So much for the Nobel Peace Prize that Donald Trump said “everyone thinks” he should receive. The New York Times reports that Trump is starting to get second thoughts about visiting Singapore on June 12 to hold a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Trump boasted earlier that if they cut a deal, Kim would … Read more
The less we hear about the Royal family, the better. With Meghan and Harry, this is exactly the reverse of what we’ll get.
Finally House Republicans are standing up to the president — and all it took was a Chinese phone company.
The nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle show the depth of American royalism.
My, my, my. North Korea is in a snit over National Security Adviser John Bolton who urged it to follow the Libya model of total denuclearization. Everyone knows how that ended. The North declared yesterday that it finds Bolton “repugnant,” a sentiment that is actually widely shared around the world, and that it wants an … Read more
Lawyers representing the ex-spook-turned-private-investigator Christopher Steele were in action yesterday at London’s High Court. In a rather convoluted turn of events, BuzzFeed, who published Steele’s leaked dossier on links relating to Trump and Moscow, is now seeking to question the author “on the dossier as a whole” because of the document’s importance in the “public’s … Read more
May 17, 2017 started out as any other day in Donald Trump’s Washington. Men and women in suits with briefcases walked into work, ready to meet clients or do business. The day, however, proved to be the very beginning of Trump’s troubles, with the appointment of a special counsel to look into allegations of collusion … Read more
The new secretary of state has already blundered during his short tenure.
Maybe President Trump has finally given up on his cherished dream of Vladimir Putin as his new best friend. It seems that Kim Jong-un is supplanting him in his affections. Even as Trump tries to up the ante with Iran, his top officials are playing kissy-face with North Korea. Fears are swirling in Washington that … Read more
We need only look to London for lessons in how oligarchs apply pressure.
Then there’s the bravado that goes with it too. International Women’s Day is widely and actively observed in Russia, and though there is an official male equivalent in November, Victory Day is far closer to any actual celebration of masculinity. In the same year that I was wandering the streets of Petersburg trying to steer clear of drunken sailors, a friend of mine … Read more
Readers of Spectator’s USA’s mothership, the venerable yet sprightly London Spectator, will know that one of the secrets of the Spectator’s endurance and popularity is the promiscuity—ideological, of course—of its columnists. Turn the page from Matthew Parris to Rod Liddle, and you undergo a whiplash of the most bracing kind. Parris is an ex-Conservative MP … Read more
The Trump administration may be heading into an infinity war. Europe is gearing up to retaliate against American on the trade front. China is indicating that it will refuse to negotiate on several key Trump trade demands. The Iran deal may be ripped up on May 12. And national security adviser John Bolton seems intent … Read more
This is an edited version of a presentation given by Owen Matthews at The Spectator’s What does Russia want? event. What I’d like to do is give a run-through of how we got to where we are with Russia. From the end of the Cold War onwards, focusing on the economy – and how the … Read more
There was never going to be a happy ending to the story of Alfie Evans, the 23-month-old boy treated at Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool, for an undiagnosed neurological condition that destroyed his brain. But somehow the British establishment has contrived to make a tragic situation worse – to the point where large swathes of European … Read more
Given the mutual bluster, threats and sabre-rattling we got used to from Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, it may be hard to credit the air of sweet reasonableness that has spread over the Korean peninsula in recent weeks leading to the weekend announcement of an end to weapons testing by the North. The potential for … Read more
Uh-oh. President Trump is wading into diplomatic waters in North Korea that he may have trouble navigating. Yesterday, he proudly revealed that talks with North Korea have been taking place at the “highest levels.” He also gave his blessing to the prospect of a peace treaty between the two Koreas, which currently only enjoy an … Read more
Italy’s caretaker government has refused to allow crucial bases to be used for intervention let alone Italy’s armed forces. The stance of Italy’s right is identical to Jeremy Corbyn’s in Britain. The two populist parties – Five Star and Lega – currently negotiating to try to form a government – are anyway pro-Putin (like their soul … Read more
“I’m afraid we no longer have oligarchs. That was a concept of the ’90s,” Russia’s deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich told Bloomberg TV earlier this year. The United States government disagrees, and one of its departments released a statement today with the stark headline “Treasury Designates Russian Oligarchs, Officials, and Entities in Response to Worldwide … Read more
President Trump has invited Russian president Vladimir Putin to the White House. This news is rocking Washington, but it shouldn’t really come as a surprise, at least no more than Trump’s willingness to meet with the portly pariah of Pyongyang. I have long suspected that Trump would like nothing more than to hold a state … Read more
