Society

Sunday

Justin Bronk

Why the West is reluctant to give Ukraine F-16s

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago, the questions of if, when and how to supply the Ukrainian Air Force (UkrAF) with western fighter aircraft have been a matter of fierce debate. President Zelenskyy has made repeated and impassioned calls for American-made F-16s in particular, as have UkrAF leaders and pilots.   Russia has a dense and highly lethal network of ground-based surface-to-air missile systems A significant majority of people in Europe and the United States want to see Ukraine emerge victorious and at peace on its own terms as soon as possible. Therefore, it is natural that many are wondering why it is taking so long for

Saturday

Daniel DePetris

China won’t have gained much from its spy balloon

If you didn’t know any better, you might have thought China was preparing to unleash a large-scale invasion on the continental United States. News of a Chinese surveillance balloon loitering over the picturesque landscape of Montana generated a wave of sensationalist coverage and panicked responses from lawmakers. We don’t know much about the balloon other than what the Pentagon has told us: the device, which was orbiting miles above the earth, made its way through Alaska’s Aleutian Islands into Canada before flying somewhere over Montana and drifting across the continental United States. On Friday, the Pentagon reported a second balloon flying somewhere over Latin America. And then this evening, according to

Nigel Jones

Is Germany the West’s weakest link?

At the height of the Cold War, it was Britain that appeared to be infested with Russian spies and moles. From the 1950s to the 1980s a series of security scandals, from the defections to Moscow of the Cambridge spies Burgess, Maclean and Philby, to the exposure of the Queen’s art advisor Anthony Blunt as a Soviet mole, made Britain in the eyes of her allies the weakest link in confronting Communist Russia.  Today, with a real war involving Russia raging in Ukraine, that dubious ‘honour’ belongs to Germany. The Daily Telegraph has named a man arrested in December on suspicion of supplying secrets to Moscow as Carsten Linke, a 52-year-old ex-soldier

Alexander Larman

Is the world ready for a Harry and Meghan rom com?

Those of us unlucky enough to have suffered through the six interminable hours of the Netflix Harry and Meghan series might now be regarding further updates from the less-than-dynamic duo with the same excitement that a dental patient looks forward to a round of root canal. But because the Sussexes have signed a multi-year deal with the streaming service in 2020, Netflix remains determined to get its money’s worth, and has decided what Harry and Meghan’s next venture with them should be: romantic comedies. A source at the company has informed the Daily Telegraph that ‘There will be more of a heavy focus on fictional, scripted content. It will be

Anna Arutunyan

Putin will stick to his world war two narrative – it’s all he’s got left

‘It’s unbelievable but true,’ Vladmir Putin said on the 80th anniversary of the conclusion of the battle of Stalingrad. ‘We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks.’ The Russian president is once again turning to an old staple he has often used to rally support in the absence of a genuine, unifying ideology: the great patriotic war, as the Russians call the eastern front in world war two. And this time, he’s doing it as he wages a war in Ukraine he has sought to portray as existential, while Russia struggles to mobilise resources, personnel and morale. What Russia needed was a reckoning with its past – but what

Joanna Williams

Playgrounds are no place for Pride parades

Parents standing at the school gate have all kinds of hopes and expectations. They want their children to be happy, well looked-after and to learn something. Thankfully, most teachers agree. But for some classroom activists, education is less about the three Rs and more about LGBTQ+. Rather than geography and history, they teach gender identity and sexuality. Instead of team sports, they might encourage ten-year-old girls who bind their chest to do something less energetic. And rather than Easter bonnet parades there are Pride marches. That’s right. Playground Pride Parades. For four year-olds. Back in 2018, the head teacher of Heavers Farm Primary School in south east London decided to

Theo Davies-Lewis

Welsh rugby is on the brink of collapse

Rugby is a gladiatorial game – as Wales’s Six Nations match today against Ireland will surely prove. But even the greatest commentators in the sport, such as the late Eddie Butler and Cliff Morgan, would wince reading the script of Welsh rugby’s spiralling decline.  Wales has been more reliant on rugby to form the guardrails of national identity than almost any other country. Now the sport faces an ‘existential crisis’ in Wales. If anything those words, from the new head of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), are an understatement. They follow a BBC Wales investigation into the WRU last month which unearthed serious allegations of misogyny, sexism and racism inside the governing body. The

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Britain’s borders have become a joke

Were anyone still in doubt about the wholesale abuse of our asylum system by would-be economic migrants then the ever-changing make-up of the Channel boat arrivals should seal the argument. Last year Albanians were among the leading nationalities of those suddenly finding themselves in fear for their lives in war-torn France. Many of them also claimed to have been subjected to ‘modern slavery’ as defined by the do-gooding legislation of one Theresa May. Belatedly, the UK government appears to be getting to grips with the Albanian racket. The right-wing economist Milton Friedman observed that a country could have open borders or a welfare state, but not both Yet a new

Sergey Radchenko

It’s time to talk about Nato membership for Ukraine

There was a time when Ukraine’s accession to Nato was a fantasy. It wasn’t just that Ukraine was dismally poor, politically unstable, or highly corrupt – though all these factors played a role. Nor was it just that Ukraine’s rusting, unwieldy post-Soviet wreck of an armed force was not exactly Nato material.   The bigger reason was Russia. The West wanted to indulge Russia and to partner with it. It wanted Russia to know that while its claims to a special sphere of influence in Ukraine could not be publicly accepted, they could and would be tacitly respected if Russia learned to behave.  Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine upended all that. The

Friday

Matthew Scott

How will Mason Greenwood fare in the court of public opinion?

Mason Greenwood’s future at Manchester United remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: the footballer will not be available for selection for HMP Strangeways next season. Greenwood – by all accounts an absurdly talented young footballer – had faced charges of attempted rape, ABH and controlling and coercive behaviour. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced yesterday that they were discontinuing the prosecution: ‘… a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material that came to light meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction. In these circumstances, we are under a duty to stop the case.’ It is no criticism of the CPS to say that

Annabel Denham

What striking workers don’t tell you about public sector pay

You’ve got to hand it to the trade unions: they’ve done a fine job rallying the public behind industrial action that has caused widespread disruption and inconvenience. Despite train cancellations, school closures and medical appointment delays, nearly two-thirds of the British back the nurses’ walkout and close to half back the teachers’ strike. Even sizeable minorities support the ongoing train strikes, according to recent polling.  The argument from the unions – that their hardworking members deserve a hefty pay rise (in order to ‘improve service’) – has captured the public imagination. But how many of those who complete YouGov or Opinium surveys stop to consider the huge discrepancy between public and private

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Piers Morgan is no match for slick Rishi Sunak

Gold wallpaper? All gone. That was the first big revelation of Piers Morgan’s interview with Rishi Sunak to mark the PM’s 100th day in No. 10. Every trace of Boris’s trailer-trash décor has been replaced with squeaky-clean white visuals. Piers and Rishi went head-to-head in a characterless kitchen-diner that looked like the show-home of a new-build flat in Milton Keynes. Piers got straight down to business and raised the issue that obsesses the entire nation: himself. He boasted that he’d reached No. 10 long before Rishi when he interviewed Tony Blair many years ago; he recalled that the Blairs had a singing fish nailed to the wall that crooned, ‘Don’t Worry,

David Marcus

Gender self-ID and the challenge for America’s children

America’s Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wisely advised this week that thirteen years of age is too young for kids to be on social media. Hear, hear. But we must ask: if thirteen is not old enough for Twitter or Facebook, how is it, according to the Biden administration, totally old enough to opt for life-changing hormone blockers if a child just knows deep down they are a different gender? According to Murthy, thirteen-year-olds are still ‘developing their identity’. Therefore, he rightly reasons, the experience of social media with all of its mean-spiritedness and self-aggrandisement may harm a child who stares too long into its distorted funhouse mirror. But if a thirteen-year-old is

Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson

Do mask mandates work?

This week there was an update to a Cochrane review, which studies the way physical interventions can interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. The review, which Tom Jefferson is the lead author of, looks at evidence from 78 randomised trials with over 610,000 participants. In other words, this review is exactly the sort of higher-quality evidence you want when making healthcare decisions.   The review’s fifth update looked at handwashing, antiseptic use, social distancing and barriers such as masks, gloves, gowns and visors. Given past controversies, it’s worth looking at what the review says about the effects medical or surgical masks have on the way respiratory diseases spread.   Interestingly, 12 trials in the

William D. Cohan

The anti-Midas touch of Mad Money’s Jim Cramer

When Tesla, the electric-car company controlled by Elon Musk, went public in June 2010, pricing its IPO at $17 per share, Jim Cramer, the ubiquitous and highly confident American TV anchor, proclaimed on his show Mad Money that investors should avoid the stock at all costs. It was a ‘Sell! Sell! Sell!’ Cramer announced in his typical over-the-top, over-caffeinated style. But he wasn’t finished with his diatribe, not by a long shot. ‘You don’t want to own this stock,’ he continued. ‘You don’t want to lease it. Heck, you shouldn’t even rent the darn thing.’ The next day, another CNBC reporter found Musk on the streets of Manhattan and told him what

Thursday

Terry Barnes

Why is Australia’s bank snubbing King Charles?

Traditionally, the reigning monarch has appeared on the lowest denomination of Australia’s banknotes. It is a practice that harks back to the pound notes of pre-decimal days. It was even maintained by the Reserve Bank when the one-dollar note was replaced by a gold coin in the 1980s, and the Queen took the colonial philanthropist Caroline Chisholm’s place on the $5 note. This was controversial at the time, but only briefly. Before long, the Queen’s place on the $5 note was fully accepted. This remained so until her death in September. Today, however, our central bank showed its tin political ear with its announcement that the image of the late

Christopher Snowdon

Why is the British Medical Journal investigating the Beano?

One of the regular characters in Viz is an old woman called Meddlesome Ratbag who goes to great lengths to engineer situations in which she can be offended so she can complain to the authorities. I was reminded of her this morning when I read the British Medical Journal‘s investigation into the Beano. Yes, you did read that correctly. One of the world’s leading medical journals has been devoting its attention to a children’s comic. It turns out the Beano has a popular website that has been visited by nearly 48 million kids since its launch in 2016, according to the investigators. It stands accused of mentioning the brand names

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Have interest rates finally peaked?

Markets expected another interest rate rise today of 50 basis points. That’s exactly what they got. This afternoon the Bank of England has announced its tenth rate rise in a row, from 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent.  The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 7-2 to raise rates to 4 per cent; two members voted to hold the bank rate at 3.5 per cent, exposing the dovish leaning that has been a feature of the MPC during the pandemic years. This created a credibility issue for the Bank, as it failed to act on inflation for so long, putting itself in a position of having to play catch-up with

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Shame on the Cardinal Pell funeral protesters

In Sydney today, the LGBT movement had its Westboro Baptist Church moment. It protested at someone’s funeral. Like that cranky religious sect in the US that noisily demonstrates at the funerals of soldiers, LGBT activists waved placards calling the deceased a ‘monster’ and ‘scum’. They chanted for him to ‘go to hell’. ‘Burn in hell’, said one banner. ‘Nonce’, said another. It was a truly disturbing spectacle. A new low in identity politics. It was Cardinal Pell’s funeral. Pell was Australia’s most important Catholic leader. He served as Archbishop of Melbourne and later as Archbishop of Sydney. He then went to Rome where he was Secretariat for the Economy in

Ursula Buchan

Where to find the finest snowdrops 

Who does not love a snowdrop? The pure white of their pendulous petals may be chilly, but who cares when they flower in the chilliest months, often on their own, or accompanied only by hellebores and aconites. I grow a number of snowdrop species and cultivated varieties, as well as unnamed seedlings that seem to appear out of nowhere, since these bulbs are relentlessly promiscuous. They pop up especially in shady borders under deciduous shrubs or among evergreen and herbaceous perennials, and they are the best sight to greet me on my daily garden walks in January and February.  The word ‘galanthophile’ does not quite convey the fanaticism of the