Politics

First came the claims that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was admitted to hospital in Bali on arriving for the G20 summit. No, we were then told by spokeswoman Maria Zakharova – it was ‘the ultimate fake’. Then local accounts emerged, saying that he popped in ‘for a check-up’. But does any of it matter? On the face of it, it should. Vladimir Putin, true to form, havered as to whether to attend the summit, apparently deciding less than a week beforehand not to, both for security reasons but also because he knew that he would hardly get a warm welcome. The prospect of being publicly shunned and taken to

Donald Trump has some well-proven abilities – the ability to cost Republicans winnable elections for the House and Senate, the ability to undermine citizens’ confidence in election outcomes (without providing solid proof the elections were stolen) and the ability to foment some of America’s worst, anti-democratic elements. Trump’s status as party leader contributed to Republicans’ anemic showing in 2022. He was hardly alone in dragging down the party, but he contributed to the losses in two ways. First, the candidates he pushed over the finish line in the primaries disappointed in the general election. His only clear-cut victory was the endorsement of J.D. Vance in Ohio, who won the Senate

Former US president Donald Trump last night announced his candidacy for the 2024 election at his Florida resort in Mar-a-Lago in a swanky ballroom. The room was adorned in gold and Trump had a row of American flags at his back as he said he would run for president for the third time. Trump earned some ire from the GOP base last week when he attacked Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, but this has not released his grip on the Republican Party. He opened his speech with a promise: ‘America’s comeback starts now.’ It’s ‘Make America Great Again’ …again.  ‘This is not a task… for a

‘I don’t think anyone knows,’ someone close to Donald Trump told me at the end of last week. ‘My guess is he does but that’s just a guess.’  My question, of course, was ‘Is Donald Trump still going to announce?’ — despite the mid-term disappointments for his movement and the increasing certainty among Republican analysts that the party cannot win with him as its public face?  He’s expected to announce at 9 pm Eastern Standard Time – 2 am tomorrow, BST – after he declared yesterday on his Truth Social media platform that ‘Hopefully, tomorrow will turn out to be one of the most important days in the history of

It used to be said that political parties were Eurosceptic in opposition, but Europhile in government. The same perhaps could now be said of China. Back in July, Rishi Sunak was keen to talk tough on the Beijing behemoth, which he called Britain’s ‘biggest long-term threat’. He tweeted that ‘China and the Chinese Communist party represent the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century’. And Sunak also accused China of ‘stealing our technology and infiltrating our universities’ in one punchy attack: Abroad, they are propping up Putin’s fascist invasion of Ukraine by buying his oil and attempting to bully their neighbours, including Taiwan. They are saddling

Iran’s protest movement appears to be coming to a head. It’s been going on for two months, since the country’s ‘morality police’ beat Mahsa Amini, a young woman visiting Tehran, into a coma from which she never recovered earlier this year. The reason these thugs gave for dragging her into their van was that she was wearing her mandatory hijab incorrectly. Ever since, Iranians of all ages, across the country, have been on the streets, protesting for ‘women, life, freedom’.  Now the violence of that initial act is radiating outwards. From the ominous steps being taken by the Iranian state, and the extra-legal killers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,