World

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Japan’s prime minister is on borrowed time

‘It is a difficult situation and we have to take it very humbly and seriously’. This was the typically understated and solemnly delivered verdict of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba after his party and their coalition partners lost their majority in the Upper House elections on Sunday. It is the kind of wording used by Japanese doctors to inform patients that their illness is terminal (they never tell you directly). Ishiba insists he will stay on as PM, but long-term, he is probably doomed. Ishiba’s party, the Liberal Democrats (LDP), and their partners Komeito, needed fifty seats in yesterday’s election to hang on to a majority, but managed only 47.

The Reverend Michael Coren

The painful truth about Christian anti-Semitism

When I walked past a group of shouting protestors holding placards announcing, ‘Christians for Palestine,’ I couldn’t resist: ‘If Christians hadn’t treated Jews so appallingly for so many centuries there wouldn’t have been a need for Israel,’ I said politely. ‘Do you genuinely think that one-sided polemics are appropriate,’ I asked. There was a pause for self-righteous reflection, before one of the group responded: ‘Typical! A Zionist playing the antisemitic card.’ Early in its history, the church removed the Jewish Jesus from the Christian narrative The truth is that this Anglican priest with three Jewish grandparents wasn’t playing any card at all. I was trying to point out some of

Alexander Kolyandr

Why Putin thinks Trump’s Russia tariffs are a bluff

Moscow’s response to the latest ultimatum issued by Donald Trump last week has been to deploy that most Russian of diplomatic weapons: contemptuous laughter. The US president’s threat to impose draconian sanctions unless Putin ends his invasion of Ukraine within fifty days has been met with the kind of theatrical disdain that would make Chekhov proud. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, never one to miss an opportunity for diplomatic sarcasm, openly sneered at Trump’s intervention on Tuesday. ‘We want to understand what exactly is behind this statement. Fifty days. It used to be 24 hours, and then it became 100 days. Russia has gone through all this and now wants to understand what the

Paddy Stephens

Is Taiwan ready for an attack by China?

It’s still lunchtime in Taipei but the streets are strangely quiet. A few people are running with their bags, despite the sweltering summer heat, desperate to get somewhere before 1.30 p.m. I’m enjoying the air-conditioning in a local supermarket when an announcement politely informs me and the only other customer still in the shop that we need to hurry if we want to buy something. The checkout assistant rushes to hand me my change, and I head back out into the heat. The Taiwanese government is certainly taking the risk of an attack by China seriously At precisely 1.30 p.m., my phone buzzes with a yellow alert in Chinese and

Ukraine

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Trump has given Ukraine a chance to stop Putin in his tracks

It took Donald Trump six months, at least six useless phone calls with Vladimir Putin and more than a thousand Ukrainian civilians killed since the start of his second term for the realisation to finally hit: Russia has no intention of ending the war. Today, the American President took a U-turn from praising Putin and unveiled a new plan to arm Ukraine. Nato allies will purchase ‘billions of dollars’ worth of US military equipment to send to Ukraine, with 17 Patriot air defence systems already being prepared for delivery. Trump will also impose 100 per cent tariffs on Russia and its trade partners if Putin doesn’t make a deal to

Eliot Wilson

Europe must prepare to support Ukraine without America

It is unquestionably the case that people who should have known better were blinded by the Capri-Sun King’s glare when they reassured us that Donald Trump would not abandon Ukraine, that a second Trump administration would not really cut off military aid to Kyiv or effectively offer a free pass to Vladimir Putin. Yet that is what is happening. Last week the US Department of Defense halted a planned delivery of air defence missiles and precision munitions to Ukraine, the third time this year that such a stoppage has been put in place. The weaponry was part of a supply programme agreed under President Biden, but was halted as the

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Russian forces break into yet another Ukrainian region

Vladimir Putin’s summer offensive is fully under way: all day and night, Russian infantrymen run at Ukrainian positions in endless waves. Even when struck, the survivors don’t retreat or take cover but keep running forward, until there are so many of them that no amount of drones or shells can stop them. That’s how Russian troops have broken into yet another Ukrainian region: the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Turning another Ukrainian region into a war zone strengthens Moscow’s hand at the negotiating table The push came near the village of Horikhove, on the border between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, as the Kremlin declared a new phase in its ‘denazification’ campaign. Dmitry

Israel

Alan Kessel

Israel’s Sophie’s Choice

As pressure intensifies on Israel to agree to a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, the country faces a wrenching national dilemma: one that evokes a harrowing moral and strategic reckoning. With approximately 20 live hostages still held by Hamas, Israel must weigh the sacred imperative of bringing its citizens home against the hard-earned gains of a war fought to dismantle a terror regime. Israel stands alone before a terrible choice: pause now and risk preserving Hamas, or press on and risk the hostages’ lives The stakes are no longer theoretical. Hamas’s senior leadership has been decimated, its command structure shattered. Israeli forces now control more than sixty per

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Israel steps up its campaign to destroy the Houthis

Last night, Israeli fighter jets struck multiple military targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime in Yemen, marking one of the most expansive and targeted responses to date. Among the sites hit were the ports of Al Hudaydah, Ras Isa, and Salif, as well as the Ras Kanatib power plant. The IDF confirmed that the Galaxy Leader, a commercial vessel seized by the Houthis in November 2023 and repurposed for terrorist use, was also among the targets struck. The Israeli military described the operation as a direct and forceful response to the repeated missile and drone attacks launched by the Houthis against Israeli territory. The Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia operating

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Could Hebron join the Abraham Accords?

You’ve heard of the two-state solution (or delusion, as I call it). But have you heard of the eight-state solution? Or the Palestinian Emirates plan? This is the idea of Professor Mordechai Kedar, who I spoke to in February 2024, just four months into the war started by the Palestinians on 7 October, 2023. If his vision once seemed outlandish or unrealistic to many, it now seems considerably less so in light of the fascinating developments emerging from Hebron. Hebron’s most powerful clan leaders, led by Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari, have issued a public declaration of intent to break away from the Palestinian Authority A Wall Street Journal report explains that

America

Americano

The next chapter in American politics has begun, but is it going to be any less crazy? The Spectator’s Americano podcast delivers in-depth discussions with the best American pundits to keep you in the loop. Presented by Freddy Gray.

See all episodes

Europe

Eliot Wilson

Germany has become a useful ally for Britain

Yesterday the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited London for the first time since he took office in May. He and the prime minister have met on a number of occasions, and although the two lawyers are different characters – Sir Keir Starmer, the stiff, soi disant progressive human rights barrister; Merz, the abrasive, hard-nosed corporate counsel – they have forged a functional relationship. But this was Merz on Starmer’s home ground. The government has put a great deal of effort into bespoke bilateral relationships. Defence secretary John Healey and the German defence minister Boris Pistorius signed the Trinity House Agreement last October, and there have also been various kinds of

Henry Donovan

Friedrich Merz is coming to Britain to forget his troubles at home

Friedrich Merz has managed something truly remarkable: he’s simultaneously the most internationally successful German chancellor in decades and quite possibly the most domestically incompetent. While foreign leaders sing his praises and credit him with everything from Ukraine’s weapons supply to Nato’s renewed backbone, German conservatives are discovering they’ve elected a man who can charm Trump but can’t outwit a Social Democratic Party that barely scraped 16 per cent of the vote. The damage extends far beyond one failed nomination The man who promised to clean up the catastrophic legacies of both his predecessors, Scholz and Merkel, has indeed delivered on the international front. In London today, Merz will sign the

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Bayrou will regret his plan to scrap French bank holidays

The Prime Minister of France announced his plan on Tuesday to balance the country’s books: his most eye-catching intention is to scrap two public holidays. In addressing the nation, Francois Bayrou warned that France’s out-of-control public spending has left the country in ‘mortal danger’. It was imperative to reduce the public deficit by 43.8 billion euros by 2026, explained Bayrou. ‘It’s the last stop before the cliff, before we are crushed by the debt. It’s late, but there is still time.’ The holidays Bayrou wants to jettison are Easter Monday and 8 May (VE Day), two of the eleven annual public holidays in France. Britain has eight. Bayrou has taken

Saturday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The slow death of Welsh rugby

Heard the joke about the Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen? They have all been selected for the British and Irish Lions squad to face Australia in Brisbane today. At the expense of the Welshman. The fact that no Welshman has been included among the 23 players chosen for the first of three Test matches is further confirmation of the diminishing stock of Welsh rugby. The last time a Lions matchday squad had no Welsh representation was in 1896. Welsh rugby players once blamed the English for the ills of their country, but the damage done to their sport this century is home-grown When in May, Lions’ coach Andy Farrell named his

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Is China cooking the books on its economy?

A Western financial analyst based in Shanghai once described China’s economic statistics to me as ‘one of greatest works of contemporary Chinese fiction’. Not even the Communist party’s (CCP) own officials believed them. A cottage industry of esoteric techniques developed to try and measure what was really going on, ranging from diesel and electricity demand to the fluctuating levels of the country’s chronic air pollution, car sales, traffic congestion, job postings and construction – even the sale of underwear or pickled vegetables. One enterprising analyst regularly sent spies to Shanghai port to count the ships and throughput of trucks. Questioning the official figures has become increasingly dangerous in the China

Friday

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The plight of the Druze

Over 500 people are estimated to have been killed in the ongoing sectarian clashes between the Druze and Bedouin populations in Syria’s southern Suweida province this week. Vowing to protect the local Druze, and backing the community’s militia, Israel has bombed Syrian government forces around Suweida and launched missiles on Damascus. While Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa has promised to safeguard the minority community, and has announced the withdrawal of troops from the area, his government forces have been directly involved in attacks against the Druze. Druze civilians have been indiscriminately killed in ‘field executions’ by Syrian government forces and their allies. A militia affiliated with the government have also

Sam McPhail and John O’Neill

Where are the resettled Afghans living in Britain?

This week, we learned that three years ago a Ministry of Defence official accidentally released details of 18,714 Afghans who had applied for relocation to the UK. The Afghans, who had worked with British armed forces, feared retribution from the Taliban, so the Conservative government introduced a new scheme, alongside existing programmes, to resettle some of these people. The Spectator’s leading article this week argues that Britain had a moral responsibility to help them. But how many have arrived so far? And where are they living in Britain? As of May, 35,245 people had been relocated to the UK through the Afghan resettlement programme made up of several schemes such as the Afghan Relocations and

Thursday

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Could Japan soon be governed by chatbots?

Tokyo Could Japan be the world’s first -algocracy – government by algorithm? The concept has been flirted with elsewhere: in 2017 a chatbot called Alisa challenged Vladimir Putin for the Russian presidency. But there is reason to believe that if any major country is going to replace its politicians with AI, it will be Japan.  The citizens of Yokosuka in Kanagawa have had a remarkably lifelike AI avatar of their mayor, Katsuaki Uechi, at their service for over a year now. It (he?) speaks perfect English with a slight Japanese accent, with Uechi’s facial features manipulated to make it look as if he is pronouncing the words correctly. The avatar

Owen Matthews

Ukrainians have lost faith in Zelensky

Donald Trump this week boosted Ukraine’s air defences with new Patriot batteries, threatened Vladimir Putin with sanctions if he does not agree to a ceasefire, and even reportedly gave tacit approval to more Ukrainian strikes on Moscow. Trump’s newfound support for Ukraine is a welcome lifeline. The question is whether his help will be enough to stop Russia’s relentless attacks before Ukraine is engulfed in a critical military, political and social crisis that threatens to destroy it from within. Putin chose war over peace this spring because his spies and generals told him that Ukraine is on the brink of collapse. Alarmingly, they may be right. Ukraine is running out

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Inflation up, hosepipes off and grants for electric cars

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, agreed with President Emmanuel Macron of France that Britain could return perhaps 50 asylum seekers a week to France and accept in their place the same number of applicants through a regulated system. To celebrate, 573 people arrived that day in England in small boats, bringing the total for the week ending 14 July to 1,387. Moygashel Bonfire Committee in Co. Tyrone defended the placing of an effigy of a small boat with 12 migrants on a bonfire to usher in 12 July. Britain had, it was revealed, offered asylum to thousands of Afghan soldiers and their families caught by the accidental publication

Wednesday

Eliot Wilson

Are we sure the Afghan data debacle won’t happen again?

‘Afghanistan’ was the heading of Defence Secretary John Healey’s statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday – a word that hardly does justice to a three-year saga involving a catastrophic security breach and loss of data by the Ministry of Defence, a superinjunction and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Ministers and civil servants cannot be allowed to make policy and spend taxpayers’ money without any kind of oversight. That is not how a democracy works The bare bones of the story are these. In February 2022, the details of nearly 20,000 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK after the Taliban had seized power, as well

Matthew Lynn

Cutting bank holidays for French workers is a bad idea

Banning the baguette, perhaps? Or making it compulsory to eat a sandwich at your desk at lunchtime? If you think hard enough, it is possible to imagine reform that would create more anger in France. Even so, prime minister Francois Bayrou’s plan to scrap two public holidays is right up there. Bayrou wants to reduce France’s 11 public holidays in a bid to kick-start France’s economy. Bayrou said Easter Monday had ‘no religious significance’, and the whole nation had to work and produce more. He said that bank holidays had turned the month of May into a gruyère – a Swiss cheese full of holes. He said that bank holidays had turned

Tuesday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The BBC Gaza documentary report is a cover-up

The BBC’s long-awaited editorial review of its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was published today. It reads not like a rigorous investigation into serious journalistic failures, but like a desperate institutional whitewash. The report bends over backwards to defend the indefensible, trying to sanitise a catastrophic editorial misjudgment as little more than ‘a significant oversight by the Production Company.’ At the heart of the scandal lies the BBC’s failure to disclose that the documentary’s narrator, a Palestinian boy named Abdullah Al-Yazouri, is the son of Ayman Al-Yazouri, a senior official in the Hamas-run government in Gaza. This, the report acknowledges, was ‘wrong’ and constituted a breach of guideline 3.3.17 on

Monday

Daniel DePetris

Trump is turning ‘Biden’s war’ into his own

It’s official: President Trump is tired of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody shenanigans. While he won’t admit it, it’s likely Trump feels strung along and publicly humiliated. Every time he ends a conversation with Putin that he’s relatively pleased with, he learns a few hours later that another batch of Russian drones and missiles have slammed into Kyiv and killed more civilians. Today’s meeting at the White House with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, during which Trump said yet again that he was ‘very unhappy’ with Russia over the war in Ukraine, came after weeks in which the US president was increasingly expressing his frustration, even anger, with how Putin

Saturday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France doesn’t need Boomers dreaming of political comebacks

If France didn’t have enough to worry about right now with its soaring rates of debt, crime and immigration, now comes news of a political comeback. Dominique de Villepin, prime minister between 2005 and 2007, earlier this month launched his political party called Humanist France. ‘I decided to create a movement of ideas, of citizens, through the creation of a political party,’ he explained. ‘This movement is for everyone. We need to unite all French people to defend social justice and the republican order,’ he said. Given some of his recent statements about Israel, de Villepin will have his work cut out to unite the country. In October, the Jewish

Friday

John Keiger John Keiger

How Macron triumphed over Starmer

‘Small boats’ are the big talking point from this week’s Franco-British summit. The consensus is that there are slim pickings for Britain, and the reason why is simple: France negotiates according to its interests, Britain negotiates according to the Chagos template. France’s president Emmanuel Macron had little incentive to agree anything but a symbolic ‘returns’ agreement with Sir Keir Starmer. Most of the French political class, public opinion and ‘humanitarian’ organisations do not support Britain returning migrants to France. Nor for that matter do other EU states. Why would they? What then was Macron seeking from the summit? The French president is still smarting from Brexit The French president is

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Is Britain an ally or an enemy of Israel?

Even as the British parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published its stark warning yesterday that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Quds Force orchestrates spy rings on British soil, the UK continues its public ostracisation of Israel, the very country on the frontline of seeing down that exact threat. Britain must choose. Not between Israelis and Palestinians, but between honesty and hypocrisy Earlier this week, an Afghan-Danish spy working for Iran was arrested for photographing Jewish and Israeli targets in Berlin. The intelligence trail ran through Israel, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK. Israel’s cooperation helped foil an operation with chilling echoes of the Iranian regime’s 1980s and 90s terror

Edward Howell

South Korea’s pensioner time bomb is about to go off

Think of South Korea and K-pop, Korean cuisine, films, and perhaps even skincare products spring to mind. The fact that anything preceded by a ‘K’ immediately invokes something Korean is testament to the success of South Korea’s global soft power. But behind the sentimental love stories and bright lights, Asia’s fourth-largest economy is at a precarious juncture. As well as the ongoing geopolitical tensions on the Korean peninsula, the country known as the ‘land of the morning calm’ is facing acute demographic crises. Beyond the low birth rate, its ageing population and age-based employment policies only highlight how for South Korea to become a truly global state, change must also

Andrew Tettenborn

Francesca Albanese is insufferable, but don’t sanction her

Among the many peripheral hangers-on at the UN, are members of a curious class of functionary known as special rapporteurs. Numbering about 80, these are in theory independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council to oversee either particular countries or particular issues. In practice, however, they tend to be drawn from the ranks of activists and academics who share the UN’s general leftist worldview. In many cases they hold distinctly partisan views and make little secret of them. (The UK itself has felt the rough side of their tongue on two occasions: when Philip Alston demanded wholesale changes to our taxation and social security laws in the name of

Eliot Wilson

Britain must wake up to the threat of Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a ‘wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable’ threat to the United Kingdom. That was the sobering conclusion this week of the intelligence and security committee, which has spent several years examining Iranian policy and activity, taking evidence and analysing a huge amount of classified information. The committee’s chairman, Lord Beamish (former Labour MP Kevan Jones), warned that the government had not developed a comprehensive or in-depth approach to the threat posed by Iran but had instead focused on short-term crisis management. The intelligence and security committee (ISC) of parliament is a unique body. Despite its name, it is not a select committee, but established by statute

Thursday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Starmer and Macron won’t fix the Channel migrant crisis

There was a sense of déjà vu to today’s announcement by Keir Starmer that he intends to ‘secure’ Britain’s borders. Standing alongside Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister pledged ‘hard-headed aggressive action on all fronts’ to crack the migrant crisis but warned that there is ‘no silver bullet’. The sceptic might argue that the real problem in cracking the migrant crisis isn’t the criminal gangs but the human rights industry Rishi Sunak deployed the same phrase in March 2023 when, as Premier, he stood alongside the French president, and promised to take back control of Britain’s borders. He failed, and few have faith in this new ‘one-in one-out’ scheme. ‘Migrants arriving

Mark Nayler

Keep Palestine out of Pamplona

At this time of year, I’m usually immersed in Pamplona’s San Fermin festival, which burst into life on Sunday and runs until next Monday. The fiesta is famous for its daily bull runs through the narrow streets of the old town – an anarchic, life-affirming tradition in which I have participated six times. Unable to attend this year, I watched Sunday afternoon’s opening celebration on TV from southern Spain, feeling envious of each and every one of the 13,000 people present. But I was angered and saddened by what I saw. One of their members yelled: ‘Stop genocide, free Palestine!’ before lighting the rocket. Pamplona’s mayor chooses who lights the

Sam Olsen

France can’t solve Britain’s reliance on America and China

When President Emmanuel Macron of France addressed the British parliament this week, he emphasised the need for both countries to reduce the risk from their ‘excessive dependencies on both the US and China’. This reliance on the Great Powers, Macron suggested, was a threat for Europe to be able ‘to invest in key technologies of the future’ and ‘avoid strategic dependencies and disengagement that would put us at risk of a slow death’. In many ways President Macron is right. The UK and Europe are absolutely dependent on America and China for critical technologies and industrial inputs. As noted by the EU in various recent reports, China dominates in rare