World

Friday

Charlie Gammell

The Middle East is drifting into chaos

The war in Iran rumbles on, in parallel to talks that are aimed at stopping it. Both sides would rather the war were over; this limbo is causing mayhem in Iran’s economy and politics, while MAGA too has been bent out of shape. Yet a reality might be starting to take hold in which fighting simply drifts aimlessly, much like the peace talks. And much like the ships that are stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, too. As both sides try to game the stalemate, unintended consequences are emerging The US is calculating that a naval blockade, in the absence of a memorandum of understanding, can economically constrict Tehran, narrowing its room for maneuver and eventually forcing Tehran back to the table.

Gavin Mortimer

Will assisted dying be Macron’s only legacy?

France’s National Assembly passed a bill on Wednesday granting terminally ill adults the right to end their lives with medical assistance. Macron is desperate to leave one legacy, no matter how divisive and controversial it is The assisted dying bill (droit à l’aide à mourir)was backed by 291 MPs with 241 against. It is the fourth time the text has been approved by the lower house, but in the past the upper house (the Senate) has rejected the bill. The impasse prompted the government to activate a mechanism in the constitution that allows the Assembly to have the final say without the consent of the Senate.

Wednesday

Jim Lawley

Could Gibraltar fall to Spain?

Key parts of the post-Brexit treaty that provides for a fluid border between Gibraltar and Spain will come into provisional effect today. Running to over a thousand pages, the treaty took far longer to negotiate than the entire Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. It has still to be ratified by the House of Commons and the EU parliament. The treaty effectively makes Gibraltar part of the EU’s passport-free Schengen area. Both Spain and Gibraltar were anxious to avoid long waits at the border: the 15,000 Spaniards who cross every day are half of Gibraltar’s work force and they are also an estimated 25 percent of the wage earners in the adjacent region – one of the poorest parts of Spain.

gibraltar
Macron Starmer
Gavin Mortimer

Europe’s centrists are falling one by one

Few in France will have been as devastated by their team’s defeat in last night’s World Cup semi-final as Emmanuel Macron. The president put on a brave face, tweeting his congratulations to Spain and thanking the French team "for carrying our colors with commitment." But how Macron must have dreamed of a French World Cup triumph in Sunday’s final. He would have been in New Jersey – as he was in Moscow in 2018 when the Bleus won the World Cup –dancing a jig as his bête noire, Donald Trump, presented the trophy to his boys. Macron's presidency is ending with a whimper In a sense the French football team are a metaphor for Macron’s presidency.

Tuesday

Jason Brodsky

You can’t negotiate with Iran

With the reimposition of the American naval blockade against Iran, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Washington and Tehran seems dead. Its demise reveals the Islamic Republic for what it has always been: an aggressive, terroristic power that has no interest in rejoining the community of nations. The Trump administration demonstrated with the MOU that it was willing to go big on sanctions relief for Iran. As part of its terms was a General License X that permitted Iran to sell oil using dollars for the first time in decades. The US military blockade was lifted. Discussions were beginning on the unfreezing of billions of dollars in frozen or restricted Iranian assets.

Bartek Staniszewski

How Poland and Ukraine can repair their broken relationship

Poland was once a staunch ally of Ukraine. But President Zelensky's decision to name a unit of the Ukrainian Special Forces after the “Heroes of the UPA” appears to have shattered the relationship forever. Help may be at hand, though: in the form of the humble British historian. Others want Poland to go further: there are calls to close the border with Ukraine While Polish and Ukrainian politicians have their own agendas and aren't trusted by the other side, some British historians have near-mythological status in eastern Europe.

poland
What did Lindsey Graham want?
Freddy Gray

What did Lindsey Graham want?

30 min listen

On Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham died suddenly having just return from a trip to Ukraine. It is believed he suffered from a sudden heart problem. Spectator contributor Daniel McCarthy reflects on Graham's political career which was heavily involved in foreign policy, his relationship with Trump and sense of humor, plus how Lindsey Graham represented the people of South Carolina, especially the army base which heavily influenced the area. Learn how to earn yield on gold, paid in gold, at Monetary-Metals.

Daniel DePetris

Trump can’t escape the Iran war

Last Friday, a senior US official gave a background briefing to the media and made some news. First, Iranian officials contacted the United States through mediators and essentially apologized for their recent attacks against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. And second, the Trump administration expected Tehran to issue a formal statement reiterating that the chokepoint was open to all traffic. “We want them to publicly say that they will stop shooting at ships and explicitly, or at least implicitly, acknowledge that they screwed up,” the official said. “We expect the Iranians to say... that every channel in the strait will be open and that it will be toll-free.

Owen Matthews

Do Iran’s negotiators speak for the IRGC?

The infamous "Memorandum of Understanding" between the United States and Iran has broken down. One of the major points of failure has been the disagreement over which side controls the Strait of Hormuz.  Yesterday, President Donald Trump abruptly declared that his country should now be known as “THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT" and "as such, as a matter of fairness, will be reimbursed at the rate of 20 percent on all cargo shipped." "POTUS is absolutely right," replied Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, on X. "Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service. Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER. 20 percent is of course too much. We will be fair.

Joshua S. Treviño

Americans, do your duty: support England

Soccer is not a quintessentially American sport. Just as Brazil is forever the country of tomorrow, soccer is always the American sport of the the future. It is always coming but never quite arrives, or at least not to the extent that its most-fervent advocates would wish. Wearied British or European readers may be bracing for American anti-soccer invective. This is not that: soccer is a glorious game that deserves to be a major American sport, and though it will never eclipse football or baseball, it is possible to envision it as a second tier American sports.

Monday

Terry Barnes

Why Sam Neill was so loved

Actor Sam Neill, whose unexpected death was announced today by his family, was claimed as a son by not one, but three countries. Neill’s light-hearted description of his highly-successful vigneron business reflected his approach to his acting career Born in Northern Ireland, grown up in New Zealand and first making his name in Australia, Neill was more than the “Jurassic Park actor” as first reports of his death labeled him. From the time he first enjoyed the spotlight in the 1970s Australian film, My Brilliant Career, and his BAFTA-winning portrayal of the enigmatic Sidney Reilly in television’s Reilly, Ace of Spies, to his most recent work, Neill’s career was as versatile as it was broad. Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders was Cardinal Wolsey in The Tudors.

sam neill

Friday

Gavin Mortimer

The violent rage of North African hooligans

A police officer was hospitalized on Thursday night in London as Moroccans vented their fury at losing to France in the World Cup quarter-final. Riot police were deployed to the Edgware Road after Moroccans set off fireworks and chucked debris at officers. Police arrested four people for "violent disorder." There was also tension overnight in several Dutch cities, although the rioting wasn’t as bad as a fortnight ago when Morocco beat Holland in the World Cup. On that occasion police subdued hooligans with a water cannon and numerous arrests were made. There were also ugly confrontations in Toulouse last weekend when Moroccan fans celebrated beating Canada by attacking police officers.

Thursday

Yossi Melman

Israel’s plan for a new Iran war

Metaphorically speaking, champagne bottles were uncorked in the Jerusalem office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Donald Trump declared at the NATO summit in Ankara that the ceasefire with Iran was over. Trump’s remarks – in which he branded Iran’s leaders "scum," "a cancer" and "liars" – were sweet music to Netanyahu and his government.  The 60-day ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan and Qatar on June 17 to end the war between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other – a war that began on February 28 – was effectively imposed on Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister, Mossad, the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Air Force all wanted the fighting to continue.

iran
John O’Neill

Fact check: Rupert Lowe on Joe Rogan

The American right has developed a morbid fascination with Britain over the past two years, particularly after Elon Musk began tweeting about grooming gangs. Some European influencers have found it lucrative to present Britain and parts of the continent as having "fallen," posting videos of crimes by immigrants and appearing on American podcast networks as weary ambassadors from broken countries to warn: "It could happen here." Yesterday The Joe Rogan Experience podcast released a two-hour interview with Rupert Lowe, leader of Britain's Restore party. Was Lowe there merely to create content – or is Restore a serious political party? Some of his statements suggest it’s the former rather than the latter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

rupert lowe
Jawad Iqbal

Both Iran and Trump need peace

The US military has launched a fresh round of strikes against Iran – the second in the past 48 hours – after President Donald Trump declared the fragile ceasefire agreement between the two sides was “over.” Trump said the latest attacks were in “retribution” for Iranian strikes on three cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump, in an angry tirade, referred to the Iranian leadership as ‘scum’ Trump added that if there were further attacks on shipping “it will get much worse!” The strikes hit a railroad bridge in Iran’s northeast, according to Iranian state media, as well as a military base in the coastal city of Bushehr, which is the site of the country’s only civilian nuclear plant.

Matthew Fraser

Marine Le Pen’s return is a nightmare for French centrists

Marine Le Pen’s comeback has thrown France’s presidential election into disarray as rivals for the Élysée Palace scramble to revise their game plans. Before this week’s court ruling opened the way for Le Pen to enter the presidential race, other declared candidates on the left and right were counting on her lieutenant Jordan Bardella to be the right-wing National Rally’s candidate. Bardella has definite strengths, especially his handsome looks and appeal to young voters thanks to his massive following on social media. But his youth and inexperience, at age 30, are a handicap that opponents almost certainly were planning to exploit, especially in live television debates. Now it appears the Bardella scenario is off.

Wednesday

Terry Barnes

Why Albanese’s Kylie Minogue remarks went down so badly in Australia

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is someone who wants to be liked even more than respected. He wants to be seen by Australians as one of them, a "bloke’s bloke," one of the lads. In politician-speak, authentic. Australia is different these days: it’s now a woman’s world, and an increasingly puritan and humorless society, in which many voters would not even have understood Osborne and Albanese’s humor, let alone appreciated it That’s the only explanation for Albanese choosing to invite a ribald Australian podcaster, Nikki Osborne, to his official residence for a boisterous sit-down chat that has gone globally viral, for all the wrong reasons.

anthony albanese australia kylie minogue
andy burnham
Alex Morton

Andy Burnham is Britain’s Biden

Watching Andy Burnham in Manchester, dressed in his T-shirt and jacket and pronouncing the return of a more old-fashioned, pro-worker left, I had a sense of déjà vu. I had seen this movie before, but with different accents. For the politician Burnham obviously resembles is not British at all – it is Joe Biden. Just like Biden, Andy Burnham’s self-image is based on the idea that those on the left are the tribunes of ordinary working people, not progressive elites. Like Joe Biden, Andy Burnham is a provincial throwback to an earlier time, just from the North West, not the Midwest. Just like Biden, Burnham rails against the "neoliberal" changes of the 1980s, which he blames for the economic problems of today.

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

Will the ‘anti-Trump playbook’ work in Britain?

Commentators were so busy fulminating against Trump’s FIFA shenanigans yesterday they mostly missed his intervention in the big story now roiling British politics. "They’re Running the 2024 Anti-Trump Playbook on Nigel Farage," the President posted on Truth Social, linking to an article on the National Pulse, an American media site founded by Farage’s old mucker Raheem Kassam. The point, now being repeated by Reform’s talking heads on TV, is clear. "They" – the SW1 elite – are trying to stop Nigel Farage, just as the Washington establishment mounted a ridiculously elaborate lawfare campaign to try to stop Donald Trump.

erdoğan
Owen Matthews

What Trump and Erdoğan want from each other

Donald Trump has made it clear that he’s attending this year's NATO summit in Ankara for one reason only: “respect for President Erdoğan.” Trump told NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte last month that if it hadn’t been for the veteran Turkish President’s invitation, “I don't think I would have gone to it.” NATO’s summit will, therefore, be dominated by the alliance’s two most militarily powerful and at the same time most problematic members. Trump seems set on pursuing his long-held goal of making Europe pay for its own defense, while Erdoğan is determined to leverage his strategic relationship with the US, Russia and Ukraine to scrap restrictions on Turkish purchases of US military hardware.