World

“Tremendous success tonight. Thank you to all!” said Trump before turning in for the night. “Tomorrow will be a new day in America,” said Nancy Pelosi, now likely to be speaker of a Democrat-controlled House. For once, both are right. Both have their victories to celebrate and defeats to mourn. Trump lost his 42-seat hold of the House and the Democrats look set for a 20-seat majority. But the Republicans did surprisingly well in the Senate, strengthening their majority with several unexpected and important victories. Overall, it’s a blow for Trump – but not a crushing one. And far from the ‘blue wave’ that the Democrats had once hoped for.

Jair Bolsonaro’s victory in Brazil’s presidential election has stoked fears around the world that ‘fascism’ is on the rise. In Brazil, of course, that word has a particular resonance. The former army captain sees the years of military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985 as benign ones. The only mistake the generals made, he has said, was in not killing enough dissidents—another 30,000 would have done the trick. His pick for vice-president thinks that the country should be back under martial law, and repeats the line whenever he is invited to withdraw it. Bolsonaro has been dubbed the ‘Trump of the Tropics’, a moniker he seems happy to accept. Both men

The Trump economy has defied all sceptics and naysayers. Unemployment is at half-century record lows, wages are up, and Wall Street opened November by bouncing back from a rocky October. Trump was supposed to be a reckless leader who would panic the markets. He hasn’t. His tariffs were supposed to torpedo the economy. They haven’t. If Americans vote on jobs, wages, and the business climate come Tuesday, Republicans will keep the House of Representatives and expand their Senate majority. But do voters ever think of midterm elections as a referendum on the economy? Conventional wisdom says no, but the reality is more complicated. Republicans lost 26 seats in Ronald Reagan’s first midterm

Kanye West’s association with Donald Trump is well known. But there is another politician that the rapper-turned-political-activist likes to pay attention to this side of the pond: Caroline Lucas. While Kanye has nearly 30 million followers on Twitter, the list of those he follows is far more exclusive – numbering just 120. So imagine Mr S’s surprise when among that distinguished group he spotted the co-leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas: Lucas is the only British politician Kanye follows. So what does Kanye see in her? Among recent pearls of wisdom shared by Lucas are tweets about beer duty, farming and fracking. Move over Trump, there is a new politician

Should you be allowed to say that the founder of one of the world’s largest religions was a paedophile? According to the European Court of Human Rights the answer is ‘no’. In a decision issued this week the Court in Strasbourg ruled that this statement is defamatory towards the prophet of Islam, ‘goes beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate’ and ‘could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace.’ Details of the long-running case can be read here. I will come to the civilisational problems with this in a moment. But first allow me to point out what a difficult position this puts my book collection in.

This year’s Orwell Lecture will be delivered by the novelist Kamila Shamsie. She will be complaining, it is announced, about this government’s talk of citizenship being ‘a privilege and not a right’. (Actually, it is both.) No doubt she will have interesting points to make, but it is a pity that Orwell’s flame is always tended by the left. There is a right-wing case for Orwell, or, to be more precise, an anti-left-wing case. Plenty of Orwell’s writing about England could make him a proto-Brexiteer, and it would be interesting to air this just now. His greatest satires were directed chiefly at communists, and he had a hearty dislike of

Campus censorship is a myth. That’s the new line being spun by student union officials and university leaders in response to the campaigners, commentators and politicians raising concerns about the increasingly censorious culture on British campuses. The extent of No Platforming, Safe Space censorship and newspaper bans, they say, is being exaggerated by right-wing hacks desperate for something to fulminate about. Up to now, it’s an argument that’s been easy enough to dismiss given the very people making it are usually the ones responsible for the campus censorship we read about. But a BBC ‘Fact Check’, purporting to back-up their claims, has, irritatingly, given them a bit of a boost.

 Istanbul In another time, in another place, we might never have known about the death of Jamal Khashoggi. In a Saudi consulate, the staff are guaranteed to say nothing. The reason we know so much is that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey, has been willing to tell the world not just what he knows, but what he suspects. It has been clear from the offset that this isn’t just about the death of a journalist but a battle for political leadership of the Islamic world. On Tuesday, in his first full statement on Khashoggi’s killing, Erdogan said that the perpetrators should stand trial in Turkey, and that everyone

When Mohammed bin Salman was first made Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the West rejoiced. It looked as if, finally, a young reformer with 21st century values was taking the reins of the state. After he allowed women to finally drive, the West hoped the Saudis would free jailed journalists, meaningfully engage with Europe and America like Israel does, and maybe even end their involvement in the Yemen war. In short, it was hoped that Saudi Arabia was beginning its journey into liberal society. From Jared Kushner and Boris Johnson to Middle East think tanks and commentators, many bought in to the optimism. As Nick Robinson said on the Today programme

Donald Trump now says of climate change: ‘I don’t think it’s a hoax, I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s man-made.’ The climate activist Eric Holthaus said: ‘The world’s top scientists just gave rigorous backing to systematically dismantle capitalism.’ Both are wrong. The truth is that climate change is happening, but more slowly than expected. It’s now 30 years since James Hansen of Nasa raised the alarm and, as climate scientist Pat Michaels and hurricane expert Ryan Maue have pointed out, ‘it’s time to acknowledge that the rapid warming he predicted isn’t happening’. Our own government’s climate-change committee, and the hysterical BBC, should take note. This

Before taking up residence at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Assange lived at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk. This was at the invitation of his then-supporter Vaughan Smith, who lived with his family at that house. According to Andrew O’Hagan’s memoir of this time, ‘Ghosting’, Assange was a nightmare house guest. O’Hagan was ghost-writing Assange’s memoirs at that time – before the two fell out (like everyone else Assange has ever worked with). Of that time O’Hagan records: ‘I’d always been amazed at how Vaughan Smith and his family had been able to cope with the whole studenty WikiLeaks charabanc in their house – the Smiths have small children – with

In this week’s Books Podcast I’m talking to the incomparable Sara Paretsky about her latest V. I. Warshawski novel Shell Game — which pits the original feminist gumshoe against art thieves, Russian mobsters and her fink of an ex-husband. I talk to Sara about keeping Vic young (skincare doesn’t come into it), chiming with MeToo and immigration anxieties in Trump’s America, whether she feels rivalrous with other female crime writers, spotting her own writerly tics, and making friends with Obama.