Donald trump

Thursday

Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: the Diversity Trap

In recent days, Lionel Shriver has been in trouble. Her criticism of the publishing industry’s diversity drive has led to her marked as a racist and even dropped from a literary judging panel. She argued that ethnic quotas harm rather than help diversity – is she wrong? As Robert Mueller’s investigation continues, several dodgy links to Britain have surfaced that could bring down Trump. And last, in the age of MeToo, is sex becoming sexier? Find out at this week’s Spectator Podcast. Do quotas help or hinder racial equality? That’s the big question we’ve been asking at the Spectator recently. Since we published Lionel Shriver’s critique of Penguin Random House’s

Freddy Gray

Trump is ‘vice-signalling’ over immigration – and it’s going to work

The stories are filed, the pictures are posted, and the media verdict is almost unanimous: separating children from their parents is wrong, it is unAmerican, and President Donald Trump is going to suffer for it. His administration is baby-snatching. The ‘optics’ are terrible, say the hyperventilating PR men and Washington know-alls. But if everybody stops to breathe for a moment, they should stop to recognise that, on this issue, as on so much else, Donald Trump is winning the politics. Call it vice-signalling. The President and Kirstjen Nielsen are making clear that, even if it means being seen to be inhuman, they are taking voter concerns about massive immigration seriously.

Katrina Gulliver

When voters lose faith

If social media manipulation has influenced elections, and dark money has influenced our elected representatives, then we are already on the road to unfreedom, as Timothy Snyder, the well-known historian of Russia, argues in his new book. He sees threats to democracy in Europe and America as following the Russian model of oligarchic takeover: ‘The stabilisation of massive inequality, the displacement of policy by propaganda, the shift from the politics of inevitability to the politics of eternity.’ Snyder focuses on the Ukrainian crisis, noting how this conflict became a theatre of cultural memory: during the Russian invasion it was once again 1941, the enemies were Nazis, and tanks were even

Thursday

Charles Moore

The Spectator's Notes | 14 June 2018

‘Trudeau or Trump?’ was a choice which Theresa May, with unusually ready wit, evaded in Parliament on Monday. No doubt I am in a minority, but I feel that, of the two, Mr Trudeau — the G7 host at La Malbaie — is the more absurd figure on the world stage, being just as vain as the President and far more pointless (if you doubt me, compare the two men’s tweets). In the same parliamentary statement, Sir Vince Cable asked ‘What is the point of the G7?’ It is part of President Trump’s subversive skill that his actions prompt people to ask such questions. There is no need for such annual

John Redwood

Since Trump became President, US share markets have performed well. We need to understand why

Some say that Mr Trump’s behaviour at the G7 meeting last week-end showed contempt for the international rules-based system that many people in financial markets and the media admire. It is true that Mr Trump complained Russia was not present, inserted special prose about his energy and tariff policies and decided he did not agree with the communique after it had been issued. He showed he thought going off to his bilateral meeting with the North Korean dictator was more important than the very general conclusions of the G7 summit. The G7 official statement ranged widely over world economies and affairs but lacks clout if the USA does not agree

Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: Next up, Nato

In the last few days, world order seems to have been turned on its head as Trump antagonised his western allies at the G7 Summit, and then shook the hand of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. We ask, how will Trump treat his allies in the July Nato summit? We also talk to Peter Hitchens and Paul Mason about Marxism in the modern day – are there any left in Britain? And last, what is it like to be homeless in London? Over the weekend, the G7 Summit ended in a worse way than anyone could have predicted. As soon as he left, Trump tweeted harsh criticism of Justin

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump's real-estate politik is working

Barack Obama tried to be the first Pacific President. He attempted to pivot America’s grand strategy eastwards in order to adapt to a changing world. He failed, by and large. After his meeting with Kim Jong-un today, Donald Trump has shown that he is moving further east. In fact, Trump could be turning into the first truly Global President. No doubt that sentence sounds ridiculous. Trump is an ‘American First’ nationalist who believes in tariffs and borders; he stands for everything we’ve been told globalisation isn’t. But there is a difference between globalisation as a supranational faith in the free-market; and globalisation as a process that is actually happening. In

Sunday

Steerpike

Caption contest: Trump vs G6

Happily for Theresa May, the main news from the G7 conference wasn’t that President Trump failed to mention her in his G7 ‘friends’ list. Instead, the fireworks arrived after the president left and he struck out alone. Some choice comments from Justin Trudeau on trade saw Trump see red and pull out of a previously agreed summit communique – leaving only a G6 in unison on trade. But it’s this photo that sums up the event best: https://twitter.com/BBCVickiYoung/status/1005499444614369280 Captions in the comments.

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 June 2018

Home A third runway at Heathrow Airport was approved by the cabinet; £2.6 billion was earmarked for compensation and soundproofing. Northern Rail brought in a temporary timetable that removed 165 train services a day until 29 July, but scores more trains were still cancelled; all trains to the Lake District were cancelled for a fortnight. Thameslink and Southern also wallowed in incapacity. Petrol prices rose by a record monthly sum of 6p in May to an average of 132.3p a litre. The government reduced its holding in the Royal Bank of Scotland from 70.1 to 62.4 per cent, losing £2.1 billion on selling the shares which it bought to save the

Armond White

Go West

Kanye West is more than halfway in to the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame — if his politics don’t block the way. This extraordinary rapper-producer first won over a worldwide audience with the 2004 anthem ‘Jesus Walks’, disrupted hip-hop’s bling-bling materialism with the us-vs-them challenge of his Jay-Z collaboration Watch the Throne, and then released the confounding My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which rightly became the most highly acclaimed hip-hop album this century. He went on to make controversial public art with his ‘New Slaves’ video, which was projected in 66 locations around the world (called Orwellian by admirers and dumbfounded detractors). With news-making political statements occasionally interspersing that résumé, West

Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: Putin's Losing Game

In this week’s episode, we talk about Russia’s hidden fragility, and ask, is Putin surviving on luck? We’ll also be getting to the bottom of Trump’s tariffs – is there really no rhyme or reason to them? And last, with all that’s going on in the world, is kindness what we all need more of? The Russia World Cup is due to start in a week, and as the streets of Moscow are cleaned up in preparation, things seem to be going pretty well for Putin’s Russia. Russia has been asked to fill the void left by Trump in the Iran nuclear deal, Russophile parties are wreaking havoc to the

Thursday

Jacob Heilbrunn

The sorry state of Trump’s affairs

 Washington, DC It was a petulant Donald Trump who appeared at a White House press briefing on Tuesday with the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in. When a reporter asked if Trump had confidence in the deputy attorney-general, Rod Rosenstein, given the latest complicated twists in the investigation into collusion with Russia, Trump snapped that Moon didn’t want to hear about it. But it won’t be easy for Trump to dismiss these questions as piffle for long. Even as the old boy tries to pose as a great statesman, tales of his past shenanigans keep mounting. The latest is an exposé in New York magazine that suggests the Republican fund-raiser Elliott

Thursday

Dot Wordsworth

Bonkers

John Kelly, the White House Chief of Staff, has a way with words. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003 he was asked if the Marine Corps forces he led might be defeated by the strong Iraqi army defending Baghdad. ‘Hell these are Marines,’ he said. ‘Men like them held Guadalcanal and took Iwo Jima. Baghdad ain’t shit.’ Now he must cope with Donald Trump. At the end of last month it was reported, from an anonymous source, that he had remarked that the President was ‘becoming unhinged’. Before midnight that day, Mr Trump tweeted that ‘the Fake News is going crazy’ and ‘are totally unhinged’. Eleven minutes later, another

Lloyd Evans

Roll up, psychos

Describe the Night opens in Poland in 1920 where two Russian soldiers, Isaac and Nikolai, discuss truth and falsehood. Next we’re in Smolensk, 2010, where some strangers scream at each other about a hire car. Next Moscow, 1931 (or 1937 — the surtitles are illegible), where Nikolai, now a top soldier, asks Isaac, now a successful screen-writer, to audition his wife for a movie. Isaac improvises a scene with the wife and then fondles her bottom as they perform a weirdly sexless dance that is supposed to symbolise something, but it’s unclear what because everything that preceded the dance was indecipherable. Then the interval. I looked for enlightenment in the

Katy Balls

Jerusalem Notebook | 17 May 2018

‘Trump Make Israel Great’ reads the banner on the deserted hotel next to the new American embassy in Jerusalem. Unlike most of the world population, Israelis regard the US President as a big improvement on Barack Obama. In government, his decision to move the embassy here from Tel Aviv has elevated him to near godlike status. ‘We are very lucky that the strongest kid in the classroom is on our side in this crazy school,’ is how Yoav Gallant, Israel’s housing minister, puts it. There is evidence for Trumpophilia all over the place. Signs proclaiming the US President a ‘friend of Zion’ are dotted around the Holy City and ‘God Bless

Thursday

Taki

High life | 10 May 2018

New York Talk about high life this is not. I smelled a rat long ago, but then the scent got weaker and weaker. Now it’s back — and stronger than ever. I’m talking here, of course, about the Saudis, the Qataris and the son-in-law who has also risen, Jared Kushner. Almost a year ago the Saudis issued an ultimatum to Qatar to meet its list of demands or face a blockade by Saudi-allied countries in the Gulf. All sorts of accusations were made and the Qataris were given 24 hours to comply. While the 300,000 Qatari citizens froze en masse, the couple of million non-Qatari migrant workers went about their

Charles Moore

The Spectator's Notes | 10 May 2018

The point behind the argument about the Iran nuclear deal goes beyond precise nuclear facts. It is like the row over SALT II when Ronald Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter as US President in 1981. SALT (the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) was not formally junked, but it did not operate because, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979, the Americans felt the necessary trust was absent. Better times, including the coming of Mikhail Gorbachev, allowed Reagan to pursue negotiations which culminated (under his successor, the first George Bush) in START I (the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) being signed in 1991. By then, the United States and its

Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: Trump vs Iran

What comes after the end of the Iran nuclear deal? Is Donald Trump an expert diplomat worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, or a maniac let loose? Why don’t ethical millennials care about the moral cost of their drug habits? And are emojis ruining children’s abilities to communicate? Find out about all this and more in this week’s Spectator Podcast. On Tuesday, President Trump announced his decision to take the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. The decision has come despite appeals from Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, and even our own Boris Johnson, for the US to stay in the deal. Christopher de Bellaigue writes in this week’s magazine

Friday

Ella Whelan

Michelle Wolf's speech exposed the hypocrisy of the press

Writer and comedian Michelle Wolf has hit the headlines for her routine at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. Comedians were invited to take the piss out of the American political establishment and the press, and Wolf did not disappoint. Her jokes ranged from Trump using pussy-grabbing to find loose change to Senator Mitch McConnell getting his neck circumcised. No one was let off the hook. Wolf joked that she could talk about Russia but, addressing the ‘liberal media’ in the room, said that ‘I’ve never really wanted to know what any of you look like when you orgasm’. She poked fun at Hillary for losing Michigan, as well

Thursday

Taki

High life | 3 May 2018

New York ‘What do we do with these men?’ thundered a New York Times headline. It was followed by a frothing-mouthed, overwrought hissy fit worthy of an Oscar in the overacting category. The men in question are the usual suspects: media people and Hollywood types who have been accused by the weaker sex of sexual harassment. Oh boy! Is this place going nuts or what? Spring is here, the girls are in their summer dresses — not really, they all wear leggings — and all one hears about is the bestiality of the stronger sex. The question is: who is next? The bookies are having a field day. ‘Under what