All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Budapest Russian troops, many apparently without insignia, began advancing into the disputed Donbas region yesterday. The question now is how much further they will go. The Donbas rebels claim an area three times the size of the territory they currently hold, which is roughly equivalent to the area of Devon. If Moscow were to try
‘He has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.’ So once said Robert Gates, the former US defence secretary, of the now president Joe Biden. We don’t yet know if Biden is wrong about the current Ukraine crisis. We may be about to find out.
Whatever the West’s response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty, the crisis demonstrates the limitations of western politics and policy across the board. If Vladimir Putin understands any demographic better than the Russian people, it is the governing class of the West: that Harvard-Oxbridge-Sciences Po axis of toweringly smug and practically interchangeable global-liberals who weep
The star of the Beijing Winter Olympics wasn’t an athlete: it was Bing Dwen Dwen, the spacesuit-clad panda mascot. It was deployed to cover the harsher political edges of the games, and was romping around on the ice at the closing gala. Bing Dwen Dwen is only the latest example of China’s use of ‘panda
It’s been a month since Christian Wakeford defected to Labour but the former Tory publicly insists he is loving life in opposition. Despite appearing as happy as a hostage victim when he ‘crossed the floor,’ the Bury South MP claims the ‘quite nasty personal’ attacks on him from former colleague vindicate his decision to leave. With
President Emmanuel Macron may or may not have imagined that his mission to Moscow would head off armed conflict in Ukraine. He will nevertheless have calculated that while his mission was an abject diplomatic failure, it was a modest political success. The French pro-Macron media (most of it) bigged up the visit as a triumph
Today’s snap decision by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to halt Nord Stream 2 — the new pipeline intended to export vast amounts of Russian gas into the EU — will make precisely no difference to European energy security, at least in the short to medium term. It could force a rethink of Berlin’s longer-term energy
Boris Johnson has just got up in the Commons to announce Britain’s response to the ongoing Ukraine crisis. Vladimir Putin last night ordered troops into two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine run by Moscow-backed separatists, prompting fears that the balloon is about to go up. There are a lot of grim faces in Parliament today as
The sanctions that Boris Johnson has just announced in response to Russia’s breach of international law are fairly underwhelming. Five banks are being hit, three rich individuals and those members of the Duma who voted to unilaterally recognise the breakaway republics. They will not make Moscow take notice in the way that the decision end
The BBC seem to be having some difficulties filling their top job. Laura Kuenssberg is off as the corporation’s political editor after nearly seven years in the post, prompting a bun fight for the most high-profile job in British broadcasting. Yet it seems many of the would-be candidates have other ideas. First Mr S revealed that
So, Nord Stream 2 will not be plugged into Germany’s gas grid. A little surprisingly, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been first out of the blocks this morning in the western economic response to Putin’s recognition of breakaway states in eastern Ukraine. The block is not total: what Scholz says is that the certification process for
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Last night Vladimir Putin gave an hour-long television address to the Russian people over his decision to move troops into Ukraine. Amid international condemnation, Boris Johnson held a Cobra meeting this morning to discuss the UK’s next moves. Meanwhile, Germany has put the brakes on Nord Stream 2. ‘The ball is now back in Vladimir
Vladimir Putin’s threats towards Ukraine have, in part, been an operation in stoking divisions throughout the West. As James Forsyth explains in the magazine’s latest cover piece, it was just weeks ago that Germany was not on the same page as the US and the UK about what actions from Putin might classify as an
Few people in Westminster have a good word to say about the Theresa May years. But for those who served at the heart of the former PM’s doomed administration, life now seems to be pretty sweet. Take Sir Robbie Gibb, May’s director of communications, who now runs his own firm, RPG Consultancy. The company published its accounts
‘Hate is not welcome in Scotland’, apparently, at least according to a public information film released in 2018 by the Scottish government. ‘We believe in acceptance, and it’s time you accept that’ continue the bright-eyed young people featured in the ad. Anyone who believes in this uplifting message might be puzzled if they pop into
The Lithuanian prime minister, Ingrida Šimonyte, put it well yesterday: ‘the way we respond will define us for the generations to come’. The invasion of Ukraine started last night with Vladimir Putin’s order to send troops into eastern Ukraine. He had earlier recognised the breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, which together constitute the Donbas region,
Vladimir Putin does like to keep us guessing. While western governments were warning in increasingly apocalyptic terms of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, instead he has chosen to recognise the Donbas and Lugansk pseudo-states and to send in Russian ‘peacekeepers’. Is this a step back, forward, or sideways? Only Vladimir Vladimirovich knows for sure. The
The White House told us with absolute certainty that there would be an invasion of Ukraine this week — instead Vladimir Putin bit off a chunk of Ukraine without firing a shot. Perhaps it seemed to him that recognising the two breakaway territories of Luhansk and Donetsk was a clever move: he had not, after
Vladimir Putin has tonight unilaterally recognised the two breakaway republics in Ukraine. In doing so, he has effectively ended the Minsk peace process. The move also begs the question of whether Putin is recognising the territory that these so-called republics actually hold, or the much larger territory that they claim. If the latter, then that
Boris Johnson certainly managed to rally the troops on their first day back from recess this afternoon as he told the Commons that all remaining domestic Covid restrictions were coming to an end. The most explosive moments of the past few months haven’t been about the continuation of Covid restrictions From this Thursday, the legal
Mr S enjoys a good show: many of the best dramas are to be found on the Westminster stage. After all, what is politics but show business for ugly people? But away from SW1, Mr S has found a cast of characters even more histrionic than the performers of Westminster. For just down the Thames in Southwark, the right-on
From the 1980s to 2017, at least every five years, China’s National Party Congress would be a moment of intriguing flux in the usually staid public politics of the Chinese Communist party. Rising stars are promoted, the old retired and, every other Congress, a new Secretary General would be appointed. Beforehand, a flurry of papers and opinion
Tensions on the Ukraine border are continuing to increase. Worryingly, Russian state media has gone from mocking Washington’s warnings of an invasion to ramping up the various pretexts that the Kremlin is trying to create for one. The leaders of the two self-proclaimed breakaway republics in the Donbas have been on Russian TV today asking
Vladimir Putin does not think in the way the West does. Of course sanctions will hurt. But so what? He may be wrong in his strategic calculations, but he is not, as Boris Johnson claimed over the weekend, irrational. Putin is an old-school strategist. This is one of the reasons that sanctions will not have
The news that the Queen had tested positive for Covid must have sent a shiver of dread down the spines of all but a tiny minority of hardhearted Republicans. Most of us don’t want to even imagine a country bereft of the monarch who has been a seemingly immortal part of the fabric of the
‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ said Churchill. And it seems the SNP have taken that maxim to heart, judging by the alacrity with which they’ve sought to exploit the current rumblings over Ukraine. Alyn Smith, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, was straight out there in a fuel-guzzling jet at the beginning of the month, accompanied
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With Boris Johnson set to announce the end of legal Covid restrictions later today, how will people respond? Will they continue to isolate, or choose to go about their life even if they have the virus? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth, Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson about the change, as well as the continuing
Quite the constitutional twist, yesterday. Just as what Walter Bagehot called the efficient side of our ruling set-up was merrily announcing a final bonfire of the Covid regulations, the dignified side (aka her Majesty the Queen) was letting it be known that she has contracted Covid. Not what you’d call perfect timing. Taking the wide
Nadhim Zahawi’s recent reminder to schools to keep their teaching politically neutral seems like common sense. The Education Secretary pointed to existing laws to show that while uncritical promotion of BLM ideology or climate activism to children wasn’t acceptable, controversial matters could still be taught with proper balance. But there were still predictable howls of protest from the usual
Sadiq Khan had a jolly old time this weekend. First, the £152,000-a-year mayor got to watch Liverpool beat Norwich for free at Anfield on Saturday. And then, hours later, he received another complimentary ticket to watch the boxing at the Manchester Arena, where his friend and namesake Amir Khan was battered by northerner Kell Brook. But while
When Boris Johnson gave an interview on Sunday to the BBC’s Sophie Raworth, he was not keen to talk about partygate – refusing to do so 17 times – but he did want to make hay with his plan to end all legally-binding Covid restrictions in the coming days. At the end of the interview,
It’s been a tough time for Boris and Carrie recently, so what better else than a night on the town? The Prime Minister has grown used to living off a diet of humble pie, so why not make a change and try some fine cuisine instead? For one of Steerpike’s spies spotted on Thursday that