Donald trump

Thursday

Paul Wood

‘Isis? Bomb those suckers’

These are the last days of the ‘caliphate’. The place Isis made their capital, Raqqa, in Syria, is encircled and cut off. They have already lost half of Mosul in Iraq, their largest city. Really, what did they expect? This was inevitable from the moment Isis declared war on everyone not in Isis. Defeat was even foreseen by one of the group’s leading thinkers, Abu al-Farouq al-Masri. ‘Announcing enmity to the world will strangle the caliphate in its cradle,’ he said last year. ‘This will bury our project alive.’ Al Masri (the ‘Egyptian’) is or was an elderly cleric and he was delivering a sermon in Raqqa meant as a

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

In (conditional) defence of John Bercow

James Duddridge is not wrong. The Tory MP for Rochford and Southend East, who has put down a ‘no confidence’ motion in Mr Speaker Bercow, says John Bercow has abused ‘his employment contract’ by his openly political remarks. The last straw was telling students at the University of Reading that he voted Remain in last year’s European referendum. Duddridge is a fiercely outspoken Leaver, but his complaint is that the Speaker should not have revealed any preference at all. Few should contest this. Anger over the Reading revelation builds on a history of complaint: the most recent example is still fresh. It was wrong to create the news story that

Kate Chisholm

United nations

The Indian Prime Minister has twigged something that President Trump has yet to understand. On Monday, celebrated as World Radio Day, Narendra Modi tweeted his congratulations to ‘all radio lovers and those who work for the radio industry and keep the medium active and vibrant’. Modi uses radio to reach out to those in his country who live in its most remote and inaccessible corners, giving a monthly address to the nation known as ‘Mann Ki Baat’ (or ‘To mind’). He says it’s his way of ‘sharing his thoughts’ with his citizens, and a useful way of extending the tentacles of government into those areas where television sets are uncommon,

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

I went to Florida to see Disney World. What I found looked like a dying country

I’ve always sensed a whiff of sadness in Florida, perhaps because so many people go there to die. Although not us, obviously, because we went for Disney World. Still, terminality is in the air. In Mafia films, Florida is always, literally, the last resort: the place the wheezing hood heads after he’s failed in the Bronx and Vegas and is now unwittingly destined for a one-way trip on a fishing boat. Somehow, I reckon, they’re feeling the same mystical embalming lure as those Jewish New York retirees who come to trundle their last-ever mobility scooters into their last-ever condominiums. One day, this dangling American dogleg will fall into the sea

Monday

Brendan O’Neill

The Trump-fearing, Brexit-loathing set make even Piers Morgan look reasonable

I can forgive many of the sins of the Trump-is-Hitler, Brexit-is-Beelzebub lobby. I mean, we all lose the plot occasionally. We’re all susceptible to freaking out. One day you’re a paragon of measured political chatter and the next you’re on Twitter at 3am screaming ‘FASCIST!’ at eggs and plotting to make Hampstead a republic so you don’t have to share citizenship with former miners and women called Chardonnay who don’t like the EU. Meltdowns happen. I get it. Let’s not be too hard on these people who’ve left the land of reason for the world of WTF, where Godwin’s Law is permanently suspended. But there’s one thing for which I’ll

Douglas Murray

The shameful hypocrisy of Sweden’s ‘first feminist government’

A couple of weeks ago I named the Labour MP Tulip Siddiq as my pious political hypocrite of the week, mainly for being silent on her bigoted aunty while strikingly vocal about a total stranger. I’m afraid that I was so overwhelmed by applicants for last week’s award that I have only just emerged from the pile of entries. However, I am now in a position to reveal the latest recipients of this increasingly coveted prize. Pipping even Speaker John Bercow to the award are the brave sisters of the Swedish government. Here is a photo from earlier this month of Isabella Lovin (Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for International Development

Ed West Ed West

Ken Loach’s Bafta’s diatribe shows he is stuck in the past

Ken Loach, who seems to defy the rule that you get more right-wing as you get older, used his Bafta acceptance speech last night to attack the Tories. He said that the Government would ‘have to be removed’ and went on to say:  ‘In the real world, it’s getting darker. And in the struggle that’s coming between the rich and the powerful…the big corporations and the politicians that speak for them on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other the film-makers know which side they’re on.’ To be fair to voters, they seem to be quite set on removing governments, or at least overturning the status quo:

Saturday

Rod Liddle

Watch: David Aaronovitch makes an utter fool of himself on Newsnight

I thought you’d like to see this, in case you haven’t already. This is David Aaronovitch being made to look like an utter fool on Newsnight because he doesn’t know what he is talking about. He doesn’t get Brexit, or Trump, or the Chatham House survey which I reported on a couple of days ago. He is in a state of denial – a familiar state for David, because however good a writer he may be, he has the analytical capacities of a wardrobe. And not a very good wardrobe, either. A DFS thing, I would reckon. Wrong about the Iraq War, wrong about Islam (until he conveniently changed his

Susan Hill Susan Hill

Does Donald Trump read?

When President Obama left office, he confided that he had got through the eight years of stress by reading. He named some titles. I was surprised he chose V.S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival over his masterpiece, A House for Mr Biswas, which I count as the best novel written in the 20th century, if such competitive judgments can mean anything. But I so hope he will read it now he has time, because I know he will love and cherish it and reread it 20 times over the coming years. But Barack Obama does not need me to recommend books to him. President Trump does. Has he ever read

Charles Moore Charles Moore

John Bercow’s Trump intervention was out of order

As we have been reminded this week, the most famous words (apart from ‘Order, order’) ever uttered by a Speaker of the House of Commons were those of William Lenthall. When King Charles I entered Parliament in search of the ‘five birds’ in 1642, Lenthall knelt to the King but told him, ‘I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me.’ It is only on that basis that the Speaker speaks. As soon as John Bercow said — of the speculative possibility that Donald Trump should address both Houses of Parliament — ‘I feel very strongly that our opposition

Friday

Matt Purple

Trump’s travel ban is more popular than Trump

Well there you have it. After almost two weeks of braying and spluttering about Donald Trump’s immigration plan, it turns out the public supports the proposed visa ban after all. Here in the United States, a poll by Morning Consult and Politico last week revealed that 55 per cent of voters back Trump’s executive order, while only 38 per cent oppose it. In Europe, the results are even more jarring: when asked whether immigration from mainly Muslim countries should be halted entirely, 55 per cent of the 10,000 people asked by Chatham House agreed. Davos folk might have taken umbrage at Trump’s executive order, yet compared to the type of policy that voters think should be implemented, the Donald’s plans suddenly look like a halfway house. Europeans

Thursday

Susan Hill

Diary – 9 February 2017

February Fill-Dyke. But north Norfolk is dry, at least in terms of rain. Instead we have coastal flooding. Three years ago, a tidal surge caused major damage and destruction to sea defences, wildlife habitats, paths and buildings. Another surge last month was less dramatic but still reached the gate of a friend’s house, set well back, behind marshes and road. It is terrifying to experience this unstoppable force and hear its mighty roar. Whole shingle banks were flicked aside. As a small child, I stood on the cliff top above raging seas in Scarborough, and the storm seemed biblical. You never underestimate the force of nature, and possibly the wrath

Taki

High life | 9 February 2017

When I was young my recurring nightmare was that I would die and be reincarnated as a polo pony. I squeezed in lots of polo during the years I played, at least three matches per week, mostly in Paris, and I felt that polo ponies had the kind of deal the mass media are now handing Trump. I wasn’t mad about the people I played with either. Back then, in the Sixties and Seventies, fat businessmen who cantered hired good Argentines to carry the can, but picked up the cup after strolling around the field and yelling quite a lot. Well, now I’m over it, but have an even worse

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 9 February 2017

Dr Ivan Mindlin was the in-house casino doctor at the Stardust in Las Vegas in the early 1970s. Mention any of the main characters in Nick Pileggi’s true-crime classic Casino: the Rise and Fall of the Mob in Las Vegas and the Doc knew them well, including the central characters Lefty and Geri Rosenthal. The mob monster Tony ‘the Ant’ Spilotro he didn’t know personally. He went out of his way to avoid him in fact, he says. But he and Spilotro shared a maid who was forever complaining about the mess Spilotro and his Hole in the Wall gang made when they were relaxing at home. Doc took me

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 9 February 2017

As we have been reminded this week, the most famous words (apart from ‘Order, order’) ever uttered by a Speaker of the House of Commons were those of William Lenthall. When King Charles I entered Parliament in search of the ‘five birds’ in 1642, Lenthall knelt to the King but told him, ‘I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me.’ It is only on that basis that the Speaker speaks. As soon as John Bercow said — of the speculative possibility that Donald Trump should address both Houses of Parliament — ‘I feel very strongly that our opposition

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 9 February 2017

Home John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, said he was ‘strongly opposed’ to an address being made during a state visit by President Donald Trump, either in Westminster Hall or the Royal Gallery in the Lords: ‘I feel very strongly that our opposition to racism and sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations,’ he said. Lord Fowler, the Lord Speaker, told the Lords: ‘I was not consulted,’ and added: ‘I will keep an open mind and consider any request for Mr Trump to address this Parliament.’ Alastair Cook, aged 32, resigned as captain of the England Test cricket

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

In this digital age, should we worry about bank branch closures? Yes we should

Almost a decade after the financial crisis loomed, our high streets and town centres are full of life again: who ever thought consumers could sustain so many cafés, bakeries and nail bars? But the revival is being undermined by yet another wave of bank branch closures, leaving small businesses adrift and personal customers at the mercy of call centres and insecure, ill-designed online platforms. More than a thousand branches have closed over the past two years, and another 400 or so are scheduled to go soon. HSBC is showing the way with a savage cull of its network. Oh well, you might say, banking really ought to be a digital

Tuesday

Shashank Joshi

John Bercow was right to criticise Donald Trump

John Bercow has taken a lot of flak for his comments about Donald Trump. The Speaker has been accused of being an embarrassment to Parliament for saying Trump wouldn’t be welcome to address MPs during a state visit. But amidst all the fury, Bercow’s pre-emptive ban does touch on a deeper question about the muddled thinking in British foreign policy. Several autocrats, many with poor human rights records, have addressed both Houses of Parliament: Emperor Hailie Selassie of Ethopia in 1954, Nikolai Bulganin of the Soviet Union in 1956, and his successor Alexei Kosygn in 1967, have all done so. And during Bercow’s time as Speaker, the Emir of Kuwait and President

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

John Bercow should have kept his trap shut about Donald Trump

John Bercow is a little chap, and no harm in that, but does he really need to grandstand about his inviolable liberalism? Do we really need to know that ‘opposition to racism and sexism’ were ‘hugely important considerations’ in making him raise an issue which should have been left well alone, viz, the theoretical possibility that President Trump would address parliament in Westminster Hall? It wasn’t an issue, not really, until the Speaker sounded off about his opposition to it. We all know that he’s terrifically sound on all this stuff; we knew without him opening his trap what he thought about the Trump travel ban; he didn’t really need

Sunday

Martin Vander Weyer

Don’t bet on Trump putting a stop to the hounding of British banks

President Donald Trump is demolishing his predecessor’s legacy as fast as he can sign executive orders, but one thing for which the Obama administration will be remembered is its zest for imposing fines on UK and European banks. In a flurry of Department of Justice activity ahead of the transfer of power, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $7.2 billion and Credit Suisse $5.3 billion for misleading investors in mortgage-backed securities before 2008, while Deutsche also copped a $630 million penalty (from UK as well as US regulators) for alleged money-laundering on behalf of Russian clients. Meanwhile, Royal Bank of Scotland set aside another $3.8 billion, making a total provision of