Politics Archives

Tuesday

January 13, 2026

Claire Foy and the future of celebrity activism

When the actress Claire Foy – still best known for her deservedly award-winning performance in The Crown – was interviewed recently by Harper’s Bazaar to promote her new film H is for Hawk, an adaptation of the Helen MacDonald memoir, she must have expected an easy ride. Estimable title though Harper’s Bazaar undoubtedly is, few would confuse it with a hard-hitting investigative magazine. Yet Foy made some remarks that have blown open the whole vexed question of what the point is of actors getting involved in public discourse, and whether they should, instead, stick to reading other people’s lines. Foy said, when asked about her public opinions, that it was not her place to sound off on social or wider issues.

Neal Pollack

Trump flips off Ford worker – and boasts about revving the US economy

“This is the easiest speech to make,” President Trump was saying. “We have great people. And all I’m doing is spewing off what the hell we’ve done.”No speech is particularly hard to make for this President. He loves speaking. He would speak to an empty room, a kindergarten class, or a blank wall. In this case, he was speaking to the Detroit Economic Club after a nice tour of a Ford F-150 plant. During the tour, a Ford worker – who almost certainly no longer has a job – yelled "pedophile protector" at Trump, who yelled back "f--- you" twice and flipped the guy the bird. After that, Trump, who, after all, is just like us, headed off to talk to the swells. "Isn't it nice to have a President who can go off teleprompter?

Neal Pollack

Hegseth’s vision is more Starship Troopers than Starfleet Academy

“Welcome to Starbase, Texas,” Elon Musk said from the stage Monday night, as the crowd whooped. “This is a city. It’s actually legally a city that thanks to the hard work of the SpaceX team, we built out of nothing. And it’s now a gigantic rocket manufacturing system. For people out there who are curious to see it, we’re actually on a public highway, so you can come and visit. Drive down the road and see the epic hardware. I think this is the first time that a rocket development program has actually been on a public highway.

Clarissa Hard

Western feminists should be standing up for Iran’s women

As Iranians revolt against the brutal Islamic theocracy that has throttled their civilization since 1979, striking images of young Persian women have been circulating online. They are lighting cigarettes by burning photographs of Ayatollah Khamenei. With their insouciant attitude, tumbles of curls, kohl-lined eyes and lolling fags, they could be on the cover of an Arcade Fire album. These women have reignited the same spirit that sparked widespread protests across the country in September 2022, when Mahsa Amini died in custody following her arrest for disobeying the country's modesty laws. In the aftermath of this, female protesters burned their veils, cut their hair in public and chanted "Women, Life, Freedom.

Monday

January 12, 2026

Klaus Dodds

Trump is playing geopolitical Monopoly with Greenland

Donald Trump is playing hemispheric monopoly. Depending on what day of the week it is, the President's focus alternates between Venezuela, Canada, the Panama canal – and for the last twelve months or so, Greenland. Given what Trump and his team have said over the past week, their acquisition plans for the island are well advanced. But why exactly does he want Greenland? The world’s largest island is an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark and is about three times larger than Texas. While the term du jour is geopolitics, perhaps the most plausible reason for why Trump is gunning for Greenland is ego-politics. We have a president eager to make America great again and complete the task that his predecessor President Monroe started some 200 years ago.

Ben Clerkin

The trouble with Jerome Powell

Lost in the hysterical media bleating about a new criminal investigation into Jerome Powell is any attempt to report fairly on his alleged transgressions. The singular lens through which the investigation is being reported in many openly and not-so-openly left leaning outlets is that it is Donald Trump's revenge after Powell refused to do as instructed and lower interest rates But the aperture needs to be widened to see the full picture: the case is about more than the Chair of the Federal Reserve not bending the knee. It is about Powell's competency as the nation’s chief money man after presiding over the central bank’s vast and scandalous renovation project – that started at $1.9 billion, now stands at $2.

Brendan O’Neill

Iran’s uprising and the moral bewilderment of Western youth

I’m starting to feel sorry for progressives who are schtum about the revolution in Iran. My contempt for them is giving way to pity. Imagine watching women fling off their hijabs in glorious defiance of the cruel mullahs who rule over them and feeling nothing. Imagine seeing brave youths swarm the streets to confront the tyrants who oppress them and just looking the other way. The extraordinary valor of the young in Iran has exposed the moral bewilderment of the young in the West Imagine seeing that young man in London this weekend scaling the walls of the Iranian Embassy to yank down the flag of a ruthless regime and saying: "Well, it’s complicated.

Philip Patrick

Why has Hollywood got so little to say about Iran?

It was the Golden Globes last night in Tinseltown and as per usual Hollywood’s finest strutted and peacocked on the red carpet to the click and flash of the massed paparazzi cameras. Images of their 1,000-watt smiles and 10,000-dollar couture outfits were beamed around the world to a million Instagram and X feeds. And yet, something was missing. These days a celebrity glamfest is not complete without a healthy dose of woke posturing on the issue du jour, whether it be underrepresentation of black people ("#OscarsSoWhite" or Black Lives Matter), women’s empowerment, climate change, or most recently of course, the plight of the Palestinians. This time, not so much.

Spectator Editorial

How far can bravado take the US?

Operation Absolute Resolve, Donald Trump’s rendition of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, was a brilliantly executed coup. The audacious raid did not undermine international law, as many European and Democratic politicians have said. But it did expose the weakness and pomposity of the world’s multilateral bodies. Maduro traded oil for loans with China while helping Moscow avoid sanctions. He permitted the terrorist group Hezbollah and Iran to operate and build drones within his jurisdiction. He rigged elections and had opposition activists shot in the street. He allowed and enabled weapons, fentanyl and illegal migrants to flood towards America’s southern border. Yet it wasn’t the International Criminal Court that arrested Maduro to bring him to justice in a New York court.

Ben Domenech

Could the Donroe Doctrine turn Marco Rubio into the president-in-waiting?

It required an incredible amount of sophistication to achieve the desired result in Caracas: a dictator detained and transported alive. The mission had been planned and mapped out for months, worked and reworked at the behest of the Commander-in-Chief. No American casualties would be tolerated. Special Forces had been circling and at the ready for weeks. The helicopters were easy targets, so a vital part of the mission was to eliminate Nicolás Maduro’s ground- to-air response beforehand and claim total air superiority.

Daniel Beurthe

Inside the Democrats’ AI skepticism

Bernie Sanders has been rolling out political hot takes for more than half a century, and in recent years his familiar socialist prescriptions have found a new focus: artificial intelligence. In 2023 he argued that workers who use it should be entitled to a four-day week. In October of last year he called on corporations who employ AI to be hit with a “robot tax”. And, just last month, he made his punchiest proposal yet: a complete moratorium on all AI data centers. In a characteristically plaintive video address, the Vermont Senator argued that halting data center construction would "give democracy a chance to catch up," preventing the benefits of AI from being monopolized by "the wealthiest people on Earth.

Saturday

January 10, 2026

Mani Basharzad

The end is drawing near for Iran’s mullahs

As a wave of protests swept across Iran last night, the internet was completely shut down. I have no idea what is happening to my friends, my family, or anyone else. My best friend Champ was at the demonstration. I desperately hope he is safe. Iran is a nation wanting its soul back. Protesters burn the Islamic Republic flag and replace it with Iran’s real flag Overnight, there were protests throughout Iran. From Qom and Mashhad, the most religious cities, to Rasht and Anzali, the most secular, people took to the streets. In Tehran, there were protests in the poorest parts to the richest parts of the city. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the huge crowd in Pol-e-Roomi, a neighborhood in Tehran where prices are comparable to London.

Rachel K. Paulose

The question the FBI must answer in Minnesota ICE shooting

For the third time in a week, Minnesota is making national headlines, and for all the wrong reasons. In a massive show of federal force against a resistant sanctuary metropolis, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deployed 2,000 federal agents to Minneapolis-St. Paul in the largest immigration enforcement operation in the nation’s history. Against the backdrop of what federal prosecutors described as a nine billion dollar federal fraud scheme centered in Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community, agents have gone door-to-door investigating human trafficking, narcotics and gang activity, and surreptitious employment by illegal aliens.

Friday

January 9, 2026

Freddy Gray

Gabbard 2028, anyone?

"The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela," said Tulsi Gabbard. "Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We don’t want other countries to choose our leaders – so we have to stop trying to choose theirs."That was in 2019, when Gabbard was still a rebellious anti-war Democrat. Nobody then could have predicted that, six years on, she would be Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI). But in 2024, Gabbard jumped aboard the Trump Train and became a key player, alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in the big realignment of that year. Yet now, she finds herself isolated. Her dovish foreign policy views make her a bad fit for an administration committed to the "Donroe Doctrine" – and, asserting itself through violence in Latin America.

Bill Glahn

2026 is the year of the Somali benefits scandal

All it took was one video from a 23-year-old YouTuber named Nick Shirley to end the 20-year political run of Minnesota’s Tim Walz. Shirley brought his camera to Minneapolis in search of childcare center fraud in a video seen by over a 100 million viewers worldwide – and appeared to find plenty.But, if you thought (or had hoped) that you’ve heard the last from the multi-billion-dollar Minnesota welfare fraud scandals, think again – the issue will remain in the national spotlight throughout 2026. The most prominent date is November 3 – Election Day. Gov. Walz himself, the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee, will not be on the ballot, as he withdrew his bid on Monday morning.

Christopher Caldwell

What is anti-Semitic?

New York’s new mayor is woke. The Ugandan-born Muslim leftist Zohran Mamdani imperils the city as we know it, some people grumble. In a recent letter to supporters, Republican Representative Nancy Mace warned that Mamdani was “a man who’s bringing SHARIA LAW to America.” Of course, Sharia and woke are not the same thing. Mamdani’s program, brimming with paeans to trans and gay rights, might not thrill a Wahhabi cleric. Still, he has brought a Middle Eastern flavor, and not in the good sense. During the campaign Mamdani promised to arrest Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu should he decide to visit the United Nations. That hair-raising prospect would expose Mamdani to federal kidnapping charges. He has already done his share of scolding about the Middle East.

Tom Slater

Britain’s X crackdown is no joke

The internet suddenly went down in Iran last night, as courageous Iranians continued to rise up against the Ayatollah. The UK government was apparently inspired. Not by the rebels, whose plight the Prime Minister has remained remarkably quiet about – but by the mullahs’ digital crackdown. Call me a conspiracy loon, but I dare say Labour’s ire for X isn’t simply about the site’s supposedly insufficient safeguarding policies Britain’s Labour party has issued its most serious threat yet to social-media giant X – whose owner, Elon Musk, has become this rudderless government’s go-to bogeyman.

Justin Marozzi

What Trump’s coup in Venezuela means for Iran

In a city awash with visual propaganda, one mural in Caracas is especially striking for the western visitor. In it, Jesus Christ stands alongside Imam Mahdi, a prophesied messianic figure who many Muslims believe will appear with Christ during the End Times to restore peace and justice to the world. There is only one Venezuelan – the late president Hugo Chávez – among the six smaller figures on the mural. Three are Iranian, including Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elite Quds Force, killed by a US airstrike in 2020. One is an Iraqi commander killed in the same strike, and the last is Lebanese, Imad Mughniyeh, a founder of Islamic Jihad in Lebanon and number two in Hezbollah until his assassination in 2008.

Paul Wood

America’s new war on drugs will be tough to win

On New Year’s Eve a few years ago, I was in Medellín, Colombia, the city that gave its name to one of the world’s most notorious drugs cartels. Our taxi driver offered us some cocaine to fuel the party we were heading to: $10 for a gram; $15 for the “luxury” product. Our group decided to splash out and get a gram of the really good stuff. I’d tried coke a couple of times in London. It was like snorting drain cleaner. Whoosh… I found that half a line of Medellín’s best was enough to keep you going until sunrise. But the next day it was difficult to be within six feet of another human being, the coke having burned up all the dopamine in my brain. Coke is evil. I imagine a lot of other people were feeling the same in Medellín that New Year.

Owen Matthews

Maduro’s capture is mixed news for the Kremlin

For the Kremlin, the US’s snatching of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro is a humiliation with a silver lining. True, little more than a year after the precipitous fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Russia has been shown to be completely hopeless when it comes to keeping its allies in power. In Caracas, US airborne forces breezed past Russian-supplied S-300 air defense systems, which were part of a $20 billion package of maybe not-so-great Russian military equipment that Moscow sold the Venezuelans. The Kremlin has lost a strategic bridgehead in South America which it could, potentially, have used to disrupt and challenge Washington’s regional hegemony – if Moscow weren’t so committed financially and militarily to its war in Ukraine.