You may be a little surprised to hear that in Britain, being ‘grossly offensive’ is a crime. Joseph Kelly might feel similarly. On Monday he was convicted for sending a tweet – admittedly a fairly nasty one – about the late charity fundraiser Sir Tom Moore. When he shook his head – in disagreement or […]
Denied an electoral bellwether for over a year because of the pandemic, politicians and commentators have unleashed their pent-up desire for analysis on this year’s local, regional, by- and London elections. We’ve had the likes of Ian Birrell in Unherd wondering whether, following defeat in Hartlepool, Labour would soon leave the ranks of the walking wounded […]
On Sunday, the White House announced that ‘Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into northern Syria’ and that American forces, though they would not support this advance, would move out of the way to allow it to take place. This announcement was unexpected and surprised many, the inhabitants of northern Syria […]
Three years on from the Brexit referendum, there’s little sign of the passions stirred up by a fiery campaign being put to rest. Many participants in the Brexit debate have found their politics more entrenched and more extreme, and their private and public thoughts more prone to conspiracy theory and bile. One striking example was […]
Britain’s next prime minister was never likely to have enjoyed an easy start. With no majority in the House of Commons, and having reached a point with Brexit which proved impassable enough to end the career of Theresa May, Boris Johnson will not have the strongest of hands upon assuming office. A confrontation in the […]
After years of legal and political drama, the Central European University is finally leaving Budapest. The university has been under threat for a while from Viktor Orban’s government, which recently passed a new law making it much more difficult for foreign-run universities to operate in Hungary. All this attention afforded by a government to a […]
Last week, Raed Fares, one of Syria’s most visible and visionary pro-democracy activists, was murdered in Idlib. Alongside Fares, his colleague Hammud Junayd was also killed as part of an ongoing campaign of assassination targeting Idlib’s moderates and advocates of democracy. Fares’ murder elicited shock and sadness across the world, but not surprise. An attempt […]
As the Syrian war reaches its terminal stages, open conflict has given way to a PR war. The regime of Bashar al-Assad, backed by its Russian and Iranian allies, desires legitimacy and recognition. Assad is unlikely to receive it. His enemies wish to make it clear that, though the regime looks unlikely to fall, its […]
The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi writer who vanished into his country’s Istanbul consulate two weeks ago, provoke an immediate and sustained reaction. In the early days of this unfolding drama the response in the West was largely indifference to a complicated-sounding story in a part of the world most know little about. But […]
Day or night, someone is likely to know where we are. Our friends and family, for one, or our colleagues. Someone will have an idea where to find us, if necessary. More prosaically, our locations are tracked and our movements monitored by governments and technology companies. To these downturned eyes, our movements fall into and […]
Sky News has today begun a campaign to make TV debates a permanent feature of future general election campaigns. The broadcaster has come up with an urgent-sounding hashtag, #MakeDebatesHappen. and an endorsement from Sir Nick Clegg himself. As Sir Nick points out, the TV debates were a “defining feature” of the 2010 election, and letting […]
Steve Bannon is not as clever as he thinks, but he is good at attracting attention. At Breitbart News, Bannon fashioned effective propaganda, becoming an essential aspect of the right-wing media system – in America and, latterly, across the world. Breitbart attracted politicians, such as Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, and in turn it – […]
Donald Trump tweeted something strange last week. In itself, that’s nothing unusual. The President certainly has form when it comes to outlandish and whacky pronouncements. But amid his calling the Mueller investigation “a rigged witch hunt” and attacking his former lawyer Michael Cohen, Trump said something else. He revealed he had instructed Secretary of State […]
The regime of Bashar al-Assad plainly believes the Syrian Civil War is entering its terminal stages. This belief is distinct from the regime’s messaging, which has consistently held that Assad was never threatened by Syria’s revolution, and that his victory was always assured. Victory for Assad, in any sense of the word, is not inevitable. […]
The long-standing row over alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour party continues to rumble on. This weekend deputy leader Tom Watson spoke out and was quickly the subject of an online campaign from Corbynistas calling for him to resign. Today we have a member of Labour’s National Policy Forum, George McManus, suspended over a Facebook post […]
Every so often governments undertake acts of unarguable good. These moments are rare, and they are frequently small, justifiable less in terms of their large-scale consequences than their own morality or merit. But governments must still be induced to act in this way. And good ought to be recognised when it is done. One such […]
Gavin Williamson is an ambitious man. He is, after all, a politician. People in that line of work are hardly immune from ambition’s siren call. Political careers are often embarked upon with the highest of hopes, sometimes accompanied by the most outlandish of expectations. Even the most parochial of political figures cherish some secret ambition. […]
The world’s attention is fixated on Singapore, the venue for a summit that not long ago looked like it wouldn’t happen. Discussion between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump was imperilled by the former’s intransigence and the latter’s rashness. Trump dictated an intemperate letter to Kim on May 24 cancelling the thing. It looked as though […]
In a very brief time, Jordan Peterson has become almost ubiquitous. The professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, now on leave in order to tour the world, has been cultivating a growing following on social media and YouTube for years. But 2018 is his moment. Peterson’s until recently modest fame has been increased […]
There we have it. The date and time for Donald Trump’s meeting with the Kim Jong-un are set. It was announced when Trump’s newly appointed secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, returned from Pyongyang with three Americans who had been imprisoned in North Korea. The summit – an outbreak of diplomacy after the two countries traded […]
