So much now depends on the cohesion and effectiveness of US Democrats over the next two years
The prospect of Donald Trump remaining in a position to decide US foreign policy for the next 2¼ years is daunting. For Europe, the stakes have not been as high since 1939. At the heart of our collective prospects lies the conflict in Ukraine. Sometimes its strategic importance is lost in the chatter of pundits. […]
What happens in Israeli and US elections may reshape the Middle East
Forming a coalition government in Israel is a difficult and unpredictable process, made much more complex by the radical proportionality of the electoral system. Israeli voters, nonetheless, were faced with a fundamental choice in yesterday’s election. They could enable Binyamin Netanyahu to retain office with right-wing allies determined on a course of expansionism and rejection […]
Street violence by the far left is polarising French politics
The riots in France are a very serious matter for us all. They are not just some minor, routine, explosive geyser – part of a long-standing French tradition of street protest. Nor are the rioters protesting in sympathy with teenagers venting anger at underinvestment in their lycees. Some violent, destructive rioters appear to have been […]
Trump’s barbarism and delusions have brought America to the brink
Last week, Donald Trump was addressing a campaign rally in New York state at Syracuse. He told his audience that the current attorney general for New York state, Letitia James, who has held office as the state’s 67th attorney general since 2019 and who is black, was “disgusting” and a “dog”. Should that kind of […]
Budget day has lost all excitement. It is now an attritional struggle between ministers
Bearing in mind the political reality that the Government is facing the prospect of a national wage agreement which is expected to increase nominal wages by 5 per cent at least, the structure of our income tax system means that tax bands and credits would have had to increase proportionally just to leave people where […]
Drumcree row is a useful smokescreen for dysfunctional relationship between Sinn Féin and DUP
You can’t have a proper grasp of the Drumcree standoff until you have read the masterly account of the background in the book by eminent journalist and social historian, Susan McKay, Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People. Without it, you are seeing the issue as through a glass darkly to borrow a biblical phrase. Her chapter […]