Nigel Jones is a historian and journalist
Seventy-nine years ago today, 20 July 1944, Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a much-wounded young Wehrmacht officer, packed a briefcase in a broiling Berlin and flew to the ‘Wolf’s Lair’ the headquarters of Adolf Hitler deep in a Polish forest 100 miles behind the eastern front. Stauffenberg – who had lost an eye, a hand,
The growing continent-wide crisis caused by mass immigration into Europe has claimed another country with the collapse of the Dutch coalition government led by veteran centrist politician Mark Rutte. The Dutch prime minister announced that he will hand in his government’s resignation to King Willem-Alexander today because of ‘profound differences’ among the four coalition parties
Cultural issues, or ‘Woke Wars’, have surfaced to inflame an already tense general election held in the scorching temperatures of a Spanish summer. Spain’s third largest party – the hard-right populist Vox – is fuelling a backlash among Spaniards against town halls flying LBGT flags. Vox has insisted that the symbol of the LGBT movement be
Rishi Sunak’s government is sometimes compared to that of John Major, the man who succeeded Margaret Thatcher in 1990, went on to win an unexpected election in 1992 – and then went down after a landslide defeat at the hands of Tony Blair’s New Labour in 1997. On an episode of The Rest Is Politics, a podcast
The upheavals convulsing the Russian empire in 1917, Victor Sebestyen argues convincingly, were the seminal happenings of the past century. From them directly stemmed the second world war, the Cold War, the collapse of European imperialism and the dangerous world we inhabit today. There are many weighty modern accounts of these epochal events by historians
Just as a stopped clock shows the correct time twice a day, so president Joe Biden, amidst the plethora of gaffes that regularly issues from his lips, occasionally utters the plain and unvarnished truth. So it was at a Democratic fundraiser in California yesterday when Biden called China’s president Xi Jinping ‘a dictator’. Explaining why
There’s an irony in the timing of Silvio Berlusconi’s death at the age of 86, coming on the same weekend that saw the (at least temporary) exit from politics of Boris Johnson. For in many respects, the Cavaliere (‘Knight’) as he was universally known in Italy, was an even more flamboyant role model for our
Today is the 79th anniversary of D-Day, 6 June 1944, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to begin the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe and the end of the Second World War. Despite the fears of prime minister Winston Churchill and others that the Anglo-American and Canadian landings would be a bloody fiasco,
These days our sex scandals seem like another symbol of Britain’s national decline. They are diminished, petty and tawdry, certainly compared to the grand affair that took its name from its main actor: John Profumo. Sixty years ago today, on 5 June 1963, Profumo rose in the House of Commons to admit that he had lied
You only have to hear the words of Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian President and Vladimir Putin’s long term chief sidekick, to realise just how far Russia has propelled itself from the circle of civilised nations. Putin’s Russia not only uses state assassinations as an instrument of policy, but jokes and boasts about it too Dmitry
It is an idée fixe among British Europhiles that continental Europe is a progressive place firmly wedded to left-wing parties and policies, and that in leaving the EU, Brexit Britain was demonstrating its irredeemably reactionary and backward nature. The picture of Europe beloved by British Eurofans as a safe space for only left-wing politics is
Eighty-year old Sir John Major does not appear to be enjoying a peaceful retirement. Judging by his frequent tetchy interventions in public life, the former prime minister is far from a happy bunny. Sir John’s latest outburst was not on his usual hobby horses of the iniquities of Boris Johnson or the horrors of Brexit,
As he basks in the warm glow of respect, and even affection, surrounding his coronation this weekend, King Charles should recall the story of his distant cousin and near namesake ex-king Juan Carlos of Spain as a warning of how speedily a popular monarch can go from hero to zero. The ties between Spain’s Royal
Kim yo-Jong, the powerful and influential sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, has launched a savage personal attack on US President Joe Biden after he signed a new nuclear cooperation deal with America’s ally South Korea. The female Kim said that 80-year old Biden was ‘in his dotage’, calling him an ‘old man with
A 72 hour truce between rival military factions has been brokered in Sudan’s civil war by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. But whether this one holds, or falls apart like the previous ones, the history of one of Africa’s largest countries is a troubled one. It is also not the first time that an emergency
The news that a young woman anti-war activist, Darya Trepova, is suspect number one in the bombing assassination of Russian pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky may shock those schooled to believe that political violence is an all-male preserve. But it will come as no surprise to anyone with the sketchiest knowledge of Russian history. For in
Vladimir Putin’s crimes against Ukraine are often facilely compared with those committed by Hitler’s Nazis during World War Two. As Gary Lineker has crassly demonstrated, the unique crimes of National Socialism are the gold standard of evil that careless people reach for all too easily when they wish to comment on, or criticise, a contemporary
Humza Yousaf, the frontrunner in the contest to replace Nicola Sturgeon, says Scotland could ditch the monarchy if it leaves the UK. ‘I’ve been very clear, I’m a republican…Let’s absolutely, within the first five years (of independence), consider whether or not we should move away from having a monarchy into an elected head of state,’ he
When a prominent left-wing celebrity wants to attack a conservative person or policy they very often make a comparison with Hitler’s Germany or his Nazi party. The latest person to draw this invidious, ignorant and downright offensive parallel with the gold standard of political evil is the former footballer turned Match of the Day BBC
As the world marks the grim first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin should give thanks that there appears to be at least one of what Lenin called ‘useful idiots’ left in the West. Step forward – after removing your foot from its usual place in your mouth – the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
