World

Friday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Did the swamp drain Elon Musk?

23 min listen

Billionaire Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump have had a very public falling out. Musk, whose time running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) came to an end last month, publicly criticised Trump’s spending bill (the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’). The row then erupted onto social media with Trump expressing his disappointment with Musk, Musk accusing Trump of ‘ingratitude’ – and even making insinuations about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Tesla’s stock has taken a hit, Trump and Musk are yet to speak and there could be implications for the government contracts that Musk’s companies have, but the full consequences are yet to be understood. What do this

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Why the Kerch bridge must fall

Vladimir Putin has hit back against Ukraine’s ‘Spiderweb’ operation, which recently destroyed or damaged at least two dozen Russian bombers. Overnight, Russia fired 45 missiles and more than 400 drones at Ukrainian cities and apartment blocks. At least six people were killed, including three rescuers searching for survivors in Kyiv. More than a hundred civilians were injured across the country. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, claimed the mass attack on ‘military targets’ was a response to the ‘terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime’. But Ukraine is far from done; the Kerch bridge, which links the occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland, is high on the hit list. This week, the Ukrainian

Aidan McLaughlin

Elon Musk was doomed to fail with DoGE

Only a few months ago, Elon Musk took to his social media platform X to share a confession with his 220 million followers: ‘I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,’ he wrote. This week, Musk and the sitting president had such a violent public breakup that it sent Tesla stock crashing by 17 per cent. The drama, which rivaled a Real Housewives season finale, finally exploded when the President threatened to pull Musk’s billions in federal contracts. Musk returned the favour by claiming Trump hasn’t released the ‘Epstein files’ because he’s implicated in them. It was an eruption that most political observers had, from the start,

Raheem Kassam

The Maga movement won’t miss Elon Musk

Let’s face it, no one expected Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ to be perfect. But for Elon Musk to adopt the intransigent position that the work of government should stop in its tracks in pursuit of perfection is a manifest nonsense. Especially when considering OMB chief Russ Vought’s explanation of how the bill helps reduce the deficit. Musk has a habit of failing to see the wood for the trees. He’s been a long-standing backer of China, which my website has reported on for years. He supported DeSantis, not Trump, in the primary. He recently tried to depose Brexit leader Nigel Farage (it went badly for Musk), and just a few weeks ago lashed out at the architect of

Thursday

Natasha Hausdorff

Why can’t Piers Morgan handle the truth about Israel?

As Israel continues to wage a defensive war against the terrorists who invaded and slaughtered hundreds of Jews on October 7, the Jewish State is under attack as never before in the West. I found this out for myself when I was invited on to Piers Morgan Uncensored to discuss the situation in Gaza. Piers Morgan asks for the truth but refuses to hear it. pic.twitter.com/2LtEgoMJ5h — Natasha Hausdorff (@HausdorffMedia) June 3, 2025 What my appearance and censorship on the ironically named “Uncensored” show demonstrated was a refusal, perhaps even a fear, to hear the reality, the facts and the law when it comes to the war against Hamas. This is in

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Germany can’t avoid conscription for ever

Germany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz seems serious about his pledge to make the Bundeswehr the ‘strongest conventional army in Europe’. Yet less than a month into his chancellorship, a daunting realisation is dawning on Berlin: without resorting to conscription, there is little prospect of growing the German army or fulfilling Merz’s ambitious promise.  Merz’s defence minister Boris Pistorius – the only SPD politician from Olaf Scholz’s administration to remain in the cabinet – is in Brussels today to commit Germany to raising defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2032. This spending would be split, with 3.5 per cent dedicated to core military spending, and the remaining 1.5 per cent used

Edward Howell

Is South Korea’s firebrand president up to the job?

Much akin to Britain on 4 July last year, South Korea is now veering leftwards. Seoul only had a protracted two-and-a-half, and not fourteen, years of conservative rule by a leader who declared martial law on a cold winter evening last December. But at a time when security in East Asia is increasingly precarious, the election of Lee Jae-myung as South Korea’s fourteenth president does not bode well for the future if the firebrand’s past statements are anything to go by. For a man who had ambitions to be as ‘successful as Bernie Sanders’ – a comparison which is hardly a point of pride – it was third time lucky.

Andy Jones

Europe is finally making more TNT

For Europe’s war effort, the time has come for boom or bust. Specifically, it needs more boom. On Monday, Sir Keir Starmer trumpeted the UK’s £1.5 billion investment in six new munitions factories, creating over 1,000 jobs. But we are still miles behind Russia and the rest of Europe when it comes to ammunition. Russia, with assistance from North Korea’s six explosives factories, currently produces over four million artillery shells per year. The European Union and the UK are still collectively trying to drag their production above one million combined. On the front line, this means Russia can fire 12,000 rounds per day, compared with around 7,000 fired by the Ukrainians, according to

Alexander Baker

Is the UK-EU defence pact a threat to Nato?

The Nato meeting of defence ministers in Brussels today will give its participants an opportunity to discuss the issues facing the alliance in perhaps a more cordial, if frank, manner before the inevitably more theatrical leaders’ summit in The Hague at the end of the month. Much of the focus will be on proposed defence expenditure increases, not least in Britain, where following the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) this week there were suggestions that Nato would ‘force’ Keir Starmer to raise defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. Next week’s spending review should cast light on how feasible this is, given current plans to reach

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: More defence spending, more migrant arrivals and more Jenrick stunts

Home The government said that the armed forces had to move to ‘warfighting readiness’ and accepted the 62 recommendations of the Strategic Defence Review headed by the former defence secretary and head of Nato, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. But the funding of the plans remained in doubt as the government insisted that a rise in defence spending to3 per cent by 2034 remained an ‘aspiration’; yet Nato was expected at this month’s summit to insist on a level of 3.5 per cent. The government committed £15 billion to its nuclear warhead programme; £1.5 billion to build six new munitions factories; an extra £1.5 billion for repairs to military housing;

Wednesday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

When will the BBC admit it has an Israel problem?

When the White House uses a press briefing to lambast a foreign broadcaster by name, something seismic has shifted. That’s exactly what happened today when Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, publicly accused the BBC of treating ‘the word of Hamas as total truth’ and challenged the White House’s description of the broadcaster rushing out anti-Israel claims only to later bury the corrections. Holding up printouts of BBC headlines that morphed from ’26 dead after Israeli tanks open fire’ to ’31 killed in Israeli gunfire,’ then ‘Red Cross says at least 21 killed’, before publishing another piece admitting ‘claim graphic video is linked to aid distribution site in Gaza is

Matthew Lynn

Starmer doesn’t have long to save his US trade deal

It has only been a few weeks since the UK agreed to a trade deal with the United States that exempted us from the worst of President Trump’s tariffs. There was a grand, if slightly awkward, ceremony in the White House. The deal was sold as a triumph of negotiation and diplomacy for the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and even more for our ambassador in Washington, Lord Mandelson. But it seems Starmer may have got ahead of himself, for this deal appears to only have been a temporary truce. Right now there is a real risk that the government may blow the deal – and that would be hugely

Henry Donovan

Can Germany control its borders?

Two days. That’s how long Friedrich Merz’s signature border policy survived before walking into a perfectly laid ambush. While international economists celebrate Germany’s potential economic resurgence under new leadership, the country’s Chancellor is discovering that electoral victories mean little when faced with opponents who don’t need votes to wield power. The weapon of choice? Legal challenges so precisely timed and coordinated they make Swiss clockwork look amateur. Just as the OECD forecasts Germany’s potential return as Europe’s economic powerhouse, Merz finds himself outmanoeuvred not by coalition partners or opposition politicians, but by advocacy organisations whose resources and coordination capabilities would impress military strategists – opposition far more sophisticated than traditional

Natasha Hausdorff

Israel is not conducting a genocide in Gaza

Since Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, the Jewish State’s most vociferous critics have been busy. Their most egregious claim is that Israel is committing a genocide. As is so often the case with Israel, the crimes it is accused of are rooted in an inversion of the truth. Israel’s critics must stop politicising and weaponising international law to spread blood libels Genocide has been committed during this conflict: by Hamas terrorists who rampaged through southern Israel and massacred over 1,000 innocents, targeting Jews. They executed their barbaric atrocities in the hope this would inspire simultaneous attacks on Israel’s other borders. On that day, Yahya Sinwar’s terror

Tuesday

Owen Matthews

Putin has no interest in peace

It was Groundhog Day in Istanbul’s Ciragan Palace. On one side of the grand conference room sat a long row of slab-faced young Russian apparatchiks, their faces unknown to all but the most dedicated Kremlinologists. On the other, a rather more high-powered and macho group of Ukrainians, many in Nato-regulation military fatigues, filed in to waste another day of their time. During Monday’s hour-long session no substantial issues were discussed, no talking points were even touched upon, no path to peace was opened.  From the Kremlin’s point of view, the talks in Istanbul are not for seeking a peaceful compromise, but rather, as former President Dmitry Medvedev bluntly put it,

James Heale James Heale

Is the public ready for difficult decisions on defence?

16 min listen

Former Commander of Joint Forces Command – and one of the authors of the Strategic Defence Review – General Sir Richard Barrons joins Lucy Dunn and James Heale to talk through the main conclusions of the review, and the questions it raises. Labour have talked up the fact that this is the first government in a generation to not reduce the size of the armed forces. But, as Sir Richard explains, difficult choices await politicians and the public if the UK wants to be more prepared, and faster, for potential threats. Produced by Patrick Gibbons. 

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s border patrol is playing a losing game

In a 24-hour period at the weekend, 184 migrants were rescued in the English Channel by the French coastguard. The most southerly group that got into trouble was picked up off Fort-Mahon in the Somme Department, and the most northerly were off Dunkirk, more than 80 miles up the coast. The coastguard was also called to incidents in Wimereux and Grand-Fort-Philippe. In other words, it is not just England that is being invaded. So is France, its rugged coastline saturated by thousands of predominantly young men all intent on crossing the Channel. I’ve written before of their violent desperation: the mob who last year attacked a group of hunters who

Jonathan Spyer

Why Hamas won’t accept Witkoff’s Gaza ceasefire offer

US Envoy Steve Witkoff finally received an answer to his latest proposal for a ceasefire and hostage exchange in Gaza over the weekend from Hamas: a no in all but name. This apparent rejection by the terror group confirms the essential issue under dispute in the conflict. The Gaza Islamist movement is determined to secure a situation in which Israeli forces withdraw from the territory and in which Hamas can begin the process of replenishing and reorganising its own forces and capacities. Any agreement which threatens to reduce the main asset Hamas holds to prevent Israel from executing a full push towards its destruction – namely, the remaining Israeli hostages

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Jews in America are under attack

In Boulder, Colorado, eight elderly Jews were torched alive in a park. They wore red T-shirts bearing the names of hostages seized by Palestinian terrorists over 600 days earlier. Some carried Israeli flags. Walking peacefully in memory and solidarity, they were attacked with fire as a flamethrower and Molotov cocktails created flames as high as a tree. An 88-year-old Holocaust survivor was among the injured. The attacker, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, is reported to be an Egyptian national in the country illegally. He has been charged with 16 counts of attempted murder. Even as Jews in America are being attacked with increasing regularity, we have not seen the birth of a

Monday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The rush to blame Israel is bad for journalism

If the war in Gaza has taught the world anything, it is this: truth in war is rarely immediate. In the fog of conflict, facts take time, evidence can be manipulated and early narratives are often weaponised. Yet time and again, much of the international media – and too many public officials – refuse to learn this lesson. Faced with shocking claims, particularly when they implicate Israel, they rush to publish, to condemn, to headline. Rarely do they wait for verification. Even more rarely do they correct with the same urgency when the facts unravel. In the fog of conflict, facts take time, evidence can be manipulated and early narratives are often