World

Thursday

Henry Hill

Conservatives all over the Anglosphere are paying the price for Trump

It is the great good fortune of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to be united by a common language, and a misfortune of even greater magnitude that they share that language with the United States. America is a very different country to the four Commonwealth realms sometimes brigaded together under the ugly acronym ‘Canzuk’. It has a different constitution, a different culture and a very different history. Where for many years the four were partners (if hardly equal partners) in the common project of the Empire, the United States was, from its foundation, a determined and eventually successful enemy of the same. For Conservatives who tend to dream of

Wednesday

Yossi Melman

Netanyahu is facing a brewing military rebellion in Israel

On Monday this week, Ronen Bar, head of Israel’s security service Shin Bet, challenged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire him in the country’s Supreme Court, blocking it – at least temporarily. He was supported in his claim by a number of civic groups and former military generals, including the former senior air commander Nimrod Sheffer, stating that Netanyahu wanted to get rid of him after suspecting that Bar was not loyal to him. The Shin Bet chief provided the court with classified documents showing that Netanyahu wished to turn the agency into his private secret police, like those in some dictatorial regimes. Bar also wrote in his

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Why Trump’s team snubbed the London Ukraine peace talks

Has the moment arrived when Donald Trump abandons the last iota of his support for Ukraine in the war against Russia? Taking to his social media platform, Truth, the American President appeared to suggest so. Referring to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump wrote, ‘He can have peace, or he can fight for another three years before losing the country’. The latest trigger for Trump’s ire against Zelensky appears to be the Ukrainian President’s firm rejection of any peace deal that included Ukraine having to concede Crimea – illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 – as legal Russian territory. ‘Ukraine does not legally recognise the occupation of Crimea. There’s nothing

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Parliament’s moral posturing on Israel is delusional

What’s the point of parliament’s foreign affairs committee holding mock-trial style hearings about Israel’s defensive war against Iranian-backed terror groups? Do its members genuinely believe that such performative enquiries contribute to peace in the Middle East? One wonders how Britain might respond if the Israeli Knesset held public hearings into British issues – on Muslim rape gangs, on two-tier policing, or on the stifling of political speech through Orwellian ‘non-crime hate incidents’. The UK would howl in protest. Yet it presumes the right to dissect Israel’s wartime conduct as if from a position of moral superiority, devoid of historical context and strategic understanding. Some seemed more intent on using me

Ian Williams Ian Williams

China smells victory in its tariff war with Trump

It was an extraordinary statement, given all the bluster that had gone before it. Tariffs on Chinese goods will ‘come down substantially’ from their current level of 145 per cent, Donald Trump said on Tuesday, adding that ‘We are doing fine with China … We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together’. Perhaps the message was aimed at placating the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings taking place in Washington this week. The IMF slashed its growth forecasts for the United States, China and most other countries, blaming US tariffs and warned that things could get a lot worse. Xi is calculating that Trump is

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Kneecap’s Israelophobia has gone too far

The day after the Nova music festival massacre, the Irish band Kneecap posted a photo of themselves grinning from ear to ear alongside the words: ‘Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.’ The bodies of the 364 revellers butchered by Hamas were barely cold before these rappers from Belfast seemed to give smiley support to the militants who did it. ‘Palestinian struggle’, they called it, when what the rest of us saw was a straight-up pogrom in which Israeli youths were raped and murdered without mercy at a trance festival made into a slaughter zone. Fast forward 18 months and Kneecap themselves are performing at a music festival in a desert. It’s

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Why Kashmir’s jihadists are targeting tourists

At least 26 tourists were killed in a militant attack on the town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on Tuesday. Responsibility for the massacre at the popular tourist destination has been claimed on social media by a militant group called the Resistance Front (TRF), reportedly as a response to ‘Indian settlement’ in the region. According to eyewitnesses, the militants verified the religion of their victims, before eliminating non-Muslims. The massacre was a throwback to the jihadist violence of the 1990s that saw the cleansing of Kashmir’s local Hindu population from the Muslim-majority region. The attack has overlapped with US vice president J.D. Vance’s trip to New Delhi, and Indian prime

Matthew Lynn

Donald Trump has bowed to the markets

A deal will be worked out with China to reduce the tariffs. The chairman of the Federal Reserve won’t be fired. Over the last 24 hours, President Trump has softened his stance on two key planks of his economic policy. It is not hard to work out why. For all the bluster, Trump is ultimately a pragmatist – and that makes him a president the financial markets will live with.  The financial markets have soared today, and the dollar has recovered, while gold, the safe haven in troubled times, has dropped by $100 an ounce. The reason? A dramatic shift in American policy. In China, the escalating trade war had

Alexander Larman

Putin’s tacky gift to Trump reveals his dark sense of humour

For all his many faults, Vladimir Putin is not without a jet-black sense of humour. The Russian president has given Donald Trump a painting. Many might have expected this to be a traditional piece of Russian art, depicting some rural scene, or perhaps something more avant-garde, from the contemporary Moscow movement. But no; Putin has instead sent Trump a picture of the aftermath of his assassination attempt last July. The portrait, by Russian artist Nikas Safronov, is not what most people would call tasteful or accomplished. It depicts the president (notably slimmer and younger-looking than in reality) holding up a clenched fist in a gesture of defiance. Trump stands in

Terry Barnes

Could Trump cost Australia’s Liberals victory?

Since Australia’s general election was called by Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese at the end of March, the contest for the 3 May poll has been an uninspiring one. Voters must choose between a mediocre Labor government that overpromised and woefully underdelivered since coming to office in 2022, and an underprepared and underpowered conservative opposition. Just two months ago, it seemed the electorate’s anger with Labor was going to do what has not happened in Australia since the height of the Great Depression: turf out a first-term federal government. Liberal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, effectively had set the national agenda since Dutton opposed Albanese’s 2023 divisive referendum to give Aboriginal

Owen Matthews

Why London’s Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks will fail

There’s one key thing that one should know about Ukraine peace talks scheduled to begin in London today, and that is that they will fail. The reason is simple: Volodymyr Zelensky is being asked to concede Russia’s legal possession of the Crimean peninsula which Moscow annexed in 2014. And Ukraine’s president has said, in the most emphatic possible terms, that he will not do it. Zelensky cannot accept it because such a concession will be political suicide That’s not because Zelensky is pig-headed, a warmonger, or refuses to accept the reality that there is no way for Ukraine ever to recover the lost peninsula. Zelensky cannot accept because such a

Jacob Heilbrunn

Why Trump won’t fire Pete Hegseth – yet

On Monday, the liberal outlet National Public Radio reported that Donald Trump’s administration was looking for a replacement for Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. This report may in fact have helped shield Hegseth from being sacked for having arranged a second Signal chat group about impending war plans for Yemen that apparently included his wife, Jennifer, his brother, Phil and personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore. The White House has embarked upon a full-scale offensive to defend Hegseth as a victim of a nefarious deep-state plot intent on undermining the President and his aides. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was first off the mark. She depicted Hegseth as a figure of valour.

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Will Holyrood do anything about attacks on the Supreme Court?

As the independent bar in Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates is by necessity a reserved and disinterested body. It does not issue letters like the one that has gone out this morning to Karen Adam, the convenor of Holyrood’s equalities, human rights and civil justice committee. The correspondence takes issue, in blistering terms, with the conduct of Adam’s deputy, Maggie Chapman, a Green MSP and one of the most vocal proponents of gender identity ideology in Scotland. In a video shared widely on social media, Chapman addressed a rally in response to the Supreme Court’s judgment in For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Ministers, which ruled that the definition of

James Tidmarsh

Pet theft in France is out of control

Dog theft in France is soaring. Animal protection groups estimate that up to 70,000 dogs are stolen each year – nearly 200 a day. The scale of the problem is staggering, and it’s getting worse. Small, high-value breeds are the main targets. French Bulldogs, Pugs, Chihuahuas and Siberian Huskies are among the most frequently stolen. A purebred French Bulldog can sell for up to €2,500 on the black market. Some are resold within hours. Others are trafficked to illegal breeding operations. It is not only dogs that are disappearing. Cats, particularly purebreds, are increasingly being targeted as well. According to animal welfare organisations, the number of cat thefts is rising in

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Could this photo cost Mark Carney victory in Canada’s election?

Caryma Sa’d has captured the definitive image of the Canadian federal election. Over the weekend, the independent journalist posted a photograph from an event in Brantford, Ontario for Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor who has replaced Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister. The pic shows an older gentleman appearing to give two middle fingers to the camera while similarly-aged Carney enthusiasts around him laugh. In isolation, just another snapshot from an ill-tempered election. In the context of this poll, a readymade icon of everything Carney’s critics say he stands for and everything his Conservative opponent Pierre Poilievre is against. Elbows and/or fingers up. #cdnpoli #Brantford

Monday

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

There was Easter but no truce on Ukraine’s frontline

Kramatorsk, Donetsk region In a wooden Greek-Catholic church on the frontline of a warzone, encircled by red tulips and military vehicles, the priest’s sermon is woven through with the war – just like the soldiers’ Easter baskets, packed not only with paska bread, pysanky and sausages, but also with drones, waiting to be blessed. ‘This drone will be at work tonight – enforcing the ceasefire,’ a soldier whispers to me, smiling. The priest looks over a hundred soldiers in front of him, the church so packed that some must listen from the outside, and says that Ukraine will defeat evil, just as Jesus did. ‘The enemy is killing Him in

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

How Pope Francis kept the faith

As timing goes, a pope simply can’t do better than to die just after Easter Sunday. The moral of the thing hardly needs saying. Francis died in Christ and will share His Resurrection. In fact, that’s exactly what several bishops have been observing today. But Francis also had his Good Friday. He was desperately ill in the Gemelli hospital in February, being very close to death in particular on 28 February. But he pulled through with all the drugs and therapies possible, and went triumphantly on. For that’s what he did. That popemobile trip round St Peter’s Square yesterday, the meeting with J.D. Vance, the Easter blessing, the composition of

Luke Coppen

The Francis effect

Pope Francis was a man of remarkable complexity who cultivated an image of utmost simplicity. He began the moment he first stepped out on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square in plain white papal attire, without the traditional red mozzetta covering his shoulders, and greeting onlookers with a homely ‘buona sera’. The following day, he was photographed settling his hotel bill. Instead of moving into the Apostolic Palace, he opted to live in a Vatican guesthouse, the Casa Santa Marta. This was also seen as a sign of the new Pope’s humble style. But the decision was more complicated than it seemed: the Casa Santa Marta’s rooms aren’t drafty monastic

The Spectator

World leaders pay tribute to Pope Francis

Pope Francis has died aged 88. At 7.35 a.m., the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had ‘returned to the house of the Father’ at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. Cardinal Farrell, who announced the death, added that Francis ‘taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favour of the poorest and most marginalised’. Tributes are already pouring in from political and religious leaders around the world. These are the messages that have been sent so far: J.D. Vance, the US Vice-president Vance, the last statesman to meet Francis, having been granted a brief audience with the pontiff yesterday

Ed Condon

Pope Francis and the Vatican reckoning

Modern popes, for better or for worse, tend to be defined in soundbites. John Paul II’s clarion call of ‘Be not afraid’ became emblematic of his invitation to young Catholics to embrace their faith and his rallying of the West against the spectre of international Communism. Benedict XVI’s great theological career, and his term as a pope in the model of priest and professor, remains summed up in his simple declaration that Deus caritas est. For Francis, who has died at the age of 88, the world will likely remember, in the immediate weeks after his death anyway, his often quoted, though often misrepresented, motto of ‘who am I to