All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Before Keir Starmer managed to escape Westminster for the relative safety of a European summit discussing war, the Prime Minister had to hold a cabinet meeting. The PM told colleagues they needed to hold their nerve, arguing that: ‘I do not underestimate the scale of the task. But I have no doubt about this team.
You may recall the cancellation of the Maccabi Tel Aviv-Aston Villa game back in November. What has happened since is that, due to constant scrutiny by Nick Timothy MP, Lord Austin and a small number of journalists, the narrative that West Midlands police spun at the time – that the Israeli fans were too dangerous
What do you think: is it manifest destiny that the United States acquire or at least exercise control over Greenland? That’s pretty much how America got Texas, California, New Mexico, Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa. Then there was the Louisiana purchase. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States, paying
No one really knows how the situation in Venezuela will unfold over the next few years following President Trump’s audacious kidnap of its former leader Nicolas Maduro. It may or may not be legal. It might restore democracy or it might just pave the way for another dictator. But one point is certain: America looks
It was the Viking, Eric the Red who, in AD 986, first saw Greenland’s potential. He wanted to colonise his newly-discovered island, and in a blatant piece of tenth-century spin-doctoring hit on a wizard wheeze to encourage other Norse people to come to this bleak, icy and remote corner of the unknown world: ‘In the
18 min listen
From ‘regime change’ in Venezuela to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Labour government is trying to navigate complicated situations across foreign affairs. Having appeared to weather the domestic reaction to the situation in Venezuela, Keir Starmer is in Paris today to discuss Ukraine alongside Chancellor Merz and Presidents Macron and Zelensky. This is undoubtably important
The government’s latest difficulties in the House of Lords over plans to surrender the Chagos islands is another humiliation for Keir Starmer, but it is also one last opportunity to avert a historic mistake. The Prime Minister proposes to hand over the Chagos to Mauritius, which has never exercised sovereignty over a cluster of Indian
British Airways used to bill itself, without irony, as ‘the nation’s favourite airline’. The days when it could legitimately use such a slogan are long gone. Now, the unfortunate passengers who endure a substandard service on the carrier are more likely to regard it as the nation’s least beloved airline, vying only with Ryanair for
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Freddy Gray is joined by Joshua Trevino, Chief Transformation Officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Senior Director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute. They discuss the complex history of so-called ‘narco-states’ and how they came to dominate vast parts of Latin America. Trump’s assault on Venezuela may prove
For the past fortnight, Rozita (not her real name) has been out on the streets of Tehran, calling for an end to the Islamic Republic. The 37-year-old witnessed the anti-riot police shooting indiscriminately at her fellow citizens. ‘They don’t think about who or where they are shooting. I’ve been beaten up by them many times before,’
As Keir Starmer found out with digital ID, what the public initially says it wants isn’t always what it turns out to want once the details become clear. A large majority in favour of digital ID turned into a significant majority against once people started to ask themselves: is this scheme really going to tackle
There was no dancing, let alone prancing, in the Brooklyn courtroom as former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was arraigned on four charges, including narco-terrorism and weapons trafficking, following his capture by American forces on a military base in Caracas on Saturday. Instead, Maduro, whose terpsichorean moves to a musical remix of his ‘No War, Yes
Finally, the left has found a ‘kidnap victim’ it cares about. Having spent more than two years making excuses for Hamas’s savage seizing of 251 Israelis, having violently torn down posters of those stolen Jews, now the activist class has suddenly decided that abduction is bad after all. Why? Because a dictator they admire, Nicolas
MTV has pulled down the shutters on its dedicated music video channels, casting off what remained of its original raison d’être. In the age of YouTube and TikTok, the only surprise is that it’s taken so long. This is a signal moment. As a truly mass medium, the music video is – after almost half
In the chaotic aftermath of Operation Absolute Resolve – the early morning extraction of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from their Caracas fortress – Washington is buzzing with a dangerous level of cognitive dissonance. Over the weekend, President Trump characterised Maduro’s successor, Delcy Rodriguez, as ‘gracious’ and ‘willing to do what is necessary to make Venezuela great again’. By
In one respect, the scaremongers are right: Racism is alive and well in this country, being imbedded in our institutions and abetted by the arms of the state. But this scourge manifests itself not in the hackneyed and often illusionary variety forever invoked by the liberal-left. This is the benevolent, ‘nice’ form of racial discrimination,
Three cheers for the House of Lords. Labour might be trying to pack Britain’s second chamber with as many placemen as possible – but the noble peers are not going to take it lying down. For tonight, members of the Upper House inflicted yet another defeat on the government, this time over the deal to
The actions of West Midlands Police in the case of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football ban are perhaps the most dramatic demonstration in modern times of what happens when a police force no longer operates ‘without fear or favour’. The information now in the public domain shows there was never sufficient justification to ban the
It’s all kicking off in the Commons tonight. The smash-and-grab assault on Caracas continues to dominate conversations in Westminster, with left-wingers furious at the Starmer government’s silence. And tonight, one of the Socialist Campaign Group’s most stalwart members, has decided to voice his irritation loudly and proudly. In response to the Foreign Secretary’s statement on
I’ve just come back from a short holiday in Venice. The city is an unsurpassable monument to the glories of the Renaissance, but its streets and waterways also bear witness to the absolute non-existence of ‘international rules’. When confronted by Bonaparte’s expansionist aims in 1797, the millennium-old Venetian republic responded as it had always done,
20 min listen
It’s our first podcast back in the office of 2026 – and the year has started with a bang, of course, after the successful US operation to remove Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela. He will appear in a Manhattan court later today. This throws up all sorts of problems for Labour and the left more broadly
The year just gone has hardly been a banner year for either the Duke or Duchess of Sussex, culminating in the humiliation of yet another publicist departing from their employment at its end. However, all of us hope that 2026 will be an improvement. Last weekend brought the potentially good news for Harry – although, perhaps, less so for the
On this occasion no one can accuse Donald Trump of hyperbole. The American president praised the Delta Force team that seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as ‘incredible’. The operation to capture Maduro – codenamed ‘Absolute Resolve’ – was months in the planning, and Trump watched it unfold in real time. ‘They broke into places that
Will the Venezuela adventure end up like Afghanistan, or will it be another Iraq? In the eyes of most commentators, those seem to be the only options, both of which cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives while achieving little, especially in the case of Afghanistan. It is clear that if Venezuela is to
The Vietnam war was the first Americans watched on their nightly TV news, the Gulf War the first that could be followed live on CNN, and the Global War on Terror the first documented online through the work of bloggers, citizen journalists and video-sharing sites like LiveLeak. Meme warfare is being used not only to
Hugh, meet Claire. Claire, meet Hugh. Claire has some guidance that might prove useful for you, Hugh. Should, that is, you not want to come across as any more of an ignorant buffoon than you do already. The problem for Bonneville is that details do matter. And there is a big issue with the detail
This week, the government will try to push its draft deal to surrender the Chagos Islands through Parliament. There are many, many reasons why the deal is bad – from security, to the legitimate rights of the Chagossians, to the fact that the legal basis on which it is constructed is bunk. But there is another
Donald Trump likes to keep both his friends and enemies guessing. It’s no surprise then that his plans for Venezuela’s future after his typically bold and reckless abduction of dictator Nicolas Maduro are a mystery. Trump has awarded the plum of power in Caracas not to Machado but to Maduro’s vice-president and oil minister Delcy Rodriguez
‘“I’ll be PM this time next year,” Starmer tells BBC.’ Such was the headline on the BBC’s website over the Prime Minister’s interview with Laura Kuenssberg, in a place of some prominence. I feel like I’ve read this one before, don’t you? It is, hilariously yet also, oddly, boringly, the headline that now goes on
The image of Nicolás Maduro in US custody has inevitably resurrected the ghosts of foreign policy past. For the reflexively cynical observer, the narrative writes itself: a Republican White House, a Latin American strongman, and the world’s largest proven oil reserves. As with Iraq in 2003, the slogan of American imperialism and its ‘blood for
The US military operation to track down, capture and fly Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro back to the United States for prosecution on drug trafficking charges went flawlessly. It was well-coordinated, meticulously planned and executed to a tee. Nearly two days after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken into US custody, details of the
One of the few benefits of being an anthropologist is the uncanny exhilaration one feels watching novel current events as re-runs from previous episodes in the history of mankind. Donald Trump’s capture of Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, is no exception. Kidnapping Latin American emperors is a continental tradition. It’s simply the most practical method
Keir Starmer: ‘We simply haven’t got the full picture at the moment’ The US has struck Venezuela’s capital Caracas and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Maduro is now in detention in New York. In a press conference after the military operation, President Trump said that the US will ‘run the country
For decades, British politics has lived in the shadow of a major failure of social and economic policy: the imbalance between graduates and those who don’t go to university. Many politicians have understood the need to do better for the ‘other 50%’ who don’t go to higher education. But few have delivered real change. From
