International politics

The Olympian smugness of the anti-Sochi gay protests

Now look, as Tony Blair would say, homophobia is bad. Very bad. But does that mean we have to turn the Sochi Winter Olympics into a sort of global gay pride event, simply because Russia has passed a not very pleasant law against teaching children about homosexuality? Apparently it does. Every right-thinking hack on earth, it seems, has expressed their disgust at Putin’s bigotry. Politicians are also desperate to let on, though they can’t say so publicly, that they really don’t approve of Russia. And Progressive media companies are using the opening of the Games today to show off their moral superiority to those backward Russians. Google has turned its logo into a rainbow. The

Enjoy the Winter Olympics but remember – and listen to – Pussy Riot as well.

And so to the winter Olympic Games which should not be hosted by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Sure, Putin’s Russia is not nearly as horrific as Stalin’s Russia but when that’s the yardstick for decency you know you’ve bankrupted yourself. Was anyone taken in by Putin’s decision to release a handful of political prisoners recently? Shame on them if they were gulled by such an obvious play. Again, it is better that the likes of Mikhail Khodorkhovsky and Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova freed but they should never have been in prison in the first place. The upside, as so often in Russia, is heavily qualified. The Pussy Riot girls

India holds the cricket world to ransom; England and Australia agree to pay

Almost no idea is rotten enough that it can’t or won’t be defended by some scoundrel somewhere. Even so, the equanimity with which some folk have greeted the proposed ICC coup is startling. Sure, the likes of Andy Bull, Mike Selvey and Simon Wilde each note that the ECB-CA-BCCI takeover is seriously flawed but, gosh, something needs to be done about the International Cricket Council and, by jove, this is at least something. Besides, Giles Clarke and his two pals say they wish to protect test cricket so we should take that assurance at face value and all will be well. Or something. I must say that seems an oddly credulous approach

What is Europe good for? Rather a lot, actually…

Europe, eh? Good for nothing, innit? That’s the prevailing narrative you hear these days. But, as so often, this is a matter of perspective. The chart above, plundered courtesy of Anne Applebaum’s twitter feed, shows the respective growths of GDP per capita in Poland and the Ukraine since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact. One of these countries, as you can see, has done rather better than the other. It’s the country that has made a better fist of democracy. And it’s the country that is a member of the European Union. Which is one reason why Britain should still be in favour

A Carve-Up That’s Just Not Cricket

By god, you know matters have come to a wretched pass when you feel inclined to defend and protect the International Cricket Council. And yet, remarkably, such a moment is upon us. Like the old Roman republic, the ICC is threatened by a triumvirate. In this instance, Crassus is represented three times as India, England and Australia bid to carve up cricket’s empire between themselves. Few people doubt change is needed. The ICC has been broken for ages. It is easy to conclude that it has outlived its usefulness. Nevertheless, that does not mean any proposed alternative is going to produce better outcomes for cricket. The proposals for reforming cricket’s

What a lost prison manuscript reveals about the real Nelson Mandela

This is a story about Nelson Mandela, and it begins on Robben Island in 1974. Prisoner number 466/64 is writing up his life story, working all night and sleeping all day.  Finished pages go to trusted comrades who write comments and queries in the margins. The text is then passed to one Laloo Chiba, who transcribes it in ‘microscopic’ letters on to sheets of paper which are later inserted into the binding of notebooks and carried off the island by Mac Maharaj when he is released in 1976. Outside, the intrepid Mac turns the microscopic text into a typescript and sends it to London, where it becomes the Higgs boson

The Winter Olympics should never have been awarded to Vladimir Putin’s Russia

Last month’s terrorist attacks in Volgograd were doubtless an attempt to warn foreigners off the Winter Olympics in Sochi next month. An attempt, too, to remind Vladimir Putin that his problems in the Caucasus – many of them at least partially made in Moscow – haven’t gone away. For understandable reasons the bombs have caused plenty of folk to wonder about the security of athletes and visitors in Sochi. Those concerns are, plainly, real even if we may also, I think, expect the Russian state to erect several rings of steel around the Black Sea resort. The real concern, frankly, is that Russia was awarded the games in the first

Rumours of Chris Christie’s political death are exaggerated.

January 2014, two years before the Iowa caucuses and already Chris Christie, the pugnacious governor of New Jersey, has been handed the Black Spot. His chances of securing the Republican party’s presidential nomination are already ruined. Or so the likes of Jonathan Chait would have us believe. Why? Because, well because Chris Christie is a New Jersey kind of politician. With all that entails. And because he’s a punk and a bully. Christie is guilty on each of these charges. Let’s rewind. Last September Christie, running for re-election, was keen to harvest endorsements from Democratic figures in the Garden State. This would make him seem a presidential kinda guy. The

Gordon Brown leads tributes to Nelson Mandela in the Commons

All three party leaders paid eloquent tribute to Nelson Mandela in the Commons. But by far the most powerful speech came from Gordon Brown. His speech, which combined wit with a string of serious points, was a reminder of the qualities that made many in the Labour party prepared to overlook his flaws. Brown, the timbre of his voice so suited to these occasions, spoke movingly about the Mandela he knew. He gave us a sense of the man as well as the statesman. He recalled how at the concert for Mandela’s the 90th, the former president had to sneak off to have a glass of champagne as his wife

Nelson Mandela gave us the greatest gift of all: Hope

Sometimes when a significant public figure dies, even, perhaps especially, when that death comes as no surprise and may, indeed, be considered some form of release there is a natural tendency to wonder if the blanket media coverage that invariably follows is altogether appropriate or even seemly. Is it not all too much? A man is merely a man; a woman merely a woman. Sometimes too, it is natural to react to the endless parade of tributes and wonder how genuine they really are. Is there not something vainglorious about them? Is there not something a little ridiculous about all these attempts to cling to the coat-tails of greatness? Perhaps

David Cameron and Ed Miliband pay tribute to Nelson Mandela

Downing Street has released the following statement from David Cameron: ‘A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our time; a legend in life and now in death – a true global hero. Across the country he loved they will be mourning a man who was the embodiment of grace. Meeting him was one of the great honours of my life. My heart goes out to his family – and to all in South Africa and around the world whose lives were changed through his courage.’ Ed Miliband has also released a statement on the death of Nelson Mandela: ‘The world has

William Hague: We will need to reassure Saudi Arabia and Israel about Iran deal

The Commons was in congratulatory mode this afternoon when William Hague gave his statement on the deal with Iran. Baroness Ashton, not familiar with heaps of praise falling on her, came in for congratulations from across the House, particularly from Hague and Douglas Alexander. Both men also agreed that this deal is the first step towards what Alexander called ‘that more difficult and complex agreement’ that will secure long-term stability in the region. listen to ‘William Hague’s statement on the Iran nuclear deal: ‘This is an important, necessary and completely justified step’’ on Audioboo

John F Kennedy was one of the nastiest presidents in American history

The fiftieth anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination is, of course, an occasion for a fresh outbreak of the virulent hagiography that has corrupted the memory of his actual record. The New York Times, a paper that should know better by now, published an article this week that repeated the old lie that somehow right-wing hysterics in Texas were the people really responsible for Kennedy’s murder. A theory inconvenienced only by the fact Lee Harvey Oswald was a pro-Castro leftist. But never mind that. Better to reframe the assassination as a part of America’s culture wars. And we know who the guilty men are in those, don’t we? American history is a

It’s tempting to compare France’s National Front with Ukip — but wrong

There is today only one united French political party, and it is the National Front. The FN has been profiting from a split French right, a hopeless French left and from the general disenchantment with the political class. It is tempting then to compare, as Agnes Poirier did in the Times, the FN’s recent success with that of Ukip in Britain. Tempting, but wrong. The National Front is 30 years older than Ukip, and a very different beast. It supports protectionist policies, while Ukip promotes a more libertarian and democratic approach. The FN’s ‘progressive tax’ – a rising income tax – clearly contrasts with the flat tax advocated by Ukip. Some

The heroism of Pussy Riot and life inside the modern Russian gulag

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s decision to begin a hunger strike in protest against the conditions she and her fellow prisoners endure inside Russia’s modern gulag will, doubtless, be met with a measure of scorn or lack of sympathy by some. After all, there were plenty of people who thought Pussy Riot – the Russian band of which Tolokonnivoka is the most high-profile member – got what they deserved last year. Not all of these hanging judges live in Russia either. To recap: three of Pussy Riot’s members were imprisoned last year having been convicted of, essentially, embarrassing the Orthodox Church and Vladimir Putin. The band’s methods may not be to everyone’s tastes but some

World Without Borders: Lebensraum for German Pensioners

Borders matter less than they used to. That’s not always apparent in this country protected as it is by the sea but on the continent frontiers are, once again, increasingly arbitrary and meaningless lines on a map. Modern Europe, in this respect, is beginning to look like an older Europe. Consider the new German invasion of the east. Invasion is, of course, too hysterical a term. Nevertheless, according to this fascinating Bloomberg report, (hat-tip: Tyler Cowen) increasing numbers of German pensioners are moving to Poland and elsewhere in search of more affordable care to ease them through their final years. Not quite lebensraum then but you get the idea. As many as one in

In London, John Kerry Promotes World’s Smallest Syrian Whirlwind

There’s little need for people opposed to launching any kind of attack on Syria to expend much energy doing so when those tasked with making the case for reminding Bashar al-Assad that using chemical weapons is not something the international community can or will ignore are making such a bloody hash of the job. Here, for instance, is John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, reminding us all that the Americans really don’t want to be taking action at all. They’ve been pushed into doing so, the result of both the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons (why assume Assad’s people are clever enough not to use them?) and by President Barack

G20 summit gets small-minded with ‘small island’ gibe

What a nice host Vladimir Putin is. Shortly after world leaders gathered in his country for the G20 summit in St Petersburg, a briefing from the President’s official spokesman that Britain is ‘just a small island no-one pays any attention to’ made its way into the media. Nothing like rubbing the nose of one of your guests in the dirt as politicians in this country work out where Britain now stands in the world after rejecting intervention in Syria (more on this in James’s column this week). A Downing Street source has responded in the brittle manner of a slighted guest at a tense dinner party (think an international version of

The View from 22: Obama’s zigzagging path to war and Cameron’s tiff with his MPs

What is behind Barack Obama’s wobbly approach to Syria? In the latest View from 22 podcast, former US State department official Colleen Graffy and the Spectator’s Douglas Murray discuss Obama’s latest manoeuvres in Washington and whether the American people still have an appetite for going to war with Syria.  What will happen when the issue hits Congress next week? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also discuss how the developing Syria situation has affected the political landscape in Westminster. Are Conservatives feeling disgruntled with their party leadership over the disastrous vote? What can we expect to see from the main parties in the next few weeks before party conference season? Have Labour regained

Syria is not Iraq (but at least the Iraq War had a clear objective)

A decade ago, I was sure that going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do. I persisted in that belief for a long time too, well beyond the point at which most supporters of the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power had recanted their past enthusiasm. The link between 9/11 and Iraq was quite apparent. Not because (despite what some mistaken people insisted) Saddam had any involvement in the atrocity but because removing tyrants and dictators seemed the best way of spreading the pacifying forces of commerce and democracy that might, in time, render Islamist extremism and terrorism obsolete. Why Iraq? Because it was there and