World

This morning, we woke up to the terrible news that two bombs had exploded in Brussels airport. Having been through it a few days ago, unfortunately I can’t say I’m surprised that this attack has happened in this particular airport. When I arrived at Brussels airport on Sunday I expected to see a heavy police presence, especially given that Salah Abdeslam – the terror suspect who had been on the run since the Paris attacks – had been arrested two days previously in Brussels. Even then, the authorities had been warning of a retaliatory attack. And for good reason: a large number of weapons had also been found in raids in

Normally, the Republican National Convention is a mere formality. The primary voters pick the presidential nominee, who in turn picks the vice presidential nominee and then the convention officially ratifies both choices. Delegates can mostly go sightseeing in the host city by day and listen to political speeches at night. There is nothing normal about the 2016 Republican presidential race, currently being won by real estate developer and reality television star Donald Trump. July’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland may be no exception: it could actually play a meaningful role in choosing the party’s presidential candidate this time. Candidates win and lose the primary and caucus election happening all over

In another extraordinary development the pensions minister, Ros Altmann, has released a statement attacking her former boss Iain Duncan Smith. She reinforces the No10 line that Iain Duncan Smith “championed the very package of reforms to disability benefits he now says is the reason he has resigned” and accuses him of being very hard to work for. Her reaction is odd in that she said nothing about his departure for 24 hours, then at 9pm last night released a series of tweets culminating in her statement saying his attacks on the government can be explained by his position as a Brexiteer. So was she encouraged by No10? Her statement is strikingly

The prime suspect for the Paris terrorist attacks has just been captured in a police raid in (you guessed it) Brussels. Salah Abdeslam has been shot in the leg by police commandos, we’re told, and has been taken for questioning. Where did they find him? In Molenbeek, the district that has quickly become known as the terrorist hub of Europe. “We got him,” the Belgian Justice minister has declared. But what he should worry about is how Belgium came to get so many Islamic hardliners in the first place. For months, now, Molenbeek has been under intense scrutiny. Investigators believe that at least two of the terrorists who carried out the Bataclan attacks had been living there. It’s a heavily Muslim

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/spectatorpolitics/georgeosbornesbudget-2016/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth discuss the Budget”] Listen [/audioplayer]Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. The Budget the Chancellor has just delivered is actually a culmination of six years of failure. This is a recovery built on sand and a Budget built on failure. The Chancellor has failed on the budget deficit failed on debt, failed on investment, failed on productivity, failed on the trade deficit, failed on his own welfare cap and failed to tackle inequality in this country. And today Mr Deputy Speaker, he’s announced growth is revised down. Last year, this year, every year they forecast business investment revised down, government investment revised down. It’s a very

My word, what a disgrace! What an outrage! Isn’t it deplorable that the President of the United States has the gall to offer an opinion on the merits of an argument that will have some significant impact on the future of one of the United States’ closest allies? The arrogance and sheer effrontery of the man! Sheer piffle, of course, but it seems to be the case that those people who think the United Kingdom should leave the European Union are the tenderest, most easily-bruised, people in the realm. So it is unacceptable that Barack Obama should poke his nose into someone else’s business and suggest, in temperate terms, his country’s

Liverpudlians are enjoying that Friday feeling thanks to new research showing that their city tops the list of affordable property hotspots. According to Which? Mortgage Advisers, Liverpool has seen the average price of a home soar by 40 per cent in the past five years. But the good news is tempered by the fact that prices in the city are still well below the UK average of £200,000. [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/jkQqd/index.html”] Conwy in South Wales and Bradford are in second and third place with price rises of 37 per cent and 36 per cent respectively. David Blake from Which? Mortgage Advisers, said: ‘For a first-time buyer or a buy-to-let investor, these up and coming

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thedeportationgame/media.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Don Flynn from the Migrants’ Rights Network discuss deportation”] Listen [/audioplayer]There are two great deportation games. One is the carousel which Rod Liddle describes — but even this, for all its madness, pales alongside the border-security catastrophe unfolding on the continent. Thanks to geography and a few sensible decisions by our government, Britain has so far been spared the worst of the migrant crisis. But we should pity most of the other European countries, because they are losing control not just of their borders but of their civilisation and culture — the whole caboodle. Defenders of Europe’s disastrous recent border policies are keen to point

Last week French minister Emmanuel Macron emerged at the forefront of the Brexit debate, warning that if Britain leaves the EU, it would seriously threaten Anglo-French relations. In particular, he was referring to the Touquet agreement, which allows Britain to carry out border controls – and therefore keep migrants away – on the French side of the Channel. ‘The day this relationship unravels, migrants will no longer be in Calais,’ he said. But if the French want to play that game, I say, let’s play it too. We’ve survived centuries of relatively cordial relations with our nearest neighbours, despite the Hundred Years’ War, various sieges (Calais, Orleans) and multiple battles (Hastings, Trafalgar, Waterloo). Yet 23 June