Section: New Statesman (The United Kingdom)
Futile air strikes on Syria won’t defeat Assad and Putin
The West should impose punitive economic and diplomatic measures on Russia and Iran, and back a secular-led military opposition. Kilometres matter. If you’ve been anywhere near war, you will know that one kilometre away is better than 100 metres away. Two kilometres is much better than one. Ten kilometres away and your can smoke a shisha...
Johnson, Corbyn and too many others are playing into Russia’s hands on the Skripal poisoning
We are losing at what are supposedly Britain’s oldest strengths: spycraft and media. Talk to a police officer, and they’ll tell you most murders are nothing like those on TV. There’s no series of dramatic twists, the early acquitted suspect, the reveal just in time for the ad break – instead it’s the street knife fight...
We need to destroy the election-rigging industry before it destroys us
The private secret state will fight to keep Labour out of office and destabilise it if it wins. Fascism, wrote the French politician Aimé Césaire, was basically colonialism applied to Europe. Techniques perfected in hot climates against black bodies were applied to the Jews, Slavs, communists and Gypsies of Europe. On the same basis, what...
Russia might seem weakened, but we still need the security offered by Nato
After the Salisbury poisoning, Britain could rely on the unanimous support of France, Germany and the US in condemning the attack At the start of the year, Boris Johnson invited a group of journalists for an impromptu drinks party at his private rooms in the Foreign Office. As reported by Politico, there was a short policy pamphlet on the top of...
Is there a political benefit to hosting a World Cup?
The data is unclear. Is hosting the World Cup a “propaganda victory” for Vladimir Putin? That’s the question being asked – or rather, begged – as the United Kingdom pulls ministers from the coming tournament in Russia and others campaign for England football team not to participate (a likely compromise is for the team to attend, but to play...
Jeremy Corbyn’s Russia stance has reopened Labour’s wounds
The Labour leader’s MPs rose to defy him and offer their support to Theresa May’s position. There is no subject that divides Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MPs more than foreign policy. Though the party is able to broadly unite around issues such as austerity, the NHS and housing, its divisions are exposed whenever geopolitics dominates....
Leader: As the battle with Russia wages, Britain is feeling the chill of isolation
The UK, as Mr Putin knows, acts from a position of unambiguous weakness. During the Cold War, Soviet intelligence officers would remark: “Any fool can commit a murder, but it takes an artist to commit a good natural death.” Those who poisoned the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 4 March...
Putin’s new Cold War
Assassination attempts, cyber-attacks, military interventions – Russia is once again playing a deadly game with the West. Yet beneath the bravado is a nation riddled with insecurities. Vladimir Putin is not one to accept criticism from the West, even when his country stands accused of attempted murder using military-grade nerve agents. Russian...
How Russia Today divided Westminster
British politicians of all parties have long appeared on the Kremlin channel, now called RT. So why is it only just catching up with them? For a television channel whose weekly reach is less than that of ITVBe +1, the profile of RT (formerly Russia Today) in the UK is conspicuously high. The £310,000 it spent on an advertising campaign on...
The race to conquer the Arctic – the world’s final frontier
As the polar ice caps melt, Russia and China are leading the race to control the lucrative and strategically important shipping lanes and natural resources of the High North. On 14 December 2017 Vladimir Putin gave his annual end-of-year media conference, which lasted nearly four hours and was televised across Russia. The British and American...
