Europe

Are you enjoying the latest episode of the Trump-Macron show? It’s the most intriguing bromance in modern politics: two leaders from different and opposing political worlds who nonetheless fell for each other. It was self-love-à-deux from the moment they met. And they consummated their love by bombing Syria last year. They even bicker and make up like a passionate couple. Today they are in Paris to mark Armistice Day, and Trump may be pleased to have left behind the Washington brouhaha following the midterms and his firing of Jeff Sessions. Yet the broader and more remarkable point is the extent to which Trump and Macron’s fortunes have reversed.

In a speech richly deserving adaption as a Saturday Night Live skit, US national security adviser John Bolton has unveiled the latest extension of America’s enemies list. Eclipsing the post-9/11 ‘Axis of Evil’ we now have a ‘Troika of Tyranny,’ consisting of those powerhouse troublemakers Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. According to Bolton, ‘this triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua is the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere.’ But fear not. Under the leadership of President Trump, the United States is now ‘taking direct action against all three regimes to defend the rule of law, liberty, and basic human decency in our region.

I happen to be in the Old Country this week, and am glad to report that everything in England is just as I left it. It’s raining constantly, except when it isn’t. No one speaks English in London, except the American tourists. And everyone, regardless of whether they want Britain to stay in the European Union or leave that undemocratic shambles of a superstate, wants to get Brexit over and done with, so they can get back to traditional pursuits like soccer, gardening and smoking crack. Imagine my surprise this morning as, scrolling through today’s New York Times as I mopped up the grease from my cooked breakfast, I saw the headline ‘British Hoarders Stock Up on Supplies, Preparing for Brexit’.

The news that Duchess Meghan of Markle, Britain’s favourite American, has a right royal bun in the oven by dashing sex maniac Prince Harry brings a smile to the faces of all patriotic Britons. An absent-minded smile, the quiet smile of a polite, proud people as it visualises the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, butt naked in various positions, and tries to guess which one it was that resulted in conception. It’s a national game of Clue. This may seem intrusive, but the royals have never had their sex so privately. In the good old days, royalty mated like pandas, with difficulty and before an approving audience. A royal wedding was a diplomatic union, not a love match.

I made no time for the Blasey Ford testimony, and never do for the NFL, but the TV will be on for Ryder Cup this weekend, the greatest show in golf. The bi-annual Europe v. America spectacle is being held at Le Golf National, a relatively new course outside of Paris this year, which seems odd because golf has few roots in France. But tens of thousands of French people will be going, and tens thousands more will journey from Britain and Ireland and the continent. Since 1979, when our Ryder Cup opponents became European (because postwar, the US was beating the British-Irish team too consistently) the Euro team has become one of the few well-regarded symbols of a united Europe, in counterpoint to the sovereignty threatening bureaucrats of Brussels.

Did British prime minister Theresa May take a shot at Donald Trump in yesterday afternoon’s address to the UN General Assembly? It certainly sounds like it. Or was Trump a proxy target for another blond populist, Boris Johnson? It certainly looks like it. On Tuesday, Trump had rejected the ‘ideology of globalism’ and defended the nation state and its ‘doctrine of patriotism’.

Americans, I know you are confused about Brexit. Who isn’t? Even us Brits struggle to keep up with the spats, splits, tensions and bitching Brexit has unleashed across Europe. Take last week’s Salzburg showdown, at which the heads of the EU’s 28 member states met to gab about immigration, security and, of course, Brexit in a bizarrely done-up hall that looked like the Death Star conference room from Star Wars. The highlight, or lowlight, was a late-night dinner at which Theresa May had 10 minutes to convince the gathered heads to embrace her Chequers version of Brexit. She failed. The side-eye award went to European Council President Donald Tusk who posted on Instagram a photo of himself offering Theresa May a cake with the caption, ‘No cherries’.

Want to lecture people about the anti-globalism trend that is supposedly sweeping the West? It goes without saying that you must refer to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, followed by mentioning the right-wing (‘nationalist,’ ‘populist’ or ‘illiberal’ or ‘far-right’ could substitute as adjectives) political parties that rule Hungary, Poland, and more recently, Italy. After all, they want to Make Poland/ Hungary/Italy Great Again!

Last weekend, while the world was watching the rise of the Sweden Democrats, Swedes were watching Uppdrag granskning (Investigative Assignment). The program’s title sounds like that of a Scandinavian noir thriller. This episode’s plot, set in the Stockholm immigrant suburb of Botkyrka, was murky too. But the criminal dealings in this Sveriges Television production weren’t fictional. Investigative Assignment exposed a scheme to sell thousands of Muslim votes in Sunday’s election, with implications that could have affected the national outcome. Botkyrka is one of Sweden’s largest municipalities, with 92,000 residents. It also has one of Sweden’s highest percentages of first- and -second-generation immigrants; in 2017, 58.

The first sign that Matteo Salvini was destined to do battle with Emmanuel Macron came in June, a few days after he was named Italy’s interior minister. Salvini, whose party, the League, wants to cut immigration drastically, announced that a German-registered rescue ship carrying 629 aspiring migrants from Africa would not be allowed to dock in Sicily. Macron reacted with disgust. ‘The policy of the Italian government,’ a spokesman for his political movement announced, ‘is nauseating.’ Salvini responded that if the French wanted to show their open–heartedness, they might make good on their unfulfilled pledge to feed and shelter some of the 100,000 African migrants Italy had until recently been receiving each year.

It may seem odd that a cabal of politicians, celebrities and millionaires can successfully present themselves as a great democratic force and seek to overturn Brexit, Britain's vote to leave the European Union. But the people behind the People’s Vote have one big advantage: their opponents are in disarray. Vote Leave ceased campaigning after the referendum. Its organisers felt they had accomplished their mission, and the Conservative government could be trusted to execute Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Boris Johnson now describes that decision as an ‘absolutely fatal’ mistake. As foreign secretary, Johnson admitted to dinner guests earlier this summer that ‘some of us were seduced by high office in government’.

The New York Times’s journalists, as we’ve said, have a rather strange anti-British fixation at the moment...but they aren’t the only ones. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has become a creature of habit when it comes to comparing the levels of violent crime between Western nations. On Tuesday morning, two days after a mass shooting at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Flor., he bravely tweeted: ‘Facts: UK: 933 violent crimes per 100,000 people. US: 399 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Gun confiscation doesn’t work.’ https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1034432701376487425 This, Charlie thinks, is a Really Good Own. Which is why he repeats it so regularly.

The New York Times is at it again. It was only back in May that Spectator USA was forced to call into question the paper’s coverage of Britain, after a curious article on ‘Austerity Britain’ by one Peter S Goodman appeared, complete with a slew of glaring omissions. Well, now it seems that the NYT has staggered off its stool for another bruising round. A food review of London has been published in its Blighty-sceptic pages, and it can’t be said to be very much better than poor Mr Goodman’s.

The last time Russia held an international sporting event during a climate of détente with the United States, it annexed a significant portion of its neighbour’s territory several weeks later. As it turned out, Obama’s ‘reset’ years and the Sochi Winter Olympics, were the lull before the swift and subtle storm in which Ukraine lost the Crimea to around 20,000 Russian troops wearing face masks and bandanas. For the enthusiasts of historical parallelisms, the Soccer World Cup and President Trump’s near-fawning public proclamations over the Russian premier might very well chime a few early warning systems. Particularly if you happen to live in Belarus, a sparsely populated and foresty nation to the western edge of Russia.

There is a long tradition of British chancers making good in America, from the Mayflower to Piers Morgan. Imagine the golden age of Hollywood without those south Londoners Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, and Archie Leach, whose extended performance as Cary Grant established a lasting benchmark for masculine style. Unfortunately, the quality of the exports varies. As a British chancer, allow me to apologise unreservedly for Gerry & The Pacemakers, Freddie & The Dreamers and all the other chancers who caught a ride on the Beatles’ coat tails. And also for Piers Morgan. Should I apologise preemptively for Tommy Robinson? You may not know who he is but, the way things are going, you may well know soon. He has already turned up on Donald Trump Jr.

In her column in this week’s Spectator, Mary Wakefield writes about Father Mark Morris, who was fired from his post at Glasgow Caledonian University for having a prayer meeting in response to a recent gay pride march. Wakefield points out that there is more to this story than meets the eye. She’s not alone in wondering: how can a priest be dismissed for stating the Catholic Church’s position (and off-campus besides)? And why have we returned to the days where clergymen are expelled from campus on ideological grounds? The case of Father Morris is worth examining because he’s the first clergyman to be caught up in the new campus intolerance.

Surely there is a bit of humbug in this outrage about the two remaining jihadi Beatles, Kotey and Elsheikh, and Sajid Javid’s difficult but correct decision to send them for trial in America. Suppose the grisly pair had been located a couple of years ago in Raqqa. And let’s suppose there was a Reaper drone overhead, and that British intelligence could help send a missile neatly through their windscreen. Would we provide the details — knowing that they would be killed without a chance for their lawyers to offer pleas in mitigation on account of their tough childhoods in west London? Would the British state, in these circumstances, have connived in straightforward extrajudicial killing? Too damn right we would.