World

In this week’s books podcast I’m talking to Helen Parr about her remarkable new book Our Boys: The Story of A Paratrooper, which blends memoir, social history and military history to tell the story of the paratroopers who fought in the Falklands War and what happened when they came home — or, as in the case of Parr’s 19-year-old uncle, didn’t. Helen talks about what civilians can and can’t know of the experience of men who kill and risk death in combat, about the history of the paratroop regiment, and the sea-change in Britain’s relationship with its serving soldiers and its veterans that took place from the 1980s onwards.

Guido Fawkes has a disturbing video of a protest outside the home of Jacob Rees-Mogg from yesterday. There are demonstrators bearing a banner, at least one of whom is wearing a mask, and police officers are there. One of the demonstrators harangues Rees-Mogg before turning on his children and shouting at them: ‘Your daddy is a totally horrible person. Lots of people don’t like your daddy, you know that? No, he’s probably not told you about that. Lots of people hate him.’ The same man then begins sarcastically interrogating the children’s nanny about her pay and conditions. When she tries to assure him the Rees-Moggs are good employers, he tells

Serena Williams has just set back the cause of women’s equality. Not by losing her cool during the final of the US Open: women are as entitled to temper tantrums as men are. No, it was her playing of the misogyny card that has potentially harmed the cause of women. It was the fact that no sooner had the umpire imposed penalties on her for her bad behaviour than she was crying ‘Sexism!’. Such a cynical use of feministic language to try to deflect attention from one’s own behaviour does nobody any favours — not Serena herself, and certainly not women more broadly. Serena had a rough final. She ended

The Spectator’s leading article last week ended up saying ‘It is unrealistic to expect that we can achieve what China has in Africa over the past decade.’ If we were to have done that, I for one would wish to resign my British nationality. What they have done there for the past 30 years is to systematically rape and pillage the continent. China has insidiously worked its way into Africa by establishing ‘private’ contractors who then bid for building work and underbid all local opposition by being state-funded. Many local firms were thus put out of business. Their ‘aid’ projects — starting with the ill-fated TanZam railway — were funded

Jonathan Sacks’ radio series Morality in the 21st Century is a useful introduction to the subject, with some good contributions from world-renowned experts, but it’s rather one-sided. Almost all of these world-renowned experts (such as Jordan Peterson, Robert Putnam, David Brooks) share his approach. There is not much airing of other views, or questioning of basic assumptions. The series is another blast on the communitarian trumpet. Communitarianism is the view that individualism has gone too far, that secular liberalism has descended into selfishness, that a shared moral code has got lost. It has been a major intellectual movement since the mid 1980s. One of its central metaphors is thinness and

Under David Remnick’s editorship, the New Yorker has become stronger than ever during a period where many titles have collapsed. So you’d think he might be able to fend off the kind of nonsense he’s just experienced. The New Yorker has branched out to publish unmissable podcasts, regular emails, blogs and events which combine to push the magazine sales up 10pc. Remnick hasn’t torn it up and started again. He managed to keep everything the same, by changing everything: projecting and protecting the magazine’s identity, on and off the page. So when he decided to conduct an interview with Steve Bannon live on stage, as part of the New Yorker Festival, it was

In this week’s Life’n’Arts podcast, I talk with Nell Breyer, Executive Director of the Association of Marshall Scholars, about the United States and Great Britain in the age of Donald Trump, and the Marshall Scholarships, an unsung element of the postwar architecture of Atlantic security. In 1953, the British government, led by Winston Churchill, created the Marshall Scholarships as a gesture of gratitude from Britain to the United States for its support during the War, and for the Marshall Plan, economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe between 1948 and 1953. Notable alumni include two current Supreme Court Justices, Stephen Breyer and Neil Gorsuch, and the late 2008 Nobel Prize

 Washington, DC No one knows who will prevail, but the ‘hang ’em high’ crowd seems to have an advantage The Democrats will face a dilemma if they win control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections. Should they impeach President Trump over the Russia affair? Or should they impeach him over the Stormy Daniels porn-star payoff? Or should they impeach him over something else? There’s no doubt the party’s base of voters is more than ready to stick it to Trump. A recent poll by Axios found that 79 per cent of Democrats believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings. And that’s now. Imagine how they will feel if