The neoliberal order that triumphed on a global scale in the Nineties and 2000s aspired to the free movement of goods, capital, people, and information throughout the world. Unfettered capitalism would release the global economy from arbitrary constraints, and if …
Will Leeds atone for David Oluwale?
It was a moment that had been 15 years in the making. As Leeds unveiled its latest blue plaque, the mood at the ceremony was festive. The 200-strong crowd heard music and poetry in memory of David Oluwale. “A British …
Is Ukraine just a white man’s war?
Fourteen years ago, when Boris Johnson was a mere twinkle in the British electorate’s eye, I wound up shadowing the then MP for Henley-on-Thames as he campaigned to become Mayor of London. He won, of course, then bagged a second …
The poison in France’s veins
France does not feel like it is entering a season of political turbulence. It barely feels like it is going through an important election. Away from the headlines — the disintegration of the old centre parties, the renaissance of Jean-Luc …
Why Hispanics gave up on the Left
For just over a month, America’s first Spanish-language conservative radio station has been trying to win over the country’s most-talked about political demographic: increasingly right-leaning Hispanics. It couldn’t have launched at a better time.
When asked about the inspiration behind …
How Britain betrayed my Ukrainian family
“This reminds me of the Soviet Union,” joked the elderly Ukrainian woman as we joined the queue snaking out of the UK Government’s visa centre in Warsaw. Of course, we had expected a queue — what we hadn’t expected was …
The resurrection of Marine Le Pen
Three months ago, Marine Le Pen’s political future seemed smashed into irrelevance by the rise of Eric Zemmour. She was past it, a tired war horse with no project and a quasi-bankrupt party, watching her closest National Rally associates being …
France’s demographic civil war
When I was 15, back in the very early Eighties, I spent the best part of a summer is a sleepy corner of “la France profonde”. The family I stayed with were hard-up members of the nobility, trying to earn …
Europe’s empty promises to Ukraine
Every war has a photograph that captures its horrors. Vietnam had Napalm Girl; Spain had The Falling Soldier. How will the war in Ukraine be remembered? Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s ruthlessness, an image of a heavily pregnant woman being stretchered …
How Vladimir Putin weaponises refugees
For the last three decades, Europe’s leaders have pursued a noble strategy to prevent conflict using trade, aid and diplomacy. But their reliance on soft power has had an unintended consequence: it has left them divorced from reality.
Soft-power tools …
What Boris Johnson must do next
In the bowels of Westminster, if reports are to be believed, you can hear the constant rumbling of letters of no confidence being submitted to Graham Brady. At least a dozen Tory MPs have gone public with their desire to …
What Can We Learn from Southend West?
Daddy Dragon’s Rally is in Warrior Square, Southend, opposite a blank-eyed Travelodge. It is a gathering of the English Constitution Party, which seeks secession from Britain, its oppressor, in support of its leader Daddy Dragon (or Graham Moore) in the …
Why Canada’s truckers will lose
The world does not usually pay much attention to Ottawa, Canada’s sleepy capital city. But over the weekend it generated international headlines. A “Freedom Convoy” consisting of anti-vaccine mandate truckers descended on the Canadian parliament to protest cross-border vaccine mandates …
Why the experts are losing
We tend to characterise totalitarianism as a top-down affair, where the state controls the thoughts and actions of its citizenry according to the whims of some politburo. But in the West today, the project of information control and narrative management …
Putin’s next move
A couple of weeks ago, in a biting sleet wind, I visited the graveyard of the tiny village of Bohoniki in Poland’s far north east, home to Poland’s minuscule Tatar Muslim minority, descendents of the Mongol Golden Horde. On the …