Ayear ago on Friday, President Vladimir Putin unleashed blitzkrieg on Ukraine. It was an unprovoked assault that has so far led to more than 200,000 people being killed or wounded, but has failed in its intention of establishing Russian hegemony over its democratic neighbour. The West and much of the rest of the civilised world
Kyiv General Valeriy Zaluzhny, stocky, forceful, apple-cheeked, sits at the desk in Kyiv from which he commands all Ukraine’s armed forces. I ask him what they need from the West. First, air defence. With a twinkle in his eye, he unzips his khaki fleece to reveal a garish T-shirt demanding ‘F-16s!’ Next on his list
I am a 56-year-old dad of four. I live with my wife and dog in Surrey, where I run a successful building firm. But I also know Shamima Begum, who this week lost her appeal to have her citizenship reinstated, perhaps better than anyone else in Britain – apart from her family. I’ve visited her
‘Look at the dates.’ That’s what I am told as I enter the State Elders Room in Tallinn. I’m here to interview the woman dubbed Europe’s new Iron Lady – Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. The walls in the room between her office and the cabinet room are lined with portraits. A small plaque beneath
Everyone approaches life with a particular set of values. Atheists and secularists live by an ethos, although they do not stick a label on it in the same way that we Christians do. Perhaps that’s why some people are particularly nervous about Christians in high office. We can all point to people who proudly wear
Tuesday 28 February marks the 70th anniversary of – in my view – the most important day in the history of science. On a fine Saturday morning with crocuses in flower along the Backs in Cambridge, two men saw something surprising and beautiful. The double helix structure of DNA instantly revealed why living things were
Edinburgh What did Kate Forbes’s supporters expect would happen? When the Scottish finance secretary and Scottish National party leadership candidate was asked whether she would have voted for the legalisation of gay marriage if she had been in the Scottish parliament at the time, she said that she wouldn’t, because as a devout Christian she
When news broke of Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, the first reaction among Tory ministers was delight. For years, she had been one of their most formidable opponents and potent threats: perhaps the only politician capable of leading a Scottish independence campaign to victory. Without her, what would happen to the SNP? But then the elation faded.
Ash Wednesday is upon us, and it is once again time to meditate on the unusually self-aware admission of Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: ‘I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.’ It has until now been an exceptionally good season for beef. Grass-fed steak
At the tail end of last year, Chinese scientists claimed they had achieved something world-changing. In a widely circulated paper, the researchers said they had developed an algorithm run on a quantum computer that is able to break the best encryption that exists today. Modern encryption runs on mathematical problems which take the most powerful
The Granite City is an unlikely front in the cultural revolution, but Aberdeen University is about to change that. A document from the institution’s education committee has been passed to me. Titled ‘Decolonising the Curriculum – Timelines and Approval Processes’, it sets out plans to ‘embed a bold, progressive and sustained programme of antiracist curricular
Mariana Mazzucato is a professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London. She speaks to The Spectator’s Wiki Man, Rory Sutherland, about the book she has co-authored with Rosie Collington, The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilises our Governments and Warps our Economies. RORY SUTHERLAND: I’d like to
New York Even if Chinese spy balloons – or alien spacecraft scouting the planet ahead of their coming invasion – start being deployed more discreetly than they have been of late, there will still be more sightings than usual of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs: a new set of initials designed to help UFOs shed their
In a newspaper article five years ago, Michael Gove singled out the tax exemptions enjoyed by private schools thanks to their charitable status as one of the ‘burning injustices’ of our time. He took it for granted that scrapping these benefits would raise money and proposed spending it on children in care instead. ‘How can
Liz Truss is on manoeuvres. She is spending lots of time where she is most comfortable, inside Westminster’s thinktanks, preaching her version of free-market economics. There are rumours she might assemble a new thinktank of her own, or work with an existing one, to set up an alternative to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s growth
When Rishi Sunak embarked on a reshuffle of his cabinet this week, he wanted to avoid the traditional scrum of cameras as MPs walked up to the No. 10 door. Instead, the Prime Minister called each minister to inform them of his shake-up of their Whitehall departments to create new ministries to reflect his priorities.
Do you know what you were doing at 10.03 a.m. last Tuesday? Or what you had for breakfast three weeks ago? I don’t. You probably don’t either – unless you’re a spy, or you’re putting together an alibi for a murder. But like millions of parents, I know these things about my son. Not because
The parable of Liz Truss is, by now, world famous. A free-market idealogue was elected leader by the radical wing of her party, then trashed the economy by enacting her deficit-financed tax cuts. She invoked Hayek and Thatcher and was cheered on by their admirers. But her mini-Budget terrified the market and she had to
Who is the worst man in Britain? According to the Daily Mirror, it’s the 56-year-old former coal miner and Tory MP Lee Anderson, who clinched the award a year ago after criticising England’s footballers for ‘taking the knee’. How did Anderson, who this week was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Tory party, respond to the accolade? ‘I immediately rang my parents to
Dovhenke, Ukraine The Russian soldier lay where he had fallen. His plastic combat belt and flak jacket were still intact, but his legs were splayed at an unnatural angle, and where his face and scalp had once been there was now only a skull with dark stains on it. ‘The guys who died protecting our