World

Monday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Sébastien Lecornu’s exit is a humiliation for France – and for Macron

In a sensational development, Sébastien Lecornu has resigned as prime minister of France. His departure, after 27 days in office, makes the 39-year-old the shortest reigning premier of the Fifth Republic. Lecornu’s resignation is a humiliation for him, for France and for Emmanuel Macron. The president has now worked his way through seven prime ministers in eight years, a Fifth Republic record he shares with Francois Mitterrand. He, however, presided over France for fourteen years. The catalyst for Lecornu’s departure was the new government he unveiled on Sunday evening The catalyst for Lecornu’s departure was the new government he unveiled on Sunday evening. He has promised a ‘break’ with Macron’s

Lee Cohen

Britain’s Jews must stay and fight

Britain once prided itself on being different from France, Belgium and Germany, where Jewish blood was repeatedly spilled on European streets. Now the same contagion has arrived in your green-but-less-pleasant-land. Britain was never free of prejudice, but unlike Europe, its anti-Semitism never captured a major party or defined the state – until our times. The Manchester attack was not merely an assault on Jews. It was an assault on Britain’s soul I write as an American of Jewish heritage, and a lifelong champion of Britain – the nation that turned liberty into law, and faith into citizenship. I write to offer a warning to Britain’s Jewish community: Don’t flee your

Sunday

Colin Freeman

The Brits who fought in Ukraine deserve to be remembered

Last week, a West End arts venue hosted ‘Indomitable Ukraine’, a war artefacts exhibition with everything from prosthetic legs to captured Russian battle plans. It was put on by the War Museum of Ukraine and had an added poignancy for British audiences. On a black memorial board was a list of nearly 40 names of British citizens who have died while serving with Ukraine’s International Legion – or, as the memorial puts it: ‘defending Ukraine against Russia’s aggression.’ As things currently stand, there are no plans for any permanent British memorial to those who have fought for Ukraine Families of the fallen were invited to a special showing of the

Saturday

Nicholas Farrell

My Italian family believe Meloni is complicit in genocide

I would like to ask readers for help. My Italian wife and our six children, aged 10 to 22, believe that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza and that Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is complicit in this genocide. I do not. What should I tell them? Once again, I am forced to remember how precious truth is – yet how difficult it is to demonstrate. Also, how easy it is to convince people that an untruth is the truth. And yet, at the same time, how easy it is to doubt the truth when all around you are telling you it is an untruth – especially if

Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes

German reunification never really happened

It’s not easy for Germany to celebrate itself. But on Friday, the country tried. At the official celebration festivities for the Day of German Unity, the city of Saarbrucken near the French border hosted musicians, breakdancers, acrobats, magicians, and oddly, two actors dressed as a ‘talking sofa’ to entertain visitors. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the official head of state of the Federal Republic, spoke, alongside Chancellor Friedrich Merz. French President Emmanuel Macron also took part, to underscore the European dimension of Germany’s reunification. Notably, Angela Merkel, the only chancellor born in East Germany, and Joachim Gauck, the only federal president from the former communist ‘new states’, were not present – absences that highlight how Germany is

Friday

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

What can we expect from the first female Archbishop of Canterbury?

19 min listen

Dame Sarah Mullally has been announced as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Previously the Bishop of London, she becomes the first woman to lead the Church in its almost 500 year history. She also had a 40 year career as a professional nurse, rising to be the most senior nurse in England and Wales. The Rev’d Marcus Walker, rector at St Bartholemew the Great in the City of London, joins Damian Thompson to react to the news – what can we expect from her leadership? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Owen Matthews

The ‘shadow fleet’ tanker raid was pure theatre

The news footage was satisfyingly reminiscent of Mission: Impossible. Masked French commandoes swarmed up the side of the rusty oil tanker Boracay, assault rifles drawn, and commenced their search for evidence the vessel had been responsible for launching Russian drones at Danish airports. The captain and first officer – both Chinese nationals – were taken into custody. France’s president Emmanuel Macron could not confirm that the Boracay was responsible for the drone attacks – but did make it clear that stopping the vessel off the coast of St Nazaire was intended as ‘a step moving towards a policy of obstruction of suspicious ships in our waters that are involved in

Robert King

What was Jeremy Corbyn doing in South Africa?

Jeremy Corbyn has spent a lifetime attaching himself to lost causes abroad and failed movements at home. Now, as the still-unnamed ‘Your Party’ continues to tear itself apart, Corbyn quietly slipped away from the domestic drama to South Africa and neighbouring Namibia, where he has been doing what he does best: surrounding himself with trade unionists, pro-Palestinian activists and any podcaster willing to lend him a microphone. For Corbyn, South Africa has long been a stage on which to project his political fantasies For Corbyn, South Africa has long been a stage on which to project his political fantasies. In the 1980s he was a fixture of the anti-Apartheid movement

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Japan’s Asahi cyber attack is a national embarrassment

Could Japan be about to run out of beer? Or at least of one of its favourite brands Asahi, whose ‘Super Dry’ is the number one best seller in this nation of hop heads? This is the alarming and looming prospect in the country after a cyber attack on Asahi forced the company to close its production facilities. There are rumours of only a few days’ supply left in the convenience stores and izakayas (Japanese style pubs). If true, and if Asahi can’t solve the problem quickly, panic buying is a distinct possibility in a country with a per capita consumption of 34.5 litres a year. Then, with no indication

Thursday

Eliot Wilson

Will Europe put its money where its mouth is for Ukraine?

Shortly after Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the West prohibited transactions with the Bank of Russia and the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Finance. This effectively froze around $300 billion (£223 billion) of sovereign assets in foreign currency and gold reserves, mostly held in Euroclear, the central securities depository in Brussels. Since then there have been ongoing discussions in Europe and the United States about the possibility of somehow accessing this enormous pool of money to help fund Ukraine’s defence and perhaps to use some of the assets for reconstruction and development once the conflict comes to an end. Western leaders would not be human if they

Alexander Kolyandr

Putin is mortgaging Russia’s future to pay for Ukraine

We will wage the war in Ukraine for longer and make you pay more for it. That was the message the Kremlin sent its subjects following the Russian government’s presentation of next year’s budget and the accompanying economic outlook. The budget, which reached parliament for rubber-stamping on Monday, outlines the Kremlin’s vision ahead of the war enterring its fifth year next February: the war will continue at the expense of the economy and people’s incomes. Higher taxes are expected to keep the budget deficit at 1.6 per cent of GDP next year. For three years, rising fiscal spending stimulated both economic growth and climbing incomes. The downside of this amphetamine-fuelled

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Palestinians must regret rejecting Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’

In December 2024, Bill Clinton spoke with a candour that history affords. Reflecting on Camp David in 2000, he lamented that ‘you walk away from these once in a lifetime peace opportunities, and you can’t complain twenty-five years later when the doors weren’t all still open, and all the possibilities weren’t still there. You can’t do it.’ His warning was not simply about past missteps but about the nature of political time. Opportunities do not remain static. They decay, they harden, they shrink. To reject an offer once is to ensure that the next will be less generous, more conditional, and more difficult to secure. It was rejected outright. The

David Shipley

The luxury of French prisons

Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of the French Republic, has been convicted and sentenced to five years for a ‘criminal conspiracy tied to alleged Libyan funding of his successful 2007 presidential campaign’. For those of us more familiar with Anglo-Saxon criminal law, there’s much to be confused by. France, like many ‘Napoleonic’ legal systems, draws no distinction between determining guilt and sentencing. Both are, of course, determined by the same magistrates or judges. As a result, French courts often hear defendants’ lawyers insist upon their client’s innocence with one breath, before saying that ‘should the judges find them guilty, their sentence should be light because…’. This is all very bizarre to

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Keir vs Nigel, ID cards and Trump’s peace deal

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, addressed delegates at the Labour party conference in Liverpool who had been issued with little flags of the home nations to wave. He said Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, ‘doesn’t like Britain, doesn’t believe in Britain’. He had earlier put forward the difficult argument that Farage’s party was ‘racist’ in its migrant policy while Reform supporters were not racist but ‘frustrated’. Asked seven times whether there would be VAT rises, he repeated that ‘the manifesto stands’. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, promised to keep ‘taxes, inflation and interest rates as low as possible’. Ofgem raised the energy price cap

Owen Matthews

Moldova has been saved from Russian influence, but at what cost?

The European Union, guardian and champion of democracy, rightly takes a dim view when ruling parties ban their opponents, refuse to open polling stations in areas likely to vote against them, censor opposition news channels and allow a large staff of foreign election monitors to police social media in the run-up. If Serbia, say, or Georgia tried systematic election rigging of this kind, Brussels would be the first to call foul and disregard the result as illegitimate. But when it’s the EU that’s running the interference, as in Moldova this week, the rules are apparently quite different. This week the pro-EU party of Maia Sandu, Moldova’s President and a former

Wednesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Could Mamdani win through a ‘conspiracy of cock ups’?

41 min listen

Zohran Mamdani is widely expected to win the race to be the next New York City mayor. The contest is now a three horse race between Mamdani, the Republican candidate Curtis Silwa and Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor. Current democratic mayor Eric Adams was also running but pulled out this week. David Kaufman, who worked on the Adams campaign, joins Freddy Gray in New York to dissect the race. They discuss the democratic ‘cock ups’ that led to Mamdani’s selection, the impact of the war in Gaza on the race and the dimension of identity politics. Could he win as the ‘anti-Trump’ candidate?

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

When will David Lammy learn that Nazi smears don’t work?

Is the Third Reich living rent-free in David Lammy’s head? Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister has accused Donald Trump of being a ‘neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath’, likened the Tory European Research Group to Hitler’s National Socialists – and now he has claimed that Reform leader Nigel Farage ‘flirted’ with the Hitler Youth as a youngster. ‘I will leave it for the public to come to their own judgements about someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger,’ Lammy said of Farage. Who knew Reform’s leader – born in 1964 – had been around in 1930s Germany? In response to Lammy’s latest Nazi sighting, a Reform source told the BBC: ‘It’s disgusting

Elvira Bary

Putin’s dads’ and lags’ army is struggling

The news that Vladimir Putin is pushing for 135,000 new young recruits in ‘the biggest autumn conscription’ for nearly ten years comes as no surprise. Recently, the Russian leader’s war-machine has been scraping the bottom of the barrel: convicts freed from prison, men in their sixties, debt-ridden farmers, factory workers pulled straight off the line…and foreigners who don’t even speak Russian. The Russian leader’s war-machine has been scraping the bottom of the barrel When Putin began his ‘special military operation’ in February 2022, he expected the entire nation to rally in support of his war. But reality hit hard: plunging approval ratings, economic collapse, and a mass exodus. When partial

Tuesday

Matthew Lynn

Will Trump turn Gaza into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’?

There are plenty of legitimate questions to be asked about the Trump-Blair peace plan for ending the conflict with Israel. Will Hamas ever agree to it? Will any peace deal hold? Will the wider Middle East get behind it? And will Sir Tony Blair ever be able to overcome the legacy of his earlier military adventures in the region to establish any kind of authority? But there is also another question that we must ask. If this peace does hold, can Trump and Blair turn Gaza into a cross between Dubai and Singapore – or is that completely deluded? All the immediate attention will, of course, be on whether this

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Have we gone to war with Russia without realising?

Has the world turned upside-down? Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, generally known for his toxic social media posts packed with threat and vitriol, is turning down the volume, while various Western public figures are determinedly turning it up. Yesterday, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, in what he called ‘a sentence that may be a little shocking at first glance,’ stated that ‘we are not at war, but we are no longer at peace either.’ Actually, this was relatively mild. Meanwhile, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk was describing the current confrontation between Europe and Russia as a ‘new type of war’ at the opening of the Warsaw Security Forum. Likewise, on Sunday’s