America

They say it is good to learn new skills as you get older. Well here goes. I am about to arrive in New Haven, Connecticut, to teach as a senior fellow at Yale University. Last time I taught anything to a class it was at Sunday school more than half a century ago. Arriving late at night I see little of the town but then next morning when I draw up the blinds – wow, it’s just like Oxford! In a sense it was meant to be, as Yale’s buildings were to some extent modelled on Oxford and Cambridge. One thing is very different though: there is only one student

The new administration in Washington has somewhat startled its critics by issuing a blizzard of executive orders during its opening weeks in office. So far the reaction from the American left might be summed up by the sentiment: ‘That’s not fair – it’s only us that are allowed to do things when we are in power.’ The American left are in a particular funk about the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – as though railing against the proposed reduction of federal spending and reduction of the American deficit is a natural vote-winner. But good news does just keep on coming. On Monday, Elon Musk said that President Donald Trump had

Very soon – as soon as the mutual courtesies now being exchanged between the new American President and his British counterpart are over – our government is likely to be at loggerheads with Donald Trump over our plan to cede the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), the Chagos archipelago, to Mauritius, then take out a long and expensive lease on the island of Diego Garcia so we can secure the operational status of our base there. This accommodates an American base of great importance to US defence. The agreement with the new Mauritian government has yet to be signed. It has been widely criticised here in the United Kingdom as

I had thought that having to be inaugurated indoors would have cramped Donald Trump’s style. Not so. The rhetoric with which he would have tried to fill the chilly air on the steps of the Capitol was even more exciting inside the crowded Rotunda. Only feet away from Trump, poor Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and behind them the Clintons shrank in their places, like captives paraded in ancient Rome after a military triumph. I experienced contradictory reactions. On the one hand, I felt a surge of joy that an American president at last has the confidence to do obviously right things – control the southern border, get out of the Paris

Swing states Where would Canada and Greenland rank if they became US states? – Canada would be, by far, the largest state. In fact, at 3,855,100 square miles it is marginally larger than the current US (3,796,742 square miles). – It would also be the largest state by population, with 41.5m inhabitants, putting it ahead of California (39.4m). – It would have the third largest GDP, at $2.58tn, behind California ($4.08tn) and Texas ($2.69tn). – Unless Canada also joined, Greenland would become the largest US state, at 836,330 square miles, ahead of Alaska (665,384 square miles). – It would be the smallest in terms of population, its 56,600 inhabitants less

New year predictions are always rash, but it feels as though one aspect of the story of 2025 can already be written. The gap between the economic fortunes of the US and Europe will continue to widen – and Britain will be trapped very much on the European side of the divide. In three weeks’ time the US will have a new leader, one who will unashamedly put the interests of US business first. Donald Trump’s threat of punitive tariffs may or may not be realised (as in his first term, it could prove to be a negotiating tool to press for the removal of restrictions on US exports and

Home The Labour government announced a ‘Plan for Change’ that it refused to call a reset. Sir Chris Wormald was named Cabinet Secretary. In his Guildhall speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said that ‘the idea that we must choose between our allies, that somehow we’re with either America or Europe, is plain wrong’. He said ‘we must continue to back Ukraine’ against Vladimir Putin as something ‘deeply in our self-interest’. With the arrival of another 122 people on 1 December, more than 20,000 had crossed the Channel in small boats since Labour entered office. A group of about 60 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seekers