Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Lukas Degutis

In pictures: The Nixon Revival

On Wednesday night, The Spectator welcomed readers and guests to our new home in NoMad for our first New York event, The Nixon Revival: why he matters again. US editor Freddy Gray chaired a lively discussion between Conrad Black, Daniel McCarthy and former Nixon staffer Geoff Shepard on the legacy of America’s 37th president — and why, more than half a century since Watergate, "Tricky Dick" is finding admirers on the American right. The discussion was livestreamed on the night and has now been edited to watch on demand, exclusively for Spectator subscribers. Watch it in full here. Before and after the conversation, readers mingled over drinks and rosé courtesy of Château Léoube, with the party spilling out on to The Spectator’s rooftop terrace overlooking Manhattan.

Freddy Gray

Is libertarianism dead? Daniel McCarthy vs. Robby Soave

45 min listen

In this episode of Americano, Freddy hosts a debate between Daniel McCarthy of the Heritage Foundation and Robby Soave of Reason magazine to examine whether libertarianism has effectively died as a vital political force or remains quietly triumphant through tech deregulation, AI innovation and unprecedented levels of individual freedom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Pedro L. Gonzalez

The right has a woman problem

The right has its own unwritten rules of political correctness. There are forbidden words, and while they might not be met with censorship, they do elicit eye rolls. One proscribed term is “misogyny.” It also happens to be the most accurate description of the right’s mood and trajectory these days. The right’s response to this trend has been to downplay it, or even deny that it is happening at all. But ignoring it will not make it go away. Political discourse often operates like a ratchet: the intensity around a given topic is constantly turned up, but the mechanism is not designed to dial back.

right women
Freddy Gray

Can superintelligence save Trump?

Donald Trump’s greatest strength is his indefatigability. The grumblings within his administration grow louder. Inflation is stubborn, the price of oil too high, the Democrats ahead in the polls for all the key Senate election races. Yet the President is out and about, doing what he perhaps does best, which is campaigning. "Pretend I’m running, please. If we don’t win, they’ll end up impeaching me," Trump told a rally in Oklahoma yesterday. His aim is to turn the midterms into another presidential-style contest, and he’s right that the name Trump continues to be the key factor in American politics, something far more potent than the Republican party brand. As ever, though, the Donald divides opinions – and according to some surveys, his net approval rating is -23.

Yesterday

Daniel Beurthe

Inside the murky world of Tether

In July 2014, three aspiring entrepreneurs – Reeve Collins, Craig Sellars and Brock Pierce – launched a startup from a Santa Monica bungalow. Its product, Realcoin, was a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency: a digital token that, unlike volatile Bitcoin, could be used for everyday transactions. When the trio pitched it to Silicon Valley’s big investors, they were laughed out of the room. This could have made for a classic startup origin story, were it not for the cast behind it. Their résumés betray the whole venture as a pipe dream.

John Fund

Is Peter Thiel right about the problem of Trump’s presidency?

In Trumpworld, there are whispers that one of the boss's biggest failings is his choice of personnel. Some claim that Donald Trump's appointees are toadies, disasters or novices, and that they drag down the effectiveness of policies that make sense for America. Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech chairman of Palantir, has criticized Trump's ill-chosen apprentices. In a podcast interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, Thiel laid out a harsh view of Trump’s second term compared to his first: I think the two administrations made opposite mistakes. The first administration brought in all these people who couldn’t agree, and it was just all this internal fighting. The second administration, I think overcorrected for the mistake of the first term with all these loyalty tests.

Gavin Mortimer

Will France’s school protest movement spread?

The government of France held a crisis meeting yesterday afternoon as a school protest movement intensified in violence. On Wednesday, 625 people were arrested and 83 gendarmes and police officers were injured as youths protested outside hundreds of schools nationwide. Yesterday, a school in Nantes was severely damaged after being firebombed and a fire engine was destroyed in Marseille. In the city of Reims there were fierce clashes between protesters and police, and only the use of tear gas dispersed the demonstrators. In some cities, such as Rennes, it was reported that university students were protesting alongside the high school pupils. The government claimed yesterday that the movement has been hijacked “by LFI and its far-left proxies.

Thursday

Matthew Lynn

The national debt is back with a vengeance

The 5 percent barrier has long since been left behind. This week, the yield on 30-year American government bonds hit 5.6 percent, its highest level since way back in 2002, while the cost of ten-year borrowing rose to its highest level in 20 years. However hard the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tries to control it, the interest rate the American government has to pay to finance its vast deficit keeps on rising relentlessly. As it climbs towards 6 percent and perhaps even higher, surely we must soon see a change in the political debate. Three decades of financial complacency will be swept aside – and the politics of deficit reduction will be back.

Melanie McDonagh

Christa Pike should be allowed to live

Coincidentally with the sad passing of Esther Rantzen, who spent her last couple of years campaigning for assisted suicide in the UK, there’s just been an interesting case of an assisted dying going wrong. The state of Tennessee kills prisoners sentenced to death by means of an injection of pentobarbital, the same substance used by the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland (only not usually by injection) where Dame Esther had considered going after she was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Pike has been executed once; that, even supporters of the death penalty must agree, is enough Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, a prisoner sentenced to death, Christa Pike, survived a double injection of pentobarbital and is now in hospital being resuscitated.

harold wilson
James Heale

Harold Wilson is the new Labour lodestar

After Andy Burnham’s speech at the Labour party conference last month, one veteran factionalist declared: “We are all Burnhamites now.” Romantics love the rhetoric; cynics respect the ruthlessness. “Game recognizes game,” says one Labour figure. The Prime Minister’s address was pitched at a wounded party seeking support. Emotive and personal, yet also intensely political, it showed a keen awareness not just of Labour’s values, but of its interests too. Right to Buy, which attracted legions to the Tory ranks, will be halted for new homes; a new National Care Service will bring thousands more members into the unions’ fold.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Watch: The Nixon Revival

The Spectator held its first event in Manhattan on Wednesday September 30 — and you can watch the full discussion above. Known to many as “Tricky Dick,” Richard Nixon has often had his legacy reduced to the scandal that brought his presidency crashing down: a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, a criminal cover-up, then his resignation. But what if his story is far more complicated? Why has J.D. Vance described Nixon as a “new icon” for young conservatives? And why do some Gen Zers now see him as an “America First” populist pioneer?

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Travis Aaroe

Trump relives high school with the tech nerds

Yesterday President Trump and a gaggle of tech barons appeared before the press pack on the White House lawn, fresh from a meeting to sign the “White House Accord” on AI. The atmosphere was jovial. Trump was weaving about, patting the arms of David Sacks and Mark Zuckerberg while the executives chuckled and joked to one another. Anthropic boss Dario Amodei was invited by a journalist to give his précis of the meeting. Amodei haltingly stepped forward, adjusted his glasses, and then began rather frantically chopping the air with his hands as he outlined the benefits and hazards of AI. After he finished he seemed to flee, retreating to the outer edges of the crowd. Trump looked on benignly. An introverted technologist who is somewhat camera shy?

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The heroes who saved the flydubai flight from disaster

This morning a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv appears to have been hijacked by its own co-pilot. It ended with the plane on the ground in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and all 174 passengers alive, among them 27 children and many Israelis. Very little has been officially confirmed. But what we do know points to a potentially massive disaster that was averted, thanks to the bravery of Israeli passengers and members of the crew. Flight FZ1073, a Boeing 737, left Dubai just after 7 a.m. local time this morning, heading for Ben Gurion Airport. It’s one of the everyday routes that have linked Israel and the Gulf in recent years.

Tuesday

Travis Aaroe

Why do we know so little about the RAF Fairford affair?

On Sunday, three suspicious trucks were spotted speeding toward the Royal Air Force airfield in Fairford, England. Shortly after, five masked men, later identified as British nationals, were detained under the Terrorism Act of 2006 and the Explosives Act of 1875. Had a bomb attack just been foiled? If so who planned it, and to what end? Then, on Monday, the five suspects were abruptly released on bail.  President Trump seemed nonplussed by the move. “I would not have released them,” he told reporters, but was full of praise for the conduct of the British authorities. The safety of RAF Fairford is a matter for the American President – it is operated by the US Air Force, the only airfield in Europe that can accommodate its heavy bombers.

raf fairford
Paul Stott

Why did Britain give a Hamas chief’s bodyguard a passport?

The failure of the British state is long-term and corrosive. It emerged this weekend that Mr. X, a former bodyguard of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, was allowed to settle in the UK and given British citizenship – before going on to allegedly coordinate a Hamas terror plot in Germany. He also faces separate terror charges in this country. The case of Mr. X was quickly followed by the news yesterday that Britain's Home Secretary plans to launch a new resettlement scheme which prioritizes Afghan women and girls, and Palestinians of both sexes. By the time Mr. X arrived, a succession of Hamas exiles had already made England their home The chronology as it has emerged so far is well worth examining. From 2006, Mr.

Monday

Alexander Kolyandr

Russia’s economy is slowly rotting

For several years already, every fall, Russia's finance ministry has performed the same ritual. It unveils a budget that looks sober, even responsible, with a shrinking deficit and falling inflation. Every year, it is ignored by reality. The budget for 2027, outlined at the end of last week, is no exception. The headline promise is a deficit of 2.2 percent of GDP next year, about 5.5 trillion roubles ($65 billion), down from roughly 3 percent expected this year. Revenues are to rise by 7.5 percent, which after inflation is barely 1 percent. Spending will grow by less than 6 percent, which after inflation is a cut of about 1 percent. For the first time since the invasion of Ukraine, the government even plans to start refilling the National Welfare Fund, the country's rainy-day savings.

Sam Leith

The real reason kids are giving up reading

Another day, another dispiriting survey about the crisis in childhood reading. Parents who earn more than $130,000 a year are the least likely of all social groups surveyed to read aloud every night to their children. So much for the sharp-elbowed upper-middle classes. Even when we factor in the possibility that the cash-rich and time-poor are outsourcing bedtime stories to nanny, it’s a less than encouraging finding. It tells us something about the dwindling importance of reading to the most successful among us.

Daryna Bondarenko

Ukrainians are struggling to keep going

Each time I fly back to Odesa, my hometown, to see my family, I notice how things have changed since my last visit to Ukraine. Which is to say, how much worse they have become. Take the bombing raids, which used to happen only at night. Now they take place in the daytime as well and have grown much more violent and unpredictable. The Russians send over a cocktail of drones, ballistic missiles and guided aerial bombs. You never know where they’ll hit – residential buildings, shopping centers, pharmacies, trains, you name it (“Russian Roulette” is the new, blackly comic Ukrainian name for it). The war, all the time, is getting closer to you and your loved ones. It used to be happening in another part of your region. Then in another area of your city.

Maximillian Garely

The DSA sincerely dislikes America

Like most evenings recently, I was scrolling X to fill some idle time. Within seconds, I came across a rather rage-inducing post by New York State assembly member and congressional candidate Claire Valdez. Invoking Mexico’s struggle against “empire,” she promised to carry that struggle into Congress. Her framing, focused around the thinly veiled disdain for “empire,” raises an obvious question. What role does America assume in this story? Is the American political community one that she, alongside her DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) comrades, wants to improve, or is it an adversary to be dismantled from within?

DSA

Saturday

Scott Diel

Is Estonia really preparing for war with Russia?

“Prepare for war,” was the message from Estonian EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas to the European Defence Agency last year. And Estonia has: its 2026 defense expenditure is 5.4 percent of GDP, the second highest in Europe. Citizens are advised by the government to keep an emergency supply of 21 liters of drinking water per person permanently on hand. A survival checklist has also been published, including ready-to-eat, high-energy foods, prescription medications, a bank card, cell phone with charger and a stock of ready cash. The country’s authorities don’t mince their words.

estonia

Friday

Freddy Gray

The truth about Xi and Trump’s summit – with Dr. Edward Howell

29 min listen

Freddy speaks with Dr. Edward Howell, an Oxford University lecturer in international relations, about the high-stakes summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, examining Beijing’s strategic desire for global parity, its covert role in enabling an anti-Western alignment alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, and the escalating geopolitical tensions surrounding Taiwan, trade and economic coercion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

edward howell
Brendan O’Neill

Spare us Macklemore’s smug braying about Free Palestine

Does Macklemore really want to “Save Gaza” or save his own lame career from the dungheap of history? Yesterday, the self-styled canceled rapper – he’s bloody noisy for someone who’s been silenced – announced that he’s going on tour. It’s called the “Free Palestine” tour. Of course it is. There’s no speedier shortcut to the moral high ground for a has-been half-celeb than on the Gaza bandwagon.  Macklemore became the Palestine movement’s holiest martyr when he was dumped from Ed Sheeran’s US tour after yelping “Free Palestine” at 90,000 Sheeran fans in New Jersey. Ivy League leftists idolize him. He’s the patron saint of the keffiyeh cult. “He’s been crucified by the Epstein classes!”, cried every lunatic on the internet.

Ian Williams

What’s the point of the Xi visit?

Moments before President Xi Jinping climbed down the steps of his aircraft to be greeted by Donald Trump, US marines were filmed on their hands and knees smoothing out the red carpet, Chinese officials looking down from the top of the steps. It was an uncomfortable image, ridiculed on social media for the symbolism of kowtowing to the emperor. But it set the tone for a summit which so far has been heavy on pomp and ceremony, rich in platitudes, but with very little in the way of substance. A strong diplomatic case can be made for political fawning – where the power dynamics are lopsided against you, and if there’s a chance of a reasonable payback.

Owen Matthews

The UN is no longer a forum for international peace

Should Russia’s aggressive war on Ukraine, with its accompanying litany of horrific human rights abuses, disqualify it from a seat on the United Nations’ Security Council (UNSC)? That’s what Poland’s feisty foreign minister Radek Sikorski called for yesterday in New York. The UNSC was meant to be a "guardian of peace, not to give immunity to aggressors" like Russia, Sikorski told Polish television. More, he called the legal basis for Russia’s permanent seat at the Security Council table – with its accompanying veto over all resolutions – "questionable" because Moscow took over the USSR’s old seat without a vote.  In moral terms, Sikorski has a point – and it’s one that the Ukrainians have been pushing for a while.