Second-guessing Donald Trump is a fool’s errand. But Saturday’s shock threat to impose tariffs of 30% on the EU is a blow to the bloc’s confidence, which had already secretly capitulated during negotiations with diplomats revealing they had to sacrifice trade for the wider prize of security and defence of the continent. It is worth … Read more
The news that Jane Birkin’s original Hermès bag has sold for a record-breaking €8.6m (£7.4m) at auction will no doubt cause some jaws to drop to the floor. However, perhaps it should not surprise – this is a bag design that is often linked to eyewatering amounts of money. Forty years on from the prototype, … Read more
The former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi produced his much-awaited prescription for how to reboot Europe’s economy last year. The Draghi report was rightly applauded as a rude awakening for a European Union that is far too complacent about its own obsolescence. Draghi concluded that an €800bn-a-year public spending boost would be needed to end … Read more
To use a football analogy that he might appreciate, the first year of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership has been a game of two halves. Domestically, grievous strategic mistakes have been made. On the foreign stage, however, an approach that Sir Keir likes to style as “quiet, serious diplomacy” has yielded some tangible results. For the … Read more
Earth Is Spinning Faster and Days Are Getting Shorter, for Now
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/jul/11/martin-rowson-keir-starmer-migration-deal-france-cartoon-emmanuel-macron
Before the elections next year, Sweden’s conservative government has been eager to avoid accusations of racism or xenophobia. So it’s unfortunate that it keeps being plagued by scandals involving both. The Swedish investigative magazine Expo revealed earlier this month that a minister in the governing coalition, whom it did not name, had a close family … Read more
Britain expects EU to approve migration deal with France, says Cooper Yesterday Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron published a leaders’ declaration that implied the returns agreement would need EU sign-off. They were not very clear about this, but the Times led its main story on this on the suggestion that the EU might block the … Read more
Starmer confirms ‘ground-breaking returns pilot’ scheme will start operating in coming weeks Starmer moves to illegal migration. This is a global crisis, he says. But it is also “acutely” a crisis for UK and France. An enterprise run by criminals is leading hundreds of people to their deaths in the Channel. They have agreed “a … Read more
As Rishi Sunak prepared to meet Emmanuel Macron in March 2023, his migration minister wrote to him to propose some radical proposals that might persuade the French to crack down on small boat crossings. “We should be willing to make highly meaningful concessions such as offering to take one asylum seeker that has been successfully … Read more