All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
With the drop in his poll ratings to around 35 percent, Donald Trump faces a fresh peril. A further erosion in his numbers would threaten his ability to maintain his hold on a Republican Congress that he desperately needs to ward off the threat of impeachment. His old fighters from the primary campaign such as … Read more
The film I, Tonya, has been well-received and is even up for an Oscar or two. I’m pleased about that because I’ve met Tonya Harding and her story has always fascinated me, not least because to watch her skate in the run up to the 1994 Olympics (particularly in Oakland, California in 1991 at the
This week my employer, Harvard University, announced its next president, Lawrence Bacow. The campus newspaper asked what advice I would give our incoming chief, and I reiterated the counsel I had offered the search committee: ‘The President of Harvard University is not just the steward of our institution, but, because of Harvard’s fame, a voice
If your week was less than fun, spare a thought for Justin Trudeau. The Canadian Prime Minister’s seven-day visit to India went down like an undercooked biriyani on the subcontinent. When he landed in New Delhi last Saturday, Trudeau was greeted on the tarmac, not by the Prime Minister or Foreign Minister but by the
Three years ago at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) just outside Washington, I convened in a large room with a small group of mostly British expatriates to watch Nigel Farage rail against the European Union. That was then; this is now, and today Farage is one of the event’s most iconic superstars. His
Once in a while some Socialist Worker people set up a stall outside my local Tesco to shout slogans at the progressive middle-class folk who make up much of the local demographic. One of the phrases I’ve heard them use is ‘Refugees welcome! Tories out!’ which is great and everything, except – what if the refugees
When I mentioned on social media recently that I’d lost friends because of Brexit, I was quite surprised by the vehemence of the response. Lots of fellow Leavers had stories to tell about friends who now cut them dead or former clients who would no longer work with them. Many said they prefer to keep
One of the most memorable moments of the 2012 Presidential debates came when the candidates were asked what they believed was the chief national security threat facing the United States. Mitt Romney said “Russia.” Barack Obama thought that was ridiculous. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” Obama retorted, to the general hilarity of
Billy Graham, the American evangelist, has died at the age of 99. Here John Betjeman recounts his experience of attending one of Graham’s Greater London Crusade events, in an article first published in the Spectator in March 1954 : Every night the Harringay arena is packed; every night throngs of converts—mostly young people—crowd up at
As I write this, my Twitter timeline is filling up with tributes to Billy Graham, who has died at the age of 99. Donald Trump describes him as ‘the GREAT Billy Graham’. Well said, Mr President; for once, those Trumpian capital letters are perfectly judged. What’s interesting is that so many of those tweets come
‘If Mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances, unrelated to Russia — is that a red line?’ Trump: ‘I would say yeah. I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don’t — I don’t — I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell
The news that Marion Maréchal-Le Pen will share a stage this week with US conservatives, addressing the annual Conservative Political Action Conference event shortly after vice-president Mike Pence, has caused much excitement within the French right. The 28-year-old Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of Marine, the leader of the National Front, withdrew from political life in June
Wednesday marked the 72nd anniversary of the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted Emperor Hirohito to announce Japan’s surrender in a radio address, though fanatical war hawks tried to stop him. After 1945, Japan developed a pacifist movement and a so-called peace constitution. No country has deployed these … Read more
One of President Donald Trump’s chief political foils in the Republican Party — a party that increasingly resembles a Trump fan club more than a group of partisan but independent thinkers — is about to storm the national scene and send a jolt of energy to the dwindling and listless #NeverTrump movement. Mitt Romney, the former Governor
There are two Trump-Russia ‘conspiracies’. In one, the US President is bought or blackmailed by the Kremlin. In the other, the FBI and the intelligences agencies — the ‘deep state’ — commit a monstrous abuse of power to try to overturn the election result. The first conspiracy is described in the ‘dossier’ written by a
For many years, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Tariq Ramadan, has been one of my closest enemies. In Switzerland and France this Islamist dauphin had a slightly hard time establishing his reputation. This was not just due to his poor scholarship (the basis of which lay in a fawning book about his … Read more
Has Barack Obama become a flower child? His new presidential portrait, which is over seven feet high, depicts him on a chair staring ahead somewhat pensively as he’s framed by various flowers that reference Kenya, Hawaii and Chicago. It’s a fitting backdrop to a president who not only embodied the multi-cultural aspirations of America, but
Gstaad For some strange reason there have been no #MeToo complaints around these parts. Some locals have grumbled about yours truly, and an interview I gave about this village to a Swiss daily, but although Harvey used to hang out here during Christmases past, no one’s come forward to claim rape. Is there something wrong
Returning to the United States a short while ago I received a stern talking to from an immigration officer. Why had I been in Paris longer than usual? I’ve lived in the US for nearly 25 years. I originally moved to be closer to my son, who was being educated nearby, and to my American wife’s
Donald Trump had a lot to prove during his first ever State of the Union address this week. He had to demonstrate to the millions of Americans watching on television that he could deliver a semi-unifying and presidential speech and stay in one place for more than an hour without diverging into tangents. He had to show
By all accounts, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad was my kind of guy: may he rest in peace (on an Askvoll standard double). Like me, he was a skinflint. For a multibillionaire to buy his clothes at flea markets and select his groceries from supermarket quick-sale shelves is charming. About his retail wares, I’m more ambivalent.
Donald J Trump’s State of the Union was as expected: long, boastful, cheesy — and largely right. Trump says he is creating a ‘new American moment’ — and it’s hard to deny that he is. Before he was president, and even in his inauguration speech, Trump painted only a vision of America in ruins. Now,
Why aren’t spy stories sexy anymore? The revelations last year that Beijing destroyed America’s espionage ring inside China a few years ago, including executing a number of US informants, got a brief flurry of attention and then subsided beneath the waves. News reports of American bureaucrats arrested for passing information to the Chinese have also barely raised
I found Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book We Were Eight Years in Power surprisingly engaging. It combines a calm, friendly voice with a message of cold extremity. The message is that the sin of white supremacy is the true plot of US history. By trying to cure it, Obama exposed its true torrential force. The geniality of
Prince Harry’s imminent wedding to Meghan Markle will reinvigorate the dying special relationship between Britain and America. It is a boost for the fading American regard for the monarchy. In America, the mother country is increasingly the forgotten country – and it has been fading for a century, ever since the First World War. As
Peregrine Worsthorne, the hugely distinguished British journalist, has died aged 96. He was a wonderful man and a brilliant columnist, who once described his job as ‘the articulation of an intelligent, well thought out, coherent set of prejudices’. He also worked as Washington correspondent for The Times of London and the Daily Telegraph. In 2014, … Read more
Donald Trump had hoped to mark his first anniversary as president basking in surprisingly positive media headlines and enjoying a lavish party at his Mar-a-Largo estate in Florida. Instead he must contend with a government shutdown and another major political crisis in Washington, the political swamp he promised to drain. Congress has remained in session
Something has gone horribly wrong in America, but it isn’t Donald Trump. The 45th president’s first year has in fact been a very good year for the country. By the time those 12 months were up, the unemployment rate was the lowest the country had seen in 18 years, and the number of new filings
I spent the better part of two sunny days indoors writing about authenticity for a Greek magazine, a strange subject in view of how inauthentic politics are in that Brussels-run south-eastern outpost dotted with islands. Mind you, what is taking place in the West makes Greek politics seem ideal by comparison. The witch hunt is
Here’s an aspect of Donald Trump’s personality that I’ve never got past: his hatred of dogs. When Trump tweeted on 5 January that his former aide Steve Bannon had been ‘dumped like a dog’, he recycled an insult he has hurled more than a dozen times since declaring for president, according to the indispensable TrumpTwitterArchive.com.
How quickly Steve Bannon’s dark star has collapsed. Not so long ago, friends and enemies talked him up as a media genius. He was a political guerrilla operative you underrated at your peril. He was ‘Trump’s Rasputin’, or ‘President Bannon’, the man who really controlled the White House. Then he lost his job in said White House, fell out with
Will the Trump presidency be replaced by the Winfrey one? The hunt is on for a celebrity to take on Donald Trump and right now America has been seized by feverish speculation that Oprah Winfrey is it. On Sunday night, Winfrey accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, where she delivered a
I know this because I saw it in New York two years ago, just before Britain’s EU referendum. And I was struck by the way it captured — not always intentionally, I suspect, given the impeccable liberal credentials of the cast and writers — the political mood in America and over here: revolution, uncertainty, unrest, the
Donald Trump is becoming increasingly unbuttoned. Last night, he tweeted referring to Kim Jong–un that: ‘I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my button works!’ To Trump, size matters. Yesterday was a big—or bigly—day for Trump. He started it off by taking a swipe
