Naples has turned into a war zone. Fathers are lighting firecrackers for their children to explode on the cobbles. Hundreds of flares are spewing out sparks and blue smoke. Some people are crying and singing; others just gawp. I’m sure …
How Europe can defend itself
Consider a very British scenario. A beloved monarch has just died, and the stability they embodied is starting to fade. At home, there is growing industrial conflict between capital and labour, and growing constitutional conflict between secessionism and Unionism. Externally, …
The Wagner Files
The Wagner Group might be a gang of hired murderers, but it is also a well-oiled machine: peel back its layers of barbarity and you’ll find a slick private military company with plans to expand its influence throughout the world. …
Does Europe need to split?
Emmanuel Macron’s call for Europe to reduce its dependency on the United States and develop its own “strategic autonomy” caused a transatlantic tantrum. The Atlanticist establishment, in the US as much as in Europe, responded in a typically unrestrained fashion …
The fall of America’s benevolent empire
Exactly 75 years ago, the foundation stone of the transatlantic relationship was laid. After the Marshall Plan was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman, the US would go on to send billions of dollars in economic assistance to …
German conscription doesn’t make sense
During his time as a conscript in a West German artillery unit, my father recalls having to clean the barracks toilet with a toothbrush. This was the early Sixties; he had just graduated from a Gymnasium, the equivalent of grammar …
The Great Food Reset has begun
France is in flames. Israel is erupting. America is facing a second January 6. In the Netherlands, however, the political establishment is reeling from an entirely different type of protest — one that, perhaps more than any other raging today, …
How Antwerp became Europe’s drug gateway
Antwerp
Antwerp harbour leads up the River Scheldt and into the heart of Europe, a port the size of 16,600 football fields, sucking in 240,000,000 tonnes of freight each year. From the giant aerial photograph spread out on the floor …
Poland’s futile bid to be Ukraine’s saviour
Tomorrow, President Joe Biden will mark the first anniversary of the Russian invasion not in Berlin or Paris — but in Warsaw. There, he will turn a blind eye to Poland’s nationalist government, and pat President Andrzej Duda on the …
Labour is winning the Brexit revolution
Three years after Britain finally left the European Union, Brexit has not only lost its popularity, but also, it seems, its power. Today, according to new UnHerd polling, not only does a clear majority think the decision to leave …
Why are excess deaths still so high?
Around the middle of last year, researchers in several countries started noticing something disturbing: despite the fall in Covid deaths everywhere, excess deaths (compared to the pre-pandemic five-year average) were actually rising. Even more worryingly, a disproportionate number of those …
New Year in a Ukrainian trench
Ochakiv, Ukraine
The sun rises on 2023. Its rays light up the trench, an unwelcoming black void into which we gratefully disappear to take cover from the artillery, rockets and Iranian Shahid drones that are launched daily from the Russian …
Will Kosovo’s war ever end?
North Mitrovica, Kosovo
There is a strict timetable to crises in Kosovo. It runs like this. First, after a disagreement between Serbia’s leader and Kosovo’s, a deadline is set by the Kosovo side to do this or that, or barricades …
How lobbyists captured the EU
Addressing a recent European Parliament debate on “human rights in the context of the World Cup”, vice-president Eva Kaili had an unexpected message: “Qatar is a frontrunner in labour rights.” So, perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised when, last week, …
Welcome to Albania’s Little London
I’m standing near the foot of a mountain that looms over Has in north-eastern Albania, staring at a bright red phone box that appears to have been transported here from the streets of Nineties London. To one side, a row …
