Recent speculation that Donald Trump’s billionaire cabinet would lead to a more orthodox consensus on global trade came to halt earlier this week, when Trump promised new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Though eager to be in Trump’s good …
Ireland’s liberal fantasy
Ireland has a strange effect on the English. A fantasy land so near and yet so far; at once foreign and, in some intangible sense, never entirely so. “Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home,” reflected Philip Larkin in …
Donald Trump: crypto president
What is the underlying value of a clam? In short, nothing. But the clamshell was the world’s longest-lasting reserve currency, recognised globally for thousands of years as a store of value and a medium of exchange. The clamshell was the …
Will Putin escalate in Ukraine?
Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling may be intended to alarm Western publics. But the course of the war has been shaped precisely by Western fear of escalation. In the frankest terms, Nato has not directly entered the war as a combatant because …
Will black voters forgive the Democrats?
Oakland, California.
Marquise S. sat in the driver’s seat of an old black Honda on Oakland’s Foothill Boulevard with white powder spread out over his knees. A slender young black woman sat in the passenger seat; a young black man …
The return of America’s Puritans
Ideology matters far more in the United States than in Europe. Over here, you won’t hear many politicians talking about “this great country of ours” or making pious allusions to God. In Brussels or Wolverhampton, you would simply stare at …
Why the Left always takes the MAGA bait
The current state of the American political discourse is best understood through the lens of the 1987 movie The Princess Bride — or more specifically, one scene therein. It’s the part where Miracle Max is decompensating over the insistence of …
How Trump will transform Poland
Across much of Eastern Europe, being a Trump whisperer has become an overnight job requirement. Aside from Viktor Orbán and a few other examples of genuine giddiness, leaders right across the former Soviet bloc have rushed to show their value …
Jeremy Clarkson: populist tribune
Capturing a glimpse of Napoleon at the head of his Grande Armée in 1806, Hegel described him as the world soul on horseback. Today, such figures do not appear in small German towns leading revolutionary armies, but on YouTube, Spotify …
Why didn’t Jews vote for Trump?
On 28 June 1969, patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, fought back against the police harassing them. This was the signal event in the formation of the modern Gay Rights Movement. More than half a …
Is Trump a blessing for Starmer?
The conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump’s election victory is a nightmare for Keir Starmer. Trump not only embodies much that Starmer holds in obvious contempt, but his very presence in the White House captures much of Britain’s essential weakness …
North Korea is ready for war
When Trump returns to the White House next year, he’d be wise not to ignore one of the obsessions of his first term: North Korea. For while the Kim regime has been prodded from the news agenda over recent years, …
Project 2025 is the new normal
Last Wednesday night, I was regaled by a young black American Uber driver all the way from Dulles airport to the Capitol, with a note-perfect reel of Trumpian talking-points. He didn’t like Trump personally, he told me — but understood …
Can RFK Jr rebuild the American body?
Donald Trump has long sought to portray himself as some sort of aristocrat, and now, a deeply divided American electorate has given him the chance for the greatest grift of all. King Trump’s Camelot is within his grasp, and the …
Welcome back to 1945
Were he magically granted the power of time travel, would it be a moral obligation for David Lammy to kill the baby Trump in his cradle? He did after all describe America’s President-elect as “a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser” …