The Week

Trump’s threats

Donald Trump addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos as tensions over Greenland threatened to trigger a full-scale rupture in transatlantic relations. The US president, who’d insisted before the summit that there would be “no going back” on his...

Iran in f lames Will the regime be toppled?

“Help is on its way,” Donald Trump told the people of Iran on Tuesday as he urged them to keep protesting and “take over your institutions”. The US president had earlier declared that America was “locked and loaded”, ready to intervene militarily in...

Trump’s power grab

I never thought I’d feel nostalgia for the Iraq War, said Nesrine Malik in The Guardian. But it turns out that the runup to that conflict, when America did at least strive to convince the world of the righteousness of its cause, was the “good old...

The faces of 2025

JANUARY Seventeen-year-old Luke Littler becomes the youngest darts world champion in the history of the sport. Justin Trudeau bows to pressure to resign as Canadian PM, ending his nine-year stint in power. Two months after being criticised in an...

Is Europe really in decline?

Pity Europe, said Michael Ignatieff on Substack. According to the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy, the continent is facing “civilisational erasure” as a result of unchecked migration and a “loss of national identities and...

Farage’s £9m windfall

Reform UK has received a record £9m donation from Christopher Harborne, a British-Thai cryptocurrency mogul, according to the latest quarterly declarations to the Electoral Commission. It’s the largest-ever single donation by a living person to a...

The Budget fallout

What happened The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, accused Rachel Reeves of lying to the public so that she could fund increased welfare spending with tax rises in last week’s Budget. Reeves faced calls from the Conservatives, the SNP and Reform UK for her...

Pushing for peace

After days of frantic diplomacy, Donald Trump claimed this week that his negotiators had made “tremendous progress” towards ending the Ukraine War. The Ukrainian leadership indicated that it had accepted the “core terms” of a US-backed peace plan – and...

Labour gets tough

Shabana Mahmood unveiled a string of tough measures this week, which she said amounted to the most significant reform of the asylum system since the Second World War. The plans are designed to make the UK less attractive to refugees and make it easier...

Andrew’s banishment

By-election shock

Labour’s resounding defeat in a by-election in its Welsh heartlands last week prompted renewed criticism of Keir Starmer’s leadership. Labour had held the Senedd seat in the former mining town of Caerphilly since its creation in 1999 (and has held the...

A royal pariah

It came years too late, but last week, Prince Andrew finally accepted that his “rancid” reputation had become a threat to the monarchy, said the Daily Mail. Having stepped away from royal duties in 2019, he released a statement confirming he was now...

The hard path to peace

The streets of Tel Aviv felt empty on Monday morning, said Roy Schwartz in The Guardian. “There was no need to ask where everyone was.” Thousands of people were packed into the plaza known now, and perhaps for ever more, as Hostage Square. Others were...

The Tories in peril

In her speech at the Conservative Party conference, Kemi Badenoch made a pitch to win back voters tempted by Reform UK’s anti-immigration agenda. Among other things, she said her government would deport 150,000 migrants a year, via a US-style “removals...

Starmer fights back

Keir Starmer took on Reform UK in a combative speech to the Labour conference this week, describing Nigel Farage as a “snake oil merchant” who “doesn’t like Britain”. Britain was at a “fork in the road”, he said, facing a choice between “renewal” or...

Free speech in the US

Scary but true, said Zack Beauchamp on Vox: a comedian was taken off the air last week for saying things Donald Trump didn’t like. The TV host in question is Jimmy Kimmel, who on his talk show accused “the Maga gang” of “trying to characterise this kid...

Starmer’s nightmare

As Keir Starmer prepared for Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain this week, Labour MPs were questioning how long the PM could survive in office. The speculation over his leadership follows the sacking last Thursday of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to...

France in crisis

President Macron named his ally, Sébastien Lecornu, as his fifth prime minister in two years on Tuesday, following the collapse of François Bayrou’s nine-month-old government. Bayrou had resigned after losing a confidence vote he’d called in an effort...

Xi’s new world order

China’s Xi Jinping presided over a massive military parade in Tiananmen Square on Wednesday, flanked by Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The event marked the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, but Xi used it to...

Britain’s dog boom

How many dogs are there in Britain? No one knows for sure: there’s no dog census. But the most rigorous study, in the journal Nature, found that in 2019 there were 12.64 million dogs in the UK. The industry body UK Pet Food estimates that by 2024,...

The softer side of Nicola Sturgeon

For years, Nicola Sturgeon “wasn’t just popular” in Scotland, said Fraser Nelson in The Times: in the mid- to late 2010s, she was hailed as a “political hero”. Her supporters regarded her as a “Celtic Boudica” destined to lead the nation to...

How broken is Britain?

The third runway

Here we go again, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. Last week, Heathrow Airport unveiled its latest expansion plans. Labour first backed the third runway in 2009, six years after it had been proposed in a White Paper, and the Tories “voted it through...

Golf diplomacy

“It’s not normal for a prime minister to be greeted as a guest in his own country, but nothing’s ever normal any more,” said Tom Peck in The Times. On Monday, Keir Starmer made “a miniature state visit to the Ayrshire branch of the court of King...

Trump on the run

“It’s hard not to chuckle at the mess the Trump administration has made for itself” over Jeffrey Epstein, said Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times. For years, the president and his allies stoked conspiracy theories about the disgraced financier,...

The doctors’ strikes

The Health Secretary Wes Streeting was due to hold talks with union leaders this week, in a bid to avert a fresh wave of strikes by resident doctors in England. Streeting said the planned five-day walkout by resident (formerly junior) doctors starting...

Filling the coffers

Rachel Reeves’s tears in the Commons last week have not harmed her politically, said Archie Mitchell in The Independent. Quite the opposite, in fact. The panicked response of the financial markets to the very idea of the Chancellor being replaced has...

Starmer’s first year

It is a year ago this week that Keir Starmer stormed to electoral victory, with a massive 174-seat majority and a promise that “change begins now”. Back then, senior Labour officials spoke of treating their first term “as an extended [election]...

The peacemaker

“He came, he bombed, he ended the war.” That’s how Donald Trump would sum up the events of the past week, said The Economist, but the reality was a little more complicated. Last Saturday, 48 hours after giving Iran a two-week deadline, the US president...

Netanyahu’s gamble

Last Thursday night, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace unit, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, held an emergency meeting at a military base in Tehran. Hajizadeh and his officials had been warned not to congregate in one place,...

An abuse of power?

On the orders of Donald Trump, some 700 US marines arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday to join a controversial crackdown on protests against the president’s immigration policies. Trump had earlier defied the city’s leaders, and California’s Democratic...

Preparing for war

Keir Starmer vowed this week to make Britain “a battle-ready, armour-clad nation” as he unveiled the long-awaited Strategic Defence Review (SDR). The 144-page report contains 62 recommendations, all of which have been accepted. They include:...

Rayner’s gambit

People high up in politics are very careful about what they write down, said John Rentoul in The Independent. So when one cabinet minister sends a letter to another, “the first question we should ask is: what did she mean by that?” Two months ago, just...

Starmer’s EU “reset”

Keir Starmer hailed a “new era” in relations with Europe this week after the UK and Brussels agreed a post-Brexit “reset”. Under the deal, announced at a summit in London with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, the EU will lift checks on food produce...

Should Germany ban the AfD?

The news “hit Berlin like a bombshell”, said Friederike Haupt in Frankfurter Allgemeine. After a year-long investigation, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has officially designated the Alternative for Germany (AfD) a right-wing extremist...

Farage’s breakthrough

Nigel Farage declared “the end of two-party politics” last week after Reform UK won sweeping gains in local elections in England. His party picked up 677 of the 1,641 seats being contested and took control of ten councils, thrashing the Conservatives...

Trump’s first 100 days

Donald Trump wasn’t kidding when he promised “the most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history”, said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Since his 20 January inauguration, Trump has passed an avalanche of executive orders (139...

The death of the Pope

Saving British Steel

The Government seized control of the day-to-day running of British Steel last weekend following a breakdown in talks with the Chinese owner, Jingye, over the future of its Scunthorpe steelworks. Ministers suggested Jingye had been negotiating in bad...

Trump’s experiment

Donald Trump promised to bring down energy prices, said Keith Johnson in Foreign Policy – “and on that front at least, he has delivered”. The bad news, though, is that the recent plunge in crude oil prices reflects fears that he has tipped the global...

An uninvited guest

It was the diplomatic equivalent of measuring “the length of the curtains”, said Alexandra Schwartzbrod in Libération (Paris). Last week, a force of US Hercules military transport planes landed in Greenland ahead of a highprofile visit from...

Toxic influencers

“Do you know where your children are?” Once, that was among the most chilling things you could ask a parent, said Sarah Ditum on UnHerd. Now, “parents know exactly where their children are: at home, probably in their bedrooms”. The after-school time...

Slashing the state

“Every new prime minister has an Elon Musk moment,” said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian: “a sudden attack of frustration” that makes them want to take a “chainsaw” to the British state. Eight months into the job, Keir Starmer has already reached this...

The Russian connection

Why has this possibility been raised? Because Donald Trump’s policies have been unprecedentedly pro-Russian. Until this week, when the US pressed the Kremlin to commit to a ceasefire, the Trump administration had apparently asked for nothing from...

Trump’s shock diplomacy

It appears that Volodymyr Zelensky has been “browbeaten into submission”, said The Daily Telegraph. In a conciliatory message on X/Twitter this week, Ukraine’s president announced that he was ready to work “constructively” under Donald Trump’s “strong...

In from the cold

Has Volodymyr Zelensky patched up his fractured relationship with Donald Trump? News that the Ukrainian leader was due to fly to Washington on Friday, to sign a minerals deal with the US, certainly suggests a rapprochement. And we must hope it lasts,...

Peace in Trump’s time

For a man who claims to be a master of the “art of the deal”, Donald Trump has made an “unpromising start” to his negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, said The Independent. In his 1987 business guide, he wrote that his dealmaking style was to “aim...

The apes that want to help ignorant humans

Patches for damaged hearts About 920,000 people in the UK suffer from heart failure, in which the ailing heart struggles to pump blood around the body. Their treatment options are limited, but now, in a major breakthrough, scientists have repaired...

Trump’s trade wars

President Trump fired the first salvo in a trade war on Tuesday by imposing a blanket 10% tariff on all goods imported from China. Beijing responded by announcing tariffs on a range of US products, including coal, liquefied natural gas and farm...

Ready for takeoff?

Rachel Reeves announced a string of reforms this week to kickstart the economy, and vowed to tear down the barriers to growth. The centrepiece of the Chancellor’s speech was support for airport expansion: she endorsed plans to build the longdebated...

Trump’s return

“The golden age of America begins right now,” declared Donald Trump as he was sworn in on Monday as the 47th US president. In a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda attended by Washington politicians and the Silicon Valley elite, he pledged to lead a...

The gathering storm

Rachel Reeves pledged on Tuesday to go “further and faster” to boost economic growth, as she came under pressure over her handling of the public finances. The Chancellor’s Commons statement followed a week of turbulence in the bond market that pushed...

Musk’s rampage

Keir Starmer took a thinly veiled swipe at Elon Musk on Monday by condemning those “spreading lies and misinformation” about grooming gangs. The PM had endured days of attacks from the entrepreneur, who had accused him of failing to tackle the gangs...

The faces of 2024

JANUARY The World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace is dominated by the improbable emergence of a 16-year-old phenomenon, Luke Littler (below), who cruises through the draw before losing to the world No. 1, Luke Humphries, in the final. Hamas’s...

A duke in disgrace

Prince Andrew was again engulfed in scandal owing to the revelation that one of his business confidants is an alleged Chinese spy. The case came to light last Thursday when a specialist tribunal in London upheld a 2023 ban on the businessman – named on...

The fall of Assad

The end was “as stunning as it was swift”, said Rania Abouzeid in The New Yorker. Less than a fortnight after launching a lightning strike from its stronghold in northern Syria, the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) this week succeeded in ending...

Godʼs warrior?

What was the Christian Right’s role? Conservative Christians backed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign solidly and vociferously; many even suggested that he had been chosen by God. Weeks before the vote, Franklin Graham, son of Billy and one of...

The nuclear threat

It may be “innocently” called Oreshnik – “hazel tree” – but the Kremlin’s latest hypersonic ballistic missile is “one of its most dangerous”, said James Kilner in The Daily Telegraph. Russian forces test-fired it for the first time in combat last...

Fury of the farmers

An estimated 13,000 farmers descended on central London on Tuesday to protest against the inheritance tax (IHT) reforms announced in last month’s Budget. Among those marching in Whitehall was the TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who warned that the...

Trump’s world

Donald Trump’s new administration started to take shape this week as he selected several loyalists to fill key positions. Susie Wiles, his campaign manager, is set to become his White House chief of staff – the first woman in US history to hold that...

Trump’s victory

Donald Trump swept to an emphatic victory over Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, to seal a historic return to the White House as America’s 47th president. With some results still to be declared, Trump looked on course to win all seven...

Tough medicine?

Rachel Reeves announced £40bn of tax rises on Wednesday in a Budget that she said would help “fix the foundations” of the economy and spur growth. The biggest revenue-raiser was a 1.2% increase in the rate of employers’ national insurance...

A faltering campaign

The Democrats are beginning to panic, said Alex Shephard in The New Republic – and who can blame them? It appears Kamala Harris is incapable of establishing a meaningful lead in this election, no matter what her rival says or does. Donald Trump is...

The Budget headache

At the end of the month, Rachel Reeves will deliver her first Budget as Chancellor, said Robert Colvile in The Sunday Times. “She finds herself in a near-impossible position”, because “she has made a series of near-impossible promises”. When she was...

Middle East in flames

Israel expanded its military campaign in Lebanon this week, launching a new wave of intensive air strikes at Hezbollah targets, and sending a fourth army division into the south of the country. It brought the total number of Israeli troops inside...

Escalation in the Middle East

The prospect of a full-blown war in the Middle East loomed closer on Tuesday when Iran fired around 180 ballistic missiles at Israel. The barrage targeted Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities, but was mostly intercepted with direct US help and the...