Foreign Affairs

Sovereignty: why is it good for Kashmir and Hong Kong, but bad for the UK?

August 12, 2019
Martin Sewell
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News from Hong Kong and Kashmir has continued to dominate the news, and then the Labour Shadow Chancellor and Deputy Leader John McDonnell sowed a degree of discontent in the ranks by suggesting that his party might be better disposed…

Kavanaugh confirmation: somebody was lying about the fear of flying – and that lie could change legal history

September 29, 2018
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For the past few days I have been thinking about the Senate hearing into the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. As I looked forward to it, in…

Supreme Court Judge Anthony Kennedy retires: Donald Trump was elected for such a time as this

June 28, 2018
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Yesterday, the real prize of winning the last US General Election was presented to the American people. The resignation of US Supreme Court Judge Anthony Kennedy offers Donald Trump the…

Happy Inauguration Anniversary, Mr President. And thanks for getting back to the separation of powers

January 19, 2018
194 Comments

One year ago, our friends in the USA exchanged one thin-skinned narcissistic president for another, and immediately a fresh chapter of their ongoing culture wars began. Less inhibited than their…

‘Shithole countries’ tittle-tattle only served to mask the Uranium One fallout: the real scandal is yet to surface

January 17, 2018
226 Comments

Last Friday, President Trump was reported to have used the most crass terms when discussing admitting migrants from countries like Haiti into the United States of America. He denies the…

Murderous Mugabe has fallen – now prosecute him for crimes against humanity

November 22, 2017
145 Comments

WARNING: DO NOT SCROLL DOWN IF YOU MAY BE OFFENDED BY OR ARE SENSITIVE TO PICTURES OF EXTREME HUMAN SUFFERING Robert Mugabe has finally gone. A tyrannical rule of 37…

Trump’s UN “hate speech” tells the world a few home truths

September 20, 2017
226 Comments

UN Secretary-General António Guterres doesn't like divisive political discourse: he prefers consensual dialogue about climate change; exhortations to build bridges rather than walls; measured denunciations of Israel rather than the…

Félicitations, President Macron – Vive la Faux Révolution!

May 8, 2017
236 Comments

As the victorious President-elect Emmanuel Macron appeared in front of Le Louvre to address the Fifth Republic, it was conspicuously to the strains of Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' – the…

Trump and torture: you don’t fight Islamist fire with the embers of Christian virtue

January 26, 2017
460 Comments

President Donald Trump wants to keep his country safe from Islamist terrorists. He'd also like to destroy ISIS and wipe them off the face of the earth. In pursuit of…

Trump: Brexit will be a great thing; the EU is basically a German racket

January 16, 2017
139 Comments

"You look at the European Union and it’s Germany. Basically a vehicle for Germany," says Donald Trump in Michael Gove's scoop interview for The Times. It comes as a cyclone…

The liberation of Aleppo? Pouring a sea of grey into buckets of black and white

December 13, 2016
359 Comments

Parliament debates the liberation of Aleppo today. Marvellous. That'll sort it all out. Or perhaps MPs won't quite debate the liberation of Aleppo, for Aleppo hasn't actually been liberated from…

God has chosen Donald Trump to be 45th President of the United States

November 9, 2016
338 Comments

God has chosen the 45th President of the United States, and God chose bigly. It really is a great result, just the best, really. It really is. God is going…

Church denounces Austria’s ‘far-right’ Norbert Hofer for campaign poster invoking God

October 26, 2016
114 Comments

Norbert Hofer is the presidential hopeful of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in the forthcoming election (which is being re-run in December owing to previous electoral irregularities). The Freedom…

Which is worse in a presidential candidate – dirty words about sexual assault or conspiring to conceal rape?

October 10, 2016
166 Comments

Donald Trump is a vain, obnoxious, arrogant, lying, bombastic sleazebag. Or, as they say across the pond, "an asshole". Everybody knows it, or seems to. So when a decade-old recording…

Egypt's Coptic Christians are being slandered, humiliated and murdered

July 26, 2016
210 Comments

"They burnt the house and went in and dragged me out, threw me in front of the house and ripped my clothes," recounted 70-year-old Souad Thabet. "I was just…

Searching for Trump Clinton alternatives? There is one…

July 25, 2016
136 Comments

America has a problem. Their quest to find the wisest leader; the most experienced negotiator; the most honest, committed, charismatic and cool politician to be the next President of…

Turkey purge: is military coup a lesser evil than Erdoğan's Islamism?

July 20, 2016
243 Comments

Following last week's military coup – which is never the answer to anything – President Erdoğan is purging Turkey's civic institutions of every whiff of opposition, dissent, criticism and…

Donald Trump: the triumph of political incorrectness over incorrect politicalness

May 4, 2016
349 Comments

Unless the GOP does something silly – like steal the nomination in a contested convention by engineering a last-minute coup – it looks as though Donald Trump will be…

Open Doors demands action on behalf of persecuted Christians in Nigeria

May 3, 2016
127 Comments

Have you ever been to an open-air church service? Not those of the balmy British summerness where the vicar sets up a pulpit on the village green and children…

While Erdoğan seizes churches, Cameron fights for Turkey to join the EU

April 25, 2016
194 Comments

David Cameron has pledged to fight for Turkey to be admitted to the European Union. This, he avers, would place them at "the top table of European politics", where,…