World

President Erdogan is no stranger to blackmailing the EU. He has previously used migrants as a ‘loaded gun’ with which to threaten European leaders. The message is clear: do what I say, or I’ll open the floodgates. This week, he’s been back to his old tricks – bashing the EU and making it clear that if membership talks failed, Turkey would open its borders and allow its three million refugees to stream into Europe. But what sparked this latest resurgence of fighting talk from Erdogan? The clue lies in the vote last week in Strasbourg, when 479 MEPs backed a decision to halt the process of Turkey’s EU accession. This seemed like a long-due

Of all the government departments, it’s the Department for International Trade that manages to find itself in the firing line the most often. Whether it’s a turf war between the department and the rest of Whitehall or reports of Liam Fox instructing civil servants to read his book, it’s safe to say the department has not had the easiest ride. So, Mr S was intrigued to see that they are now recruiting for a ‘Head of Media’. The lucky candidate will also need to provide personal press advice to Fox — presumably this will involve telling him not to drink copious amounts of champagne on the terrace and making sure he surrounds

Since Netflix released The Crown, much praise has been heaped on the network for the royal drama. In fact, the series — a dramatisation of the Queen’s early years — has proved so impressive that several critics have suggested the future of quality drama lies online rather than with broadcasters like the BBC. So, with that in mind, Mr S was intrigued to learn of a BBC article on the series that the corporation have been pushing of late. In a piece titled ‘Did the Queen stop Princess Margaret marrying Peter Townsend?’ for the BBC magazine, Paul Reynolds — the former BBC Court correspondent — argues that the ‘lavish’ drama ‘perpetuates the myth’ that Princess

Those in charge of civilisation have been quick to compare Donald Trump to Silvio ‘bunga bunga’ Berlusconi as part of their crusade to deliver us from evil. The similarities between the Yankie and the Latino – despite the racial chasm that divides them – are just too good to be true. Both are dodgy tycoons, sex criminals, and filthy fascists. Both have dangerous levels of respect for Vladimir Putin. This, at any rate, is the message put out by those who tell us that we live in an era of post-truth but which we know is in fact the era of home-truth. In the case of Berlusconi, those responsible have not –

Why are left-wing dictators always treated with more reverential respect when they die than right-wing ones, even on the Right? The deaths of dictators like Franco, Pinochet, Somoza are rightly noted with their history of human rights abuses front and centre, but the same treatment is not meted out to left-wing dictators who were just as monstrously cruel to people who opposed their regimes. The death of Fidel Castro is a perfect case in point. BBC News described him as ‘one of the world’s longest-serving and most iconic leaders’ only mentioning in the fourth paragraph that ‘Critics saw him as a dictator’. Critics?! What other objective noun is there for

It wasn’t long after Donald Trump had appeared on election night to thank his supporters for delivering him an extraordinary victory when the first reports emerged of protests on the West Coast. Videos showed students at UC Berkeley and elsewhere marching through their campuses, chanting expletives about Trump. The next day, as Hillary Clinton conceded defeat, more organised marches began in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. #NotMyPresident was the rallying cry and the hashtag. Trump Tower, the site of unthreatening mini-protests throughout the campaign, was now targeted by much bigger demos. The NYPD soon shut off the entire block. American progressives are now working out how they are going to resist Trump’s presidency for the next four

Under Robert Chote, the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) was meticulous about positioning itself as politically neutral. Since he left to run the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) and Paul Johnson took over it has been far more relaxed about its political position. Increasingly it comes across as yet another centre-left think tank attacking the government’s ‘austerity’ policies. Today, the IFS put out a projection of wage growth over the next four years, taking into account yesterday’s autumn statement. The eye-catching headline is that real earnings will be lower in 2020/21 than they were in 2007/08, at the beginning of the financial crash. Johnson claimed that: “One cannot stress how