired Stewart because he was the class clown who could say things about Republicans they all wanted to but couldn’t. News websites created

Gabriel Gavin

Will Russia sink Le Pen?

Paris, France Marine Le Pen has changed her image. Five years ago, the veteran far-right leader lost her second bid for the French presidency to a virtual newcomer, Emmanuel Macron, who swept into office with two-thirds of the vote. This time, she has assured her anxious supporters that things will be different. She has retired her policy of pulling out of the EU, calling instead for it to transform into a federation of sovereign states. She has also sought to assuage fears she would bring back the Franc. Gone too are calls to end all immigration to France – legal and illegal – preferring instead a comparatively more mellow line about how

Cindy Yu

Jonathan Miller, Cindy Yu and Laura Freeman

21 min listen

On this week’s episode, Jonathan Miller says that whoever wins France’s election on Sunday, the country is going to the dogs. (01:00) After, Cindy Yu says that China’s online censors are struggling to suppress critics of the Shanghai lockdown. (07:47) And, to finish, Laura Freeman reviews a Walt Disney exhibition at the Wallace Collection. (12:06) Entries for this year’s Innovator Awards, sponsored by Investec, are now open. To apply, go to: www.spectator.co.uk/innovator

Mary Kissel

Joe Biden’s new world disorder

The chaos abroad that has marked Joe Biden’s presidency is accelerating. Russia’s bloody war on Ukraine is rolling from winter into late spring; Iran and its proxies are launching missiles into Iraq and Saudi Arabia; China is menacing Taiwan and other Asian neighbours, and North Korea is preparing to revive its nuclear programme. Meanwhile, long-time US friends like Saudi Arabia and newer partners like India are starting to hedge their bets by cosying up to these regimes. Is the post-Cold War, US-led world order fracturing? It certainly looks like it. America’s enemies no longer fear her — and her friends don’t wholly trust her. Without a sea change in White

Phillips O'Brien

Could Russia lose the war in Donbas?

We face a serious dilemma as the Battle of the Donbas begins. The idea that the Russian army remains a powerful, effective force capable of breaking through Ukrainian lines and encircling forces in the Donbas remains widespread. It is regularly claimed that now the Russians have shortened their supply lines, concentrated and rebuilt their forces, and appointed a bloodthirsty war criminal as their commander they will show us what they are capable of. And, it is claimed that the Russians must seize the Donbas and have a major victory by May 9, so that Vladimir Putin can stage a victory day parade then in Moscow. But what if the Russian

Friday

22 Apr 2022

Mark Galeotti

Why Putin’s ‘Satanic’ missile launch matters

In some ways, it’s a headline-writer’s dream: Putin puts his faith in Satan. In reality, it’s actually Putin’s new RS-28 Sarmat (‘Sarmatian’) heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, which has become colloquially known in western circles as the ‘Satan II’. It is intended as a replacement for the R-36M, which in Nato parlance is known as the SS-18 ‘Satan.’ Following a successful test on Wednesday Putin asserted that the missile would not only ‘reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats’ but that it would ‘provide food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country.’ It is certainly true that it is a powerful,

Christopher Booth

Is Putin in pain?

Is Vladimir Putin in pain? Until now, there has been plenty of chatter about the wellbeing of his minister of defence, Sergei Shoigu. Before the war, this veteran political survivor from the Yeltsin era was famous for being photographed on manly Siberian expeditions with his new patron, the bare-chested saviour of ‘All the Russias’. Putin and Shoigu camped out together in the taiga, with moody fireside photos and a spot of fishing – ‘Brokeback Mountain 2’, jested Russian bloggers. Though in reality, the two looked a more like Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in a dreary remake: Frumpy Old Men. More than evidence of enduring affection, the staged video sequences

Francis Pike

Why does India get a free pass for supporting Russia?

When Russia invaded Ukraine the Indian government rapidly launched ‘Operation Ganga’. This was not a military operation, nor did it aim to supply Ukraine with weapons – it was an operation to extract the 500 Indian students stranded in Ukraine. After Prime Minister Narendra’s Modi’s video call with Putin, the Russian president ordered his invading army ‘to ensure the safe exit of Indian nationals from the armed conflict zone.’ The Indian government quickly dispatched civil servants, not weapons, to Poland, Hungary and Romania to assist their fleeing citizens. Since February more than 22,000 have been repatriated. Otherwise, Modi’s attitude to Ukraine has been decidedly non-committal. He proffered his ‘deep anguish

Thursday

21 Apr 2022

Stephen Daisley

Israel is an apartheid state

If you’re after evidence of apartheid in Israel, you don’t have to look very far. Amid rioting by Palestinians and Arabs, the Israel Police has declared the Temple Mount in Jerusalem off-limits. For ten days, only practitioners of one religion will be allowed to visit. For context, Temple Mount is home to the Holy of Holies, the most sacred site in Judaism, and is where the First and Second Temples stood until their destruction by the Babylonians and Romans, respectively. Following Jerusalem’s conquest by Islamic imperialists in the 7th century, a succession of caliphs worked to Islamise the Temple Mount by erecting Muslim worship sites including the Dome of the

Cindy Yu

Are China’s censors losing control of Shanghai?

For weeks, Shanghai’s 25 million residents were assured that they would not be locked down. Then when the order came, the lockdown was supposed to last only seven days. It is now almost into its fourth week, and the government is struggling to suppress the chaos. Last week, 82-year-old Yu Wenming called his neighbourhood committee to say he had run out of medicine and food. Rather than reassure him, the local official despaired. ‘I am really helpless,’ he admitted. ‘I’m more sad than you are, because you are just one person. I see countless families…’ The elderly Mr Yu ended up comforting the worker. When a recording of their conversation

Jonathan Miller

Narcissist vs fantasist: France’s gruesome choice

Something strange is happening in advanced western democracies. In America and France, voters keep finding themselves choosing between candidates for whom they have very little affection. In America, we saw Clinton vs Trump, followed by Biden vs Trump. And in France this week, we have Macron vs Le Pen again. As many French voters now say, this is a choice between la peste (plague) et le choléra. Emmanuel Macron is disliked: arrogant and narcissistic to the point where he has compared himself to Jupiter, king of the gods. He has spent five years insulting and patronising voters and delivering mediocre results. His management of the epidemic was repressive and absurdist.

The Spectator

Britain and the West must step up support to Ukraine

The first few weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine went so badly that it was tempting to see the withdrawal of troops from around Kyiv as the beginning of the end. The loss of the battleship Moskva has humiliated Vladimir Putin further, undermining any lingering hope he may have had of being able to claim total victory in time for Russia’s military celebrations on 9 May. But it would be a dangerous delusion to think that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is destined to be a failure. Heroic though Ukraine has been so far, its struggle could yet be lost. As the conflict enters a critical new phase, it is vital

Wolfgang Münchau

Olaf Scholz is becoming Putin’s most valuable ally

If you think that Boris Johnson’s parties in Downing Street constitute a serious matter of state, you might want to take a look at what is happening in Germany right now. Olaf Scholz has been caught red-handed misrepresenting facts about weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Behind the scenes, he is busy frustrating efforts to help the country, while pretending to be outraged about Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Double games work until they don’t. His policies are now being exposed by the media. Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany and Ukraine went through a list of weapons deliveries, and that Germany planned to pay for them. Ukraine denied this. It said that there

Michela Wrong

Priti Patel is playing into Paul Kagame’s hands

If President Paul Kagame has been tracking the furore over Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, he’s been doing it on the hoof. Kagame moves constantly these days: the news broke while he was en route to Barbados after a visit to Jamaica. In the past two months he has been to Congo-Brazzaville, Kenya (twice), Zambia, Germany (twice), Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Mauritania, Senegal and Belgium. How the president of one of Africa’s poorest nations can afford all this travelling is a puzzle, and the fact that his Gulfstream jet is supplied by Crystal Ventures, his Rwandan Patriotic Front’s monopolistic investment arm, raises interesting budgetary questions. In a

Jade McGlynn

Why more and more Russians are backing the war

O, do the Russians long for war? Ask of the stillness evermore, Ask of the field, or ask the breeze, And ask the birch and poplar trees. So begins a famous Soviet-era song and poem, written by Yevgenii Yevtushenko during Khrushchev’s Thaw. Volodymyr Zelensky cited the poem in his eve-of-war address to Russians, hoping it would rekindle these pacifistic sentiments and encourage resistance against the Kremlin’s imminent invasion. Apart from a relatively few (very) brave souls, Russians did not rise up. Opinion polls in authoritarian states must be treated carefully, but the absence of large-scale protests, combined with polls suggesting that 71 to 81 per cent of Russians approve of military activity in