Raheem Kassam

Friday

Raheem Kassam

The Maga movement won’t miss Elon Musk

Let’s face it, no one expected Trump’s 'Big, Beautiful Bill' to be perfect. But for Elon Musk to adopt the intransigent position that the work of government should stop in its tracks in pursuit of perfection is a manifest nonsense. Especially when considering OMB chief Russ Vought’s explanation of how the bill helps reduce the deficit. Musk has a habit of failing to see the wood for the trees. He’s been a long-standing backer of China, which my website has reported on for years. He supported DeSantis, not Trump, in the primary. He recently tried to depose Brexit leader Nigel Farage (it went badly for Musk), and just a few weeks ago lashed out at the architect of Trump's trade tariffs – Dr. Peter Navarro.

Tuesday

Raheem Kassam

The reformed Kennedy Center’s beautiful frenzy

From our US edition

As I write, I sit swimming in turbulence somewhere over Virginia, on the same jet as US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – heading to Panama City in an effort to restore the country’s critical canal to US control.But Saturday was a very different scene. A far more comfortable experience, too. In Box 3 at the Kennedy Center for the Arts, for the National Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Mozart and Mendelssohn.I hadn’t been to the Kennedy Center in a while (i.e., we are so back). Now run by Trump loyalist Ric Grenell, proudly displayed on the concessions counters are signs that read: “STANDARD STRAWS NOW AVAILABLE!”That means no more paper.

kennedy center

Saturday

Raheem Kassam

Nigel Farage must take a front seat in the EU referendum — a response to Stuart Wheeler

How very tiresome it already is to hear arguments over the European Referendum campaign based not on numbers and facts, but on emotion, intuition, and partisanship. I would have thought that after Dan Hodges’s worst nightmare, politicos would be a bit more cautious about their predictions. Ukip's former treasurer, Stuart Wheeler, doesn’t seem to have received the memo. I’m not Wheeler-bashing. He has done a great number of things for Ukip and the Eurosceptic movement over his career. But in his piece entitled, 'Nigel Farage cannot lead the Out campaign', he makes a very dangerous intervention — one that is also championed by Ukip's turbulent priest Douglas Carswell and his puppet master Daniel Hannan.