World

Why Britain needs to wake up to extremism

16 min listen

As the world reacts to the attacks on Bondi Beach in Australia, Conservative peer Paul Goodman joins Tim Shipman and James Heale to discuss the failure of successive British governments to properly tackle extremism – especially Islamist extremism – over the past two decades. In the post ‘War On Terror’ era, there was a reluctance by some to discuss the problem openly as it got tied up in other polarising topics like immigration. Though that reluctance appears to be fading, Paul argues that there is a ‘communalist air of voting’ in British politics now, and he warns of the dangers that face British politics if fragmentation becomes entrenched in party

Are we really preparing for war with Russia?

Are we really on the cusp of a real, shooting war with Russia? If you believe some of the rhetoric, it would seem so – but does anyone really think it? The war drums are certainly beating. Last night, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, called for ‘our defence and resilience [to be] a higher national priority for all of us. An “all-in” mentality’ because ‘the situation is more dangerous than I have known during my career’. Armed Forces minister Al Carns warned more picturesquely that ‘the shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door once more’. Meanwhile, Mark Rutte, the reliably alarmist secretary-general

Diaspora Jews are no longer free

Jews had gathered on Bondi Beach to celebrate the first night of Chanukah, the festival of light and freedom. Uniquely among Jewish festivals, Chanukah is celebrated in public. Generations of families came to light candles on Sydney’s famous coastline and say: we belong here too. And then two gunmen opened fire: 15 people murdered; 40 wounded. The victims include London born Rabbi Eli Schlanger and Alex Kleytman, who survived the Holocaust but, 80 years later was murdered for being a Jew. On Bondi Beach, Jews celebrating that freedom were attacked and murdered. This was not ‘senseless violence’ – the very phrase stupefies us into passivity, unable to name, identify and

Ukraine

Keir Starmer's Russia problem is here to stay

Keir Starmer will travel to Berlin this afternoon to join European leaders for a ‘mini-summit’ in support of Ukraine following two days of talks between president Volodymyr Zelensky and American officials. Zelensky has been in the German capital since yesterday, locked in talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to hammer out the terms of a peace deal on the war in Ukraine that can then be presented to Russia. US representatives have also been invited to this afternoon’s mini-summit – due to kick off shortly after 5.30 p.m. UK time. Overnight, Witkoff declared that ‘significant progress’ had been made with Zelensky. There has

How Russia’s National Guard may stymie the latest Ukraine plan

One of the crucial obstacles to a Ukraine peace deal appears to be Vladimir Putin’s demand for the remaining fifth of Donetsk region not in Russian hands. Kyiv not only resents the idea of surrendering hard-defended land, it also fears this could be use it as a springboard for future attacks deeper into Ukraine. One potential workaround under debate is apparently allowing Moscow to claim it, but also making it a demilitarised zone (DMZ) to ensure Russian troops stay out. But it’s not so cut and dried. The notion of a DMZ may seem like an elegant way to square the circle of Putin’s demands and Ukraine’s concerns, but it’s

The war in Ukraine is reaching its endgame

Painfully and chaotically, the outline of the peace deal that will eventually end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is emerging as the US leans on Kyiv to abandon key red lines. It may still be months before the guns finally fall silent. But one by one various roadblocks to an eventual agreement are falling away. Crucially, this week Volodymyr Zelensky conceded that his country needed new presidential and parliamentary elections. Moreover, for the first time, he floated the possibility that a Ukrainian military withdrawal from Donbas could be put to a national referendum.  ‘The Ukrainian people must answer the territorial question,’ Zelensky told reporters on Thursday. ‘I say clearly: yes, I

Israel

Israel is turning the screws on Hezbollah

The killing of Lebanese Hezbollah military chief Haytham Ali Tababtabai by Israel this week reflects how much the balance of power between Jerusalem and the Iran-backed Shia Islamist group has shifted since the year-long war between the two in 2023 and 2024. Yet, paradoxically, Tabatabai’s killing also shows that nothing has been finally settled between the two enemies. While Hezbollah has now been shown to be much weaker than Israel, it nevertheless remains stronger than any internal faction in Lebanon, including the official Lebanese government. The practical consequence of this is escalation: Hezbollah is seeking to repair and rebuild its capacities, no force in Lebanon is willing or able to stop

The revelations about what the Gaza hostages suffered are the most painful yet

The Israeli hostages recently freed from Gaza have begun to speak, and among the new revelations is that some were subjected to sexual assault and degradation, including male hostages. They describe being stripped, groped, violated, and threatened at gunpoint. The scale and cruelty of what they endured should have triggered sustained, front-page attention in the UK, not least on the BBC. But it has not. The testimonies began surfacing in recent weeks. Rom Braslavsky, seized by Palestinian Islamic Jihad while recovering the bodies of murdered women at the Nova music festival, described being stripped naked and left that way for days. ‘They took all my clothes. Underwear too. Everything. They

A lethal standoff is playing out deep beneath Gaza

In 1929, René Magritte painted a picture that has since become iconic in both art and philosophy. The Treachery of Images depicts a finely detailed tobacco pipe with a caption beneath: Ceci n’est pas une pipe – ‘This is not a pipe’. Magritte’s point is subtle and enduring. It is indeed not a pipe, but an image of one. You cannot fill it with tobacco, light it, or smoke it. It is a representation, not the object itself. Israel manoeuvres within it, cautiously. Hamas exploits it, selectively. Saudi Arabia nods along, calculating Magritte was exploring the gap between signifier and reality, between the name and the thing named. His visual paradox

America

Europe

Europe's EV market is rolling backwards

Imagine you are a keen Brexiteer and opponent of net zero plans, especially of the idea of being forced to buy an electric vehicle (EV). There are plenty of people like you; there is much evidence to suggest that the two things go together. But you must now be feeling a little confused. It must be dawning on you that, in terms of your freedom to buy the vehicle that you want, you would have been better off had Britain remained in the EU. Europe has just made the decision to relax the ban on petrol vehicles from 2035 to 2040 – while in Britain it is still planned to

Stopping the boats will be harder than Jordan Bardella thinks

France’s Jordan Bardella has promised to stop the boats. Now where have we heard that before? The president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally made his boast on a day trip to London on Tuesday. After lunching with Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, the 30-year-old outlined his strategy for curtailing the passage of illegal immigrants between France and England. ‘My ambition is to make France the least attractive country for mass immigration in Europe,’ explained Bardella. ‘From there, if it is no longer possible to cross, then there will be no one left in Calais.’ Bardella said he will make France unattractive for migrants by abolishing the right of asylum, expelling

Keir Starmer's call for ECHR reform is a risky gamble

Ahead of a Council of Europe summit in Strasbourg today to discuss the future scope of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Keir Starmer has called for ‘practical action’ to fix the asylum system and deal with irregular migration. In a joint letter with the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, Starmer argued that ‘modernisation’ of the ECHR is essential and that the Convention system needs to ‘evolve to reflect the challenges of the 21st century’. The two leaders acknowledged that responsible progressive governments need to ‘control our borders’ in order to ‘protect our democracies’. This is a tacit admission that Labour is concerned that Conservative and Reform UK proposals

Bondi Beach and the heroism of Ahmed al Ahmed

As the appalling story of Sunday’s anti-Jewish mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach continue to unfold, and 16 people are now dead, there have been few glimmers of light in the darkness. Ahmed’s cousin, Mustafa, said Ahmed saw an opportunity to tackle the shooter The men identified as the shooters are a father and son, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24. The father was shot and killed by police last night, and the son was overpowered and taken into custody. The New South Wales police commissioner says little is yet known about the pair, but Sajid Akram was a licensed gun owner, with six guns in his possession. Old

Why are world leaders shocked by the Bondi Beach attack?

Micheál Martin, Ireland’s Taoiseach, said he is shocked by the anti-Semitic slaughter on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, is shocked too. So is Christopher Luxon, the prime minister of New Zealand. Yet there is really nothing shocking about the Australian attack. Insanity, as the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Australia’s ABC News is reporting this morning that one of the Bondi Beach gunmen was previously investigated over his ties to a Islamic State (IS) terrorism cell. An Isis flag was also reportedly found in the car of the gunmen. Islamic terrorist

Why was this innocent doctor ever investigated for her 'anti-trans' posts?

This one has everything: drag queens, swastikas, X and freedom of speech. Dr Anne Woodhouse is a clinical psychologist in Inverness who has just been cleared of misconduct charges by her regulatory body, the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS). The accusation was that Dr Woodhouse’s ‘fitness to practise is impaired by reason of misconduct’ because of two posts and three ‘likes’ from an X account she co-owned. Woodhouse denied all charges against her. Dr Anne Woodhouse is a clinical psychologist in Inverness who has just been cleared of misconduct charges by her regulatory body Post one: ‘The majority of trans women are the result of men’s sexual fetishes,

What Australia's tabloids make of England's Ashes failure

No doubt even the cricket averse among you will be aware at some level that the England team is currently undergoing its traditional four yearly mauling at the hands of gleeful Australians under unforgiving, sun-drenched skies Down Under. Fans back home are enduring miserable nights, pock-marked by false hope, fever dreams and regret for engaging in the whole inevitable business of sporting despair but with added insomnia thrown in for good measure. Failure in Australia means that really it doesn’t matter what England do until they win The results on the pitch have once again been dismal, but in fairness to this team, they are simply following a trend that

The Bondi Beach shooting was a pogrom

This is not a time to mince words. Moral clarity is our sole duty on this dark day. What happened in Bondi in Sydney was an act of fascist barbarism. It was a pogrom on a beach. It was a massacre of Jews that brought to mind the horrors of the mid-20th century. If this pitiless atrocity doesn’t prise open the eyes of the West, nothing will. It is undeniable now that the unhinged hatred for the world’s only Jewish state has reanimated a medieval-like loathing for the Jewish people The details are beyond grim. At least eleven people mercilessly slain in an attack targeted at Sydney’s Jewish community. More

Australia must be purged of its festering anti-Semitism

It breaks my heart to write this piece. Today, the resurgence of anti-Semitism that has percolated and festered in Australia for the last two years has come to a murderous, horrific climax. In a balmy early summer evening a few hours ago, Sydney’s Bondi beach was the scene of appalling carnage, At least 11 people are dead, and more than two dozen wounded, including two police officers. One of the gunmen is also now dead. Fanatics, zealots and political activists who preach or abet Jew hatred must be held to account and punished – not, as they have been, treated by the authorities with kid gloves ‘This attack was designed

For Jews, the Bondi beach shooting is grimly recognisable

The attack at Bondi beach during a Hanukkah celebration, killing nine, has sent a fresh wave of horror through the Jewish diaspora. What might once have been regarded as unthinkable – a targeted assault on a Jewish gathering in the heart of a peaceful, democratic society – has now become grimly recognisable. It must be placed starkly within the context of a global surge in antisemitic violence. What might once have been regarded as unthinkable has now become grimly recognisable To grasp the scale of what is unfolding, one must look beyond Bondi. Australia has seen an alarming escalation of anti-Jewish violence throughout 2025. From the firebombing of the Adass

The strange world of ‘2D exclusive’ Japanese women

For those trying to understand Japan’s plummeting birthrate – which some fear could eventually lead to Japanese people ceasing to exist – evidence of where the problem might lie emerged this week. Old tweets from Japan’s new minister of state for economic security, Kimi Onoda, have surfaced in which the 43 year-old describes herself as ‘2D exclusive’. For the unenlightened, this means this very eligible young woman only forms romantic attachments with animated characters.  Onoda is far from alone is being smitten with 2D characters and untempted by the real thing In the tweets Onoda explained that human romance is ‘uncomfortable’ and that her affection for ‘2D men’ leaves her no

The long, awful shadow of the siege of Sarajevo

They call them the roses of Sarajevo: scars ripping through the concrete and painted red, marking where an artillery round claimed a life during the longest siege of modern history – a full three-and-a-half years, longer than even the siege of Leningrad.  From May 1992 until December 1995, an average of 329 shells struck the Bosnian capital each day, while snipers took aim at passers-by from vantage points on the mountains surrounding the city. More than 11,000 lives were lost in the siege, including 1,600 children, a memorial to whom now stands in a park. A closer look reveals some of the lost etched into the memorial are simply listed

How terror triumphed at the Christmas market

Mulled wine and Heckler & Koch assault rifles don’t belong together, except in Christmas films like Die Hard. Festive visitors to Christmas markets in Berlin, London or Strasbourg this year will notice the pairing all the same. Concrete blocks surround fairy lights, and the scent of cloves and cinnamon wafts over armed police carrying submachine guns. Concrete blocks surround fairy lights, and the scent of cloves and cinnamon wafts over armed police carrying submachine guns Since an Islamist drove a lorry into the Breitscheidplatz market in Berlin in December 2016, killing twelve and injuring dozens, we deck the halls with blast protection. There are still tacky wooden chalets selling sausages, but

When will Europe's leaders wake up to the Russian threat?

Europe’s leaders flocked to London this week, determined to show the world a united front. Like school boys at a bus stop, Ukraine’s president Zelensky stood beside Keir Starmer, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and French leader Emmanuel Macron in a carefully staged tableau of Western resolve. It was designed to send a message to Moscow: Europe is ready. Yet the spectacle only highlighted the uncomfortable truth: Europe talks like a military power, but behaves like a political debating society. The continent insists it has woken up to the new reality, yet it still refuses to build the armies required to confront it. Europe talks like a military power, but behaves

The charming side of elections in the Falklands

It’s election time in the Falklands, where every four years we choose eight members of the Islands’ legislative assembly. They say you don’t want to know how laws or sausages are made. But the way such a far-flung and tiny parliament is put together is actually pretty interesting. In the Falklands there are only two constituencies. Stanley has five seats, with 15 candidates this year and 1,590 registered voters. ‘Camp’ (the rest of the Falklands, including any ‘outer’ islands big enough to have human inhabitants) has three seats and only four candidates, with 239 registered voters. Camp voting is achieved by the rather charming solution of the polling booth coming

Portrait of the year: Trump's tariffs, the definition of biological sex and the fall of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

January Downing Street said Rachel Reeves would remain in her role as Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘for the whole of this parliament’. She made a speech standing behind a placard saying: ‘Kickstart economic growth.’ Axel Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to at least 52 years in prison for the murder of three girls in a knife attack at Southport. Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, announced a ‘rapid audit’ of grooming gangs by Baroness Casey of Blackstock. Wildfires raged around Los Angeles. Luke Littler, 17, became world darts champion. The aftermath of the Palisades and Eaton fires in California (Mario Tama/Getty Images) February President Donald Trump of the United States and the

Don't listen to those who tell you America is over

What has gone wrong for Americans? To listen to an increasing number of politicians and pundits on both sides, from Tucker Carlson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, from Nick Fuentes to Zohran Mamdani, the answer seems to be: everything. Americans are unable to get a job; to afford the necessities of life; to get married or have children; to find religious meaning or form friendships. And all of this can be laid at the feet of corrupt institutions and a corrupt system. This conspiracy-tinged vitriolic take on the American system is a lie. Yet it contains a grain of truth. Our institutions have been led self-servingly by a coterie who disdain American

LA lacks London’s Christmas spirit

‘Never again!’ I sigh every 6 January, as I pack away the abundance of Christmas decorations and baubles lovingly collected over the decades. ‘It’s too much!’ I moan to Percy. ‘Let’s go to a hot island next year and get away from it all…’ But I never do, because I just love Christmas. Every year in early November I eagerly unpack multiple boxes tenderly packed two years earlier, and the reason is because we like to spend Christmas in London one year and in LA the next, as we love both cities. I have quite a lot of extended family in each, so we know that celebrating in either one

The scientific case for the existence of intelligent alien life

The foundation of science is based on the humility to learn, not the arrogance of expertise. When comet experts argued that the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS must be a familiar water-rich comet as soon as it was discovered in July, they behaved like artificial intelligence systems: only able to reflect the data sets they were trained on. For decades, the data set that established comet expertise largely comprised icy rocks in the solar system. My counterpoint is simple: humanity launched technological objects into space, so we must conclude that alien life forms could do the same. This possibility must be added to the training data set of comet experts when studying