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Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameron walks past a display of destroyed Russian military vehicles in Saint Michael's Square, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 2, 2024 . (Photo by Thomas Peter-Pool/Getty Images)

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The Kremlin has responded with predictable theatre to comments from foreign secretary David Cameron, after he said Ukraine is free to use weapons supplied by Britain to launch strikes inside Russia.

That theatre was both diplomatic, with the British ambassador summoned to the foreign ministry in Russia on Monday to warn of retaliation, and nuclear: Moscow announced it would be holding exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons in the near future to remind the world yet again that it has them.

The UK position is a sharp contrast to that of the US, which has consistently forbidden Ukraine from using the weapons it supplies to hit targets in Russia.…  Seguir leyendo »

One of the Most Successful Parties in the World Is Staggering to Inevitable Defeat

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At 3 a.m. one day last December, a 78-year-old volunteer for the British Conservative Party was reportedly woken by a call from Mark Menzies, the Conservative lawmaker she worked for. He said that he was being held somewhere by “bad people” who demanded £5,000, or $6,300, to release him. The volunteer, a former campaign manager for Mr. Menzies, paid the sum out of her own savings. She was later reimbursed out of party funds.

Mr. Menzies, who was suspended from the party last month, denies that allegation and others, which include using £14,000 from party funds for personal medical bills. The ins and outs of his improprieties are neither here nor there, though he is no stranger to scandal.…  Seguir leyendo »

Migrants wade out to board a boat on a beach near Dunkirk, in northern France.Credit...Sameer Al-Doumy/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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Last week Britain’s Parliament passed a law that seeks to redefine reality.

The Safety of Rwanda Act declares Rwanda a “safe” country, regardless of the evidence to the contrary — and orders British courts to do the same. Its purpose is to allow the British government to finally, after two years, enact its policy to permanently deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Some of the most vulnerable people in Britain will be rounded up, detained and then — in theory — flown some 4,000 miles to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. What to do about people seeking asylum is one of the most complex policy issues facing governments around the world, and the British government insists it has the answer: promise cartoonish cruelty.…  Seguir leyendo »

British Labour opposition leader Keir Starmer speaking in Bristol, United Kingdom, January 2024. Toby Melville / Reuters

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The United Kingdom is likely to hold a general election in the fall, and the outlook appears dire for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party. In December 2019, the Conservatives were reelected with an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons on the strength of campaign promises to “get Brexit done” and “level up” those parts of the country that had not broadly shared in the benefits of economic growth and investment. However, the illegal Downing Street parties during COVID-19 lockdowns, former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s fiscal meltdowns, and the creeping costs of Brexit have demolished what had seemed an unassailable lead.…  Seguir leyendo »

British MPs have backed a proposed bill banning anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, from buying tobacco. If successful, it would mean today's 15-year-olds will never legally be able to buy cigarettes. Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank RF/Getty Images

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Last week, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson treated a Canadian crowd to a helping of his signature bombast.

“The party of Winston Churchill wants to ban [cigars]?” he moaned. “Donnez-moi un break, as they say in Quebec. It’s just mad”.

The source of his ire was the proposed UK smoking ban, which was spearheaded by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at last October’s Conservative Party Conference and underwent its second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening.

In a free vote, the House leaned in favor of the plan by 383 to 67, meaning the bill cleared its first parliamentary hurdle.…  Seguir leyendo »

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¿Volveremos a ver entrando en Gibraltar camiones desde España con arena y material de obra para para extender el territorio? La mejor evidencia del previsto resultado para la continuidad de la colonia, tras las previstas cesiones, la resumen las palabras del propio «premier» de la Roca, Picardo, quien recientemente afirmaba «Vamos a evitar los peores efectos de un Brexit duro. No hay aspectos del marco que se hayan acordado que en cualquier parte transgreda la posición de Gibraltar sobre soberanía, jurisdicción o control». Incluso de manera muy gráfica ha sentenciado, a propósito del control de la frontera con Europa a través de España: «Nunca se verá en Gibraltar a un guardia civil español».…  Seguir leyendo »

The Case for Progressive Realism

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This year, voters in the United Kingdom will head to the polls as Keir Starmer’s Labour Party seeks to win power from the Conservative Party for the first time since 1997. It is difficult to overstate how much the world has changed in the intervening years. When former Prime Minister Tony Blair entered Downing Street 27 years ago, the British economy was larger than India’s and China’s combined. The United Kingdom still administered a major Asian city, Hong Kong, as a colony. The increase in global temperatures from the long-term average was less than half what it is today. And American dominance was so striking that some people saw the spread of the liberal democratic model as inevitable.…  Seguir leyendo »

Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, and William, then Duke of Cambridge, at Buckingham Palace on their wedding day, London, April 29, 2011. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

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“Is the monarchy a suitable institution for a grown-up nation?” asked Hilary Mantel in “Royal Bodies”, an incendiary 2013 essay for the London Review of Books. “We are happy to allow monarchy to be an entertainment, in the same way that we licence strip joints and lap-dancing clubs”. The royal family are like pandas, Mantel wrote, “expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment”.

“A royal lady is a royal vagina”, she added. Witness the six sacrificial brides of “King Bluebeard”, and the exhausted Windsor women. Monarchy means gynecology: the reproductive capacities of the wives of Henry VIII are as familiar to students of English history as the Battle of Hastings and its aftermath.…  Seguir leyendo »

HMS Diamond is pulled along the River Thames by tugboats on May 2, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

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In January 2024 the head of the British Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, queried whether the world is at a 1938 moment.

He is not alone in making such linkages to the past or raising questions about the state of Britain’s armed forces today. Grant Shapps, Britain’s Defence Secretary, echoed his sentiments in a speech shortly afterwards. A month later, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff, appeared to play down the issue.

Both Sanders and Shapps called for a significant increase in defence spending. Others have called on the British government to bring forward its commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP immediately.…  Seguir leyendo »

The photo, showing the Queen and 10 of her young relatives, was published last year. CNN has circled areas showing visible digital inconsistencies. Princess of Wales/Kensington Palace

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The already off-the-rails Princess of Wales controversy has veered off in an unexpected direction. In recent days, the debate has shifted from wild speculation over the princess’s whereabouts to a moral panic about the British royal family’s apparent history of doctoring photos presented to the public as candids.

The photo-doctoring controversy has provided a pretext for more legitimate media outlets, including this one, to weigh in on the great Kate debate, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that it is just that — a pretext.

So, Kate touches up her photos. Who doesn’t these days? The real underlying issue is whether it is legitimate for the royal family to assert a right to privacy and to keep crucial details about the princess’s health from the public.…  Seguir leyendo »

How the Windsor Women Became Human Shields

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Once upon a time, a handsome young prince surveyed all the lovely, intelligent, kindhearted ladies of the land and, from their number, picked his bride.

The new addition to the family was a delight, a beauty, a breath of fresh air. She enjoyed a brief honeymoon period when everyone adored her. Then something changed. Maybe she dared to express a desire or let slip an opinion. Perhaps she appeared in public looking less than perfect, or broke with tradition and refused to appear at all — or maybe it was simply a matter of what goes up must come down.

Whatever the reason, the golden girl was swiftly recast as gold digger.…  Seguir leyendo »

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock speak to the media following talks on March 07, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

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Defence ministers and officials from around 50 nations met today in Ramstein, Germany to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine, at the 20th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

The US convened the first meeting of the group in April 2022. At that time its largesse in supplying material and moral support to Ukraine gave it the undisputed right to coordinate the efforts of its European allies. But more recently, an emergency bill to secure $60 billion of future funding for Ukraine has been blocked, and the long-term future of US support seems more uncertain.

While the US is not suddenly absent from the cause, its leadership role is becoming more unpredictable.…  Seguir leyendo »

Princess Catherine, BBC Dad, and the New Picture Perfect

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A family snap of the Princess of Wales with her three children has dominated headlines and group chats since its release on U.K. Mother’s Day last weekend. Princess Catherine, whom the palace says is recovering from abdominal surgery in January, is known chiefly for never putting a foot wrong in nearly two decades of intense public scrutiny—first as girlfriend of Prince William, then as a wife and mother to future kings, and an advocate for uncontroversial but important causes such as early childhood development.

Yet even for a woman defined by her seeming perfection—Hillary Mantel once wrote the former duchess appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen—the Mother’s Day photo of Catherine and her family was judged a little too perfect.…  Seguir leyendo »

This photo released by Kensington Palace shows Kate, Princess of Wales, with her children, Prince Louis, left, Prince George and Princess Charlotte. The circled areas appear to show evidence of potential manipulation, including Princess Charlotte’s sleeve cuff and a zipper on the lefthand side of the jacket of the Princess of Wales, which does not appear to be aligned. Kensington Palace

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It was a charming Mother’s Day snap intended to assure an anxious nation that all was well with their beloved royal family.

Instead, the statement by Catherine, Princess of Wales that she had ham-fistedly manipulated a photograph showing her posing with her children appears to have sent much of the British public scurrying down the deepest of conspiracy theory rabbit holes.

For weeks, scurrilous whispers about Kate, wife of one heir to the throne, Prince William, and mother of another, Prince George, had been consigned to the darkest corners of the internet.

But when a series of respected photo agencies withdrew the photograph issued by Kensington Palace, citing concerns over its full authenticity, the rumor mill went into overdrive.…  Seguir leyendo »

El rey Carlos, el cáncer y la inusual franqueza sobre la salud de un monarca

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Lo más sorprendente de la revelación de que el rey Carlos III fue diagnosticado con cáncer, tras menos de dos años en el trono, es el hecho de que se haya dado a conocer.

El cáncer es común; la franqueza sobre la salud de la familia real británica, no tanto. Durante siglos, como muchas otras familias reales, la corona británica ha hecho todo lo posible por ocultar el estado del cuerpo del soberano. La sinceridad de Carlos, con sus limitantes, parece ser una señal de su anhelo de ser un tipo de monarca distinto.

Un rey en el poder siempre ha sido la encarnación del Estado, una metáfora viviente de su salud.…  Seguir leyendo »

King Charles Has Done What Monarchs Before Him Would Not Dare

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The most surprising thing about the disclosure that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer after less than two years on the throne is the fact that it’s been disclosed at all.

Cancer is common; candor about the British royal family’s heath, not so much. Over the centuries, like many royal families, it has gone to great lengths to hide the condition of the sovereign’s body. Charles’s honesty, as far as it goes, seems to be a sign of his desire to be a different kind of monarch.

A ruling monarch has always been the embodiment of the state, a living metaphor of its health.…  Seguir leyendo »

Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Ghana’s Asante king, receives artefacts returned by the Fowler Museum of UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) to the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi, Ghana, on February 8, 2024. © Nipah Dennis / AFP

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The Asante empire was the largest and most powerful in the region in the 18th century and controlled an area that was rich in gold. Many of the gold royal artefacts were looted by British troops during the third Anglo-Asante war of 1874. The first collection of seven objects is expected from the Fowler Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles. The second collection of 32 will arrive from the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in the UK. These artefacts are being loaned to the Asante people for six years.

RACHEL AMA ASAA ENGMANN: What are these objects and how did they were looted?…  Seguir leyendo »

King Charles III and Queen Camilla leave a London clinic last week. (Hannah Mckay/Reuters)

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In 1952, Britain’s King George VI waved to his oldest child from a windy London airport tarmac as Princess Elizabeth set off on a multicountry tour initially planned for the king. A few months earlier, the king was treated for lung cancer by having his left lung removed, yet neither his heir nor his subjects knew the gravity of his condition. Less than a week after that goodbye, George died in his sleep.

Contrast that with Buckingham Palace’s announcement on Monday that King Charles III, George’s grandson, has cancer. The king has started unspecified treatment, the palace said in a statement, and the cancer is a “separate issue” from the recent disclosure of an enlarged prostate.…  Seguir leyendo »

Una narrativa progresista de crecimiento verde

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En 2024, habrá elecciones en 76 países; es un año récord para la democracia. Pero coincide con un auge alarmante del populismo de derecha, cada vez más habituado a decirles a los votantes que la culpa de sus padecimientos económicos es de las políticas de lucha contra el cambio climático. La izquierda progresista no consigue articular una contranarrativa convincente, a pesar de que las iniciativas de descarbonización tienen un claro potencial para mejorar los ingresos, la productividad y el crecimiento económico. De mantenerse la falsa dicotomía entre prosperidad económica y sostenibilidad ambiental, la transición verde no tendrá el apoyo político que necesita para ser un éxito.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Le Royaume-Uni, comme l’ensemble du continent européen, traverse une période économique difficile qui ne peut être attribuée aux seules conséquences du Brexit. Les économies européennes ont répondu de manière différente aux chocs successifs de la pandémie, de la guerre en Ukraine et de l’intensification de la compétition économique mondiale. De nombreux politiques et commentateurs font le choix trop facile d’utiliser des indicateurs économiques négatifs pour invalider le choix démocratique du Brexit qui reste, huit ans après, respectable et légitime.

Incontestablement, la sortie du Royaume-Uni de l’Union européenne a un coût économique. Le type de relation négociée entre Londres et Bruxelles à la suite du référendum introduit des frictions commerciales qui affectent certains secteurs.…  Seguir leyendo »