Deep down, Emmanuel Macron always knew this day would come. ‘If we do not get a grip, whether it be in a few months, in five or ten years, the National Front will be in power,’ Macron wrote in his book ‘Revolution’, which came out a few months before he was elected president of France […]
This week, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the impending delivery of General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft to Ukraine was a ‘purposeful provocation’ by the West. As some models of F-16 are technically capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, Russia has warned darkly that their deployment would push the conflict to ‘the […]
Russia is essentially a terror state. How else would you describe a state that is deliberately and consistently targeting populated residential areas with the intention of killing civilians? After all, my region of Odesa has been constantly targeted by Putin and his soldiers. Kyiv has also recently suffered under a massive rocket barrage of over […]
Political traditions often long outlive the context that created them. In Britain, every year the King gives his speech to parliament, in ancient Rome, the Senate solemnly assembled to select emperors picked by the Praetorian Guard, and last week in Russia, there were presidential elections. The result was not a surprise to anyone. According to […]
The conflict in Ukraine has been a wake-up call. Not only did it show again that Russia is an immediate military threat to its neighbours, but it revealed that defence spending can be eaten up very quickly when ice-cold relations become a hot war. Europe and the United States have acted to provide Ukraine with […]
On Thursday February 15, Alexei Navalny appeared via video link for a court hearing. Despite having spent three years in prison and over 300 days in solitary confinement he seemed in good spirits and elicited smiles from court officials by cracking jokes about the pay of federal judges. But just 24 hours later he was […]
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a formative political moment for a generation of liberty-lovers. As East and West Germans merrily smashed their way through the symbol of their division, liberal democracy and free-market capitalism seemed to have totally triumphed over authoritarian socialism. As the late great P.J. O’Rourke put it, a ‘huge totalitarian […]
Whether it’s French farmers spraying manure at government buildings or Dutch tractor convoys blocking roads, discontent is spreading across Europe as a result of climate policy. As a result, right-wing populist parties are rising in the polls while the greens can expect to be punished at the upcoming European Parliament elections. This is hardly surprising. […]
The United Kingdom has a longstanding relationship with in the island of Cyprus. We continue to maintain sovereign military bases there, and much of the island’s infrastructure is based on foundations that we built. For example, Ercan International Airport in the North evolved out of RAF Tymbou, a WW2 era aerodrome that was converted into […]
The words trot off the tongue easily: despicable, foul, offensive, disgusting. Take your pick, public burnings of the Qur’an are all of those things. As a Jew, I would view with horror and deep anger anyone who burned a Torah. Any decent person surely finds both beyond the pale – just as any book burning […]
France is not a calm country. My country isn’t like Denmark, Austria or the Netherlands. That’s also what makes its history so unique. France is a country where the best and the worst live cheek by jowl. The last few days have obviously not shown the best of France. Last week a policeman shot dead […]
How do we really live now? For his latest book This Is Europe, Ben Judah tried to answer that question by speaking to the people whose labour makes the freedom and prosperity the rest of us enjoy possible, interviewing everyone from a Romanian truck driver to an Amazon deliveryman and a factory production line worker. […]
Is it time for the EU to introduce qualified majority voting on foreign policy matters? The foreign ministers of seven member states have made an eloquent case for such a change in a recent article for Politico. Their piece is striking for several reasons. First, unlike most earlier attempts to push for deeper integration, it […]
Remainers harbouring nostalgia for the heady days of the UK’s EU membership might spare a thought for Poland. This week the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the EU’s top court, showed how intrusive the EU has become on matters that most people would think related to a country’s internal affairs. The background was a […]
Recep Tayyib Erdogan will remain president of Turkey for another five years after winning Sunday’s run-off election over his long-time rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. If he serves the full five-year term, he will have held power for 26 years – almost the entire history of Turkey in the 21st century. What is astonishing is how the […]
As Greece prepares for a critical and hotly contested election, the international community is watching with growing concern. The stakes are enormous, as the progress made under the New Democracy government could be undone if the far-left Syriza party returns to power. The election has become a two-horse race with potentially far-reaching implications, making it […]
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