In his former life as a heavyweight boxer, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko landed some well-timed blows. But perhaps none have had as much impact as his recent comments regarding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Castigating his leader as increasingly isolated and authoritarian, Klitschko claimed that “at some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man.” He added that “people wonder why we weren’t better prepared for this war”, and that Zelenskyy is “paying for mistakes he has made”. 

That Klitschko should reserve opprobrium for the Ukrainian leader is unsurprising — the former boxer has been an ardent supporter of ex-president Petro Poroshenko, who was defeated by Zelenskyy in the 2019 election. The two also have a history of personal feuding, with Zelenskyy taking to the airwaves in November 2022 to publicly criticise Klitschko and his officials for having “not performed well” when establishing shelters for Kyiv’s citizens after Russian attacks.  ...  Continue reading

Articles in the forthcoming edition of the Atlantic are bound together by a shared theme, one that will be familiar to readers of the magazine over the past seven years. In the January/February issue of the publication, 24 writers “imagine what a second Trump term would look like”, with new pieces spread across the Atlantic’s website. 

David Frum heralds the “the danger ahead”; Caitlin Dickerson cautions against Trump’s “anything-goes approach to immigration enforcement”; Anne Applebaum predicts “the end of American influence”. Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s prefatory note is titled, “A Warning”, and accuses the former president of “rotten, depraved” behaviour, adding that “both Trump and Trumpism pose an existential threat to America.” The themed edition follows an article from the same outlet last month which claims that the former president has “fully embraced the language of fascism”. ...  Continue reading

There’s no getting away from it: the Dutch are sadists. At least they are in respect to their politicians. Following the recent general election, it has become apparent that the mainstream parties are caught in a trap of fiendish cruelty. No matter which way they wriggle, their situation becomes more desperate.

It all began with the shock win for Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV) late last month. The voters could have chosen a more moderate kind of populist, but instead they went with Wilders — who is arguably further to the Right than Marine Le Pen or Viktor Orbán.

He didn’t get a majority of seats, but if one takes into account the overall result it’s clear that public opinion has shifted in favour of a Right-of-centre government and a restrictive immigration policy. In fact, polling shows that popular support for the Freedom Party continues to grow. ...  Continue reading

On Saturday evening the BBC screened the second of three Doctor Who specials to be aired this year. After last week’s grating, clunky trans propaganda, it was time for some historically implausible colour-blind casting, with Isaac Newton portrayed by the British-Indian actor Nathaniel Curtis. Both episodes have sparked a good deal of understandable eye-rolling and irritation, with critics noting that New Who shed about three million viewers during Jodie Whittaker’s tenure, when a series already tending towards smugness became insufferably self-righteous.

There is little left to be said about the suffocating Leftish conformity that afflicts British television. A more important and interesting question is what the future holds. For now, the BBC and Channel 4 coddle many creatives who would struggle in a genuine marketplace. But that is probably coming to an end. In 2027, the BBC will face its Charter renewal and just this week Rishi Sunak warned the organisation to “be realistic” about what families could afford. ...  Continue reading

A friend of mine has a theory that men only created sports in order to feel physically superior to women. We might be better at living longer and creating new humans, but they’re better at running fast, jumping over poles and flinging balls around. 

What about playing pool, though? Are male people at an advantage there, too? According to the authors of a new petition, they are. Supported by Fair Play for Women, a group of female pool players is asking that entry to women’s tournaments be restricted to those who are female-bodied. Naturally, the question many are asking in response is “but does it really make a difference?” Well, yes. It does.   ...  Continue reading

Canadian leader Justin Trudeau recently launched a new suicide hotline. Internet jokers wondered whether its aim is to dissuade or to find new takers for Canada’s notoriously liberal state-supported euthanasia programme. Surely it is paradoxical for the same government to offer both pro and anti-suicide services? 

But what if this isn’t a paradox? Then it becomes clear that, for Canada, the meaning of death is now less a moral question than a bureaucratic one. This in turn offers insight into the trajectory and ambitions of the post-democratic, managerialist politics of which Canada is a leading exponent, and which is now spreading throughout the liberal West. ...  Continue reading

Tony Blair is the Prometheus of modern Labour mythology. He won three consecutive general elections, stealing the knack of winning from the Tories. One can debate his legacy — at home and abroad — but he was undeniably a serial winner.

More overlooked is the 15-year period between 1964, when Harold Wilson formed his first government, and 1979, when Margaret Thatcher entered Number 10, during which Labour ruled for more than a decade. Tough circumstances — from currency devaluations to the oil crisis — arguably underscored political accomplishment rather than diminishing it. 

So it is surprising that Keir Starmer, successor to both Wilson and Blair, should refer to such a period as a “stupor”. In a piece for the Telegraph at the weekend, aimed at wavering Tories, the Labour leader declared that moments of change begin “with the realisation that politics must act in service of the British people, rather than dictating to them”. Clement Attlee and Blair grasped this, he went on, but so did Margaret Thatcher. Indeed, it was the Iron Lady who sought “to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism”. ...  Continue reading

Strange things are happening in the global oil markets. The prices, set by the oil futures market, seem to make less and less sense when compared to the underlying fundamentals. Last week, Opec+ convened a meeting at which the cartel decided to cut oil production by a total of 2.2 million barrels per day.

In normal times, this announcement would lead the price of oil to rise. After all, if the demand for a good remains unchanged and its supply decreases, basic economics would tell you that the price should rise. Not so in the oil market. After Opec+ announced its new round of production cuts, the price of oil fell from around $80 a barrel to around $74. ...  Continue reading