World

Thursday

Lee Cohen

Biden proves that Trump was a true British ally

Now that Joe Biden has landed in the UK, many Brits may be realising what a stalwart friend they had in Trump. Within minutes of arriving on UK shores, Biden was denouncing Britannia, Boris, Brexit — you name it. Far from hailing the UK, America’s most cherished ally, BIden was showing Britain a bullying disdain that should be reserved only for China or Iran. It is difficult to conceive of two stranger bedfellows than the golden-tongued Old Etonian and the awkward, plain-spoken ‘blue collar’ Joe Biden. But rhetoric, style and acuity aside, the two heads of government face divergent motivations when it comes to policy — these are likely to challenge the British-American partnership. Last

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Biden’s Carrie teasing

‘I was thrilled to meet your wife,’ Joe Biden told Boris Johnson during their first meeting at this week’s G7 summit. The PM’s eyes sunk. Where could this be going? ‘Yes, they’ve gone off to do something else,’ Boris replied, seemingly in the hope that Biden would too.  The President was in a playful mood though. He murmured ‘I told the Prime Minister, “we have something in common”.’ A concerned look broke across Boris’s face. What could it be? ‘We both married way above our station’. Vigorous nodding, vague murmuring, the desperation not to say something contradictory. For a man who is famously keen to avoid discussing his private life, this locker room chat had

Henry Hill

Joe Biden doesn’t understand Northern Ireland

Even a pessimist could be forgiven for being surprised by Joe ‘I’m Irish’ Biden’s ham-fisted intervention in the ongoing row over the Northern Ireland protocol. If Boris Johnson’s remark that the phrase ‘special relationship’ didn’t ring true before, they certainly must after the President opened his visit by quoting Y.B. Yeats on the Easter Rising… while visiting a Royal Air Force base. It will also be a wearisomely familiar routine for Ulster unionists, who have been scorning American pressure to abandon Britain since at least the days of Woodrow Wilson. How will the government respond? There remain many on the right bewitched by yesterday’s Atlanticism. It ought to be absurd

Francis Pike

How China won over the Middle East

In April, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi embarked on a six-nation Middle Eastern tour to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman. ‘Belt and Road’ cooperation, economic development and the Covid pandemic were the topics of discussion. The treatment of China’s Muslim Uighur population in detention camps, which some in the West have described as genocidal, didn’t come up. Both China and Saudi Arabia cleave to the belief that internal affairs are nobody else’s business — or at least as long as there are overriding economic interests at stake. Compare the silence of Muslim countries on the Uighur issue with the loud faux anger when the

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Boris, Biden and the orange elephant in the room

Donald who? As Boris Johnson meets Joe Biden in Cornwall this week, the Prime Minister will hope that the President doesn’t dwell on his efforts to woo the last occupant of the Oval Office. Boris’s dalliance with Donald Trump is a bit like his affair with Jennifer Arcuri — an embarrassing fling with a rotund, brash American conspiracy theorist, something he’d rather the world forgot. He’s moved on and so should we. Boris wouldn’t, for instance, want Biden to be reminded of the time in November 2017 when, as foreign secretary, he went on Fox News to say of Trump: ‘What you’ve got to realise is that the American President

Wednesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Will the G7 tax deal survive?

What are the chances of the G7’s agreement on a minimum rate of corporation tax actually coming into effect? While it was presented as a done deal last weekend, things are not going too well. Firstly, the G20 will have to agree — which is far from guaranteed given that smaller countries have less to gain from the proposal than the US. It is a tax designed to help countries with a large number of multinational companies who currently operate through subsidiaries in countries with lower corporation tax rates. While no G20 country currently has a rate below the agreed 15 per cent, (and the biggest loser, Ireland, with its 12.5 per cent

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s Covid stoicism has put Britain to shame

I feel like a teenager again. Tonight I’m allowed out until 11pm. What’s more, I’m permitted to go inside my local bar if it gets a little chilly late on. Merci, Monsieur Macron. I imagine every other adult in France is a little excited today as the country continues its return to normality post-Covid. The curfew, imposed at the start of the year, has been extended by two hours and restaurants and bars – whose terraces have been open for business since May 19 – are now able to open at full capacity. If all goes well the curfew will be lifted on June 30, as will the wearing of

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Macron slapped in the face

Things haven’t exactly been going well for French president Emmanuel Macron in recent days. Earlier this week it was reported that France is launching a doomed bid during its presidency of the EU council to ban the use of English in key meetings in favour of the French language. Now it appears that Macron has problems on his home turf. On a visit to the Drome region of south-eastern France – as part of his tour of France to take the ‘pulse of the country’ after the coronavirus crisis – Macron approached a group of people. When the President got within touching distance, one young man leaned forward and slapped him squarely

Arabella Byrne

Marine Le Pen wages war on a French rap star

‘Dans ce rêve où ma semence de nègre fout en cloque cette chienne de Marine Le Pen.’ You don’t have to speak fluent French to get the feeling that the French-Congolese rapper Youssoupha didn’t entirely rate Marine Le Pen in his song, ‘Éternel recommencement’. In fact, he doesn’t rate quite a few journalists and politicians in France. But what is rap for, if not to critique the establishment? That must have been the reasoning of the Federation Francaise de Football (FFF) when it chose Youssoupha’s recent tune, ‘Ecris mon nom en bleu’ (Write my name in blue) as the anthem for the French football team ahead of this month’s European

Andrew Tettenborn

China should be worried about the Uyghur Tribunal

There have been harrowing stories of cruelty, torture and mistreatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province in the news this week, coming from an official-sounding body called the Uyghur People’s Tribunal. But what is it, and what is its status? The answer may surprise you. Although its composition is highly eminent and its chairman the impeccably fair lawyer Geoffrey Nice QC, it has no official status whatsoever. True, it has formal sittings and apes much of legal procedure; true also that it will make formal findings on the question of what is going on in western China and whether it amounts to crimes against humanity or genocide. But these findings will

Rakib Ehsan

Canada’s disturbing pattern of anti-Muslim attacks

Canada is a vibrant multicultural society. The Great White North has become a shining example of a diverse democracy. It has established itself as a modern nation-state with a relatively altruistic, happy, optimistic population. But it also has a problem. On Sunday, in the city of London in Ontario, four members of a Muslim family were killed in what police have described as a premeditated vehicle attack. Among those who died were two women (aged 74 and 44), a 46-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl. A nine-year-old boy is in hospital. Detective Superintendent Paul Waight said the victims were specifically targeted because of their ‘Islamic faith’. The attack comes four years after Canadian

Monday

Matthew Lynn

The German takeover of the EU is accelerating

Vetoes should no longer be allowed. Smaller countries should not be able to block the will of the ‘majority’. And the biggest countries, with the largest financial contributions, should be the ones that get to dictate policy. Ever since German re-unification made the country by far the largest in the bloc, there has been a creeping German take-over of the European Union. But with the British no longer around to hold that back, it is starting to accelerate. The real trend is towards an EU that is no longer a confederation of nations, but one that is dominated by Germany We had the clearest indication of that yet with a

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

How much trouble is the government in over foreign aid?

13 min listen

After the government cut the UK’s foreign aid budget a group of rebellious tory MPs bound together to try and reverse the decision, will it come to a head this week?‘This cut has caused some resentment amongst other nations’ – Isabel Hardman And has the culture war spread to cricket after the suspension of Ollie Robinson for decade old racist remarks?‘I think there is a broader question in society about how do we allow people to make up for youthful errors?’ – James Forsyth And with Portugal moving to the amber list, just how limited will the options be for our summer holidays? ‘The government now, it’s aim is to

Sunday

William Nattrass William Nattrass

How a Polish coal mine risks derailing the EU’s climate strategy

Cracks are appearing in the EU’s climate strategy. An international dispute over the court-ordered closure of a coal mine on the Poland-Czech Republic border has thrown divisions over how to phase out fossil fuels into sharp relief, leading to the first ever environment-related lawsuit between two EU member states. The Czech Republic has taken Poland to the European Court of Justice to oppose the extension of a licence for the Turów coal mine on Poland’s south-western border with the Czech Republic and Germany. The Czech government said that continued operations at the mine constitute a risk to the health of Czechs living nearby due to air pollution and reduced groundwater supplies. The ECJ

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Why the far-right flourishes in East Germany

A spectre is haunting Germany — the spectre of the AfD. Having come to prominence on a wave of anti-migrant sentiment, most German commentators believed that the Alternative für Deutschland was now a spent force. The party had been able to attract centre-right voters following the 2015 migrant crisis, many of whom may not have agreed with its entire manifesto but sought a political outlet for their scepticism of Merkel’s handling of the crisis. But last year, its national polling dropped to just over half the level of support it enjoyed in late 2018. The pandemic has brought to the surface many of the AfD’s most extreme members and activists,

Saturday

John Connolly John Connolly

What can the west do about China?

14 min listen

As China changes its two child policy to a three child policy over fears of population decline, the west is also having to regularly change its approach towards the world’s next superpower. John Connolly talks to James Forsyth and Cindy Yu about our precarious relationship with China.

John Keiger John Keiger

Why is Macron feigning outrage at the Danish spying scandal?

The feigned outrage in Berlin – but mostly in Paris – at the USA’s proxy use of Denmark’s intelligence services to intercept submarine cable traffic to spy on European leaders raises more than a wry smile. Allies have always spied on allies for legitimate reasons. Few have done so, and continue to do so, as much as the French.  As president of France and commander-in-chief of the French armed forces, Emmanuel Macron will be perfectly aware of this. The French foreign intelligence service, DGSE, runs an interception programme on submarine cables that listens in to potential enemies and friends in similar fashion to the US National Security Agency or Britain’s

Friday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Can Rishi Sunak get the G7 on side?

13 min listen

With the G7 looming the range of subjects on the agenda is vast. One of the first items up is the proposal of a global corporate tax rate which President Joe Biden has already endorsed. The potential issue with this that James pointed out on the pod was: “For this to work, this global corporate minimum tax, you need all the major players in the world economy signed up to it.” But how will the first meeting of Boris and Biden go and is possible the G7 could become the G10?“For Boris Johnson, not to over stress it, but it is about making personal connections, that haven’t been possible because

John Harris

Why won’t Boris put the Covid-free Cayman Islands on the ‘green list’?

Has Boris Johnson forgotten about the Cayman Islands? While the weather here is distinctly un-British, the overwhelming majority of the 65,000 or so inhabitants are British citizens. We are, after all, a British Overseas Territory, with a governor appointed by London. Next week, we’ll be enjoying a bank holiday to celebrate the Queen’s birthday. But during the pandemic, the British government has turned a blind eye to our Caribbean paradise by refusing to relax travel restrictions.  It’s hard to think of anywhere on Earth from which arrivals would represent a lower risk of bringing Covid into the UK. Since last summer, we have not had a single case of Covid transmission in the community.