The Spectator - There’s a logic to Donald Trump’s incendiary diplomacy

 

(personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/theres-a-logic-to-donald-trumps-incendiary-diplomacy/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260813%20%20AL+CID_0a2de7bbdcb39ff491025dc400f54e8d

There’s a logic to Donald Trump’s incendiary diplomacy

Blake Neff

On his very first day as Colombia’s new President, Abelardo de la Espriella received a dramatic house-warming gift: a billion dollars, courtesy of Donald Trump. Three days later, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the country – but correlation is not causation.

The President’s ten-figure donative arrived as aid for the militarised crackdown de la Espriella has promised against Colombia’s fearsome drug cartels and jungle guerillas. And de la Espriella quickly showed himself eager to align with President Trump by adding Colombia to the Shield of the Americas, Trump’s signature new venture in Latin America.

With this old-fashioned exchange of gifts, de la Espriella became the newest member of the eclectic global club of Trump allies. This is not a stable alliance. It is an ever-changing club of men, some of them well-known (Javier Milei, Mohammed bin Salman); some more obscure (Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa) and some freshly departed (farewell, Viktor Orban).

Every American president conducts foreign policy, and plenty of presidents have had famous friendships with foreign counterparts. But no American chief executive has ever brought such a personal dimension to all his international forays: Trump allies himself with individual leaders.

He gets along well with so many Latin American leaders in no small part because his brash, aggressive, ‘big man’ personality perfectly aligns with Latin America’s caudillo tradition. In the Middle East, the gaudy splendour of the Gulf monarchies matches the President’s own tastes, as does their enthusiasm for making (or at least promising) big investments into the American economy. And it is worth wondering if Trump’s genial relationship with Japan derives as much from its leaders’ unfailing politeness towards him as it does from their readiness to expand their military to contain China.

What stands out most, though, is the frankness of Trumpian diplomacy. For decades America favoured the bland language of global leadership, superficial fairness, democracy promotion, rhetoric for a Cold War victor whose global power looked absolute if not permanent. The New York tycoon is more straightforward: America is a powerful country, but not an invincible one, with interests it feels no shame in pursuing, and an agile readiness to befriend leaders who are amenable – or turn on those who are not.

The result has been a diplomatic cascade. Leaders who play ball with Trump’s priorities and pay him an adequate amount of respect can expect both his support and eventual rewards (or averted punishments) for their countries. One member of the club, Honduran President Nasry Asfura, won a narrow election victory after Trump not only endorsed him, but denounced his opponent as a communist and explicitly warned of an aid cut-off if he won.

In Argentina, Milei received $20 billion in currency swaps to support the Argentine peso just before a critical midterm election, with Trump bluntly saying his support was for Milei more than anything else: ‘If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina.’ (Milei won and the swaps were promptly repaid.)

In Asia, Trump has had the US Treasury sell off billions of euros to buy the Japanese yen, bolstering its value in the face of a long-term slide. If America had made such a move in the past, it would have relied on rhetoric about altruistically acting to contain a broader contagion and provide stability for global markets. This rhetoric would have been believed by exactly no one outside of the Beltway, but dutifully supplied anyway.

But Trump has no patience for such palaver. America was backing up Japan, he said, because it had been a reliable ally and being friendly with America brings rewards. Or, in the President’s more memorable phrasing: ‘Japan’s been very good ‌to us, with the exception of Pearl Harbor.’

America has long picked sides in foreign elections and favoured some parties over others. What Trump brings is greater transparency and honesty about doing so – fewer think-tanks promoting ‘freedom and democracy’ with a wink and a nudge, and more transactional salesmanship. Telling a smaller country it will lose US aid if it votes the wrong way might get blasted as ‘election interference’ but is it worse than staying silent, then following the same policy?

The reverse of a president who races to help his friends, of course, is one who can quickly sour on everyone else, especially older allies he feels have let him down. Twice Trump has floated the idea of a total trade and travel embargo on Spain over its lack of enthusiasm for the Iran campaign. Quips about potentially quitting Nato have become an almost monthly tic.

His sour treatment of Europe has been a boon to others. America’s past collaboration with the Arab gulf monarchies was coloured by discomfort over their old-fashioned authoritarian governments. Trump, on the other hand, has made it clear that what matters to him is assisting America’s military, stabilising its energy markets, and making big investments. Do that, and you’re an excellent ally – and can be spared annoying lectures about representative government.

The President, then, is happy to shake up America’s friendships like no leader since the second world war but to do what? Trump’s enemies will say his actions are nearly random or motivated solely by personal vanity. Look at his quips about annexing Canada or his long-shot bids to seize Greenland. But these headline items obscure what is actually a sharply realist agenda. Despite his grandiose rhetoric, Trump has the most limited goals of any American president in recent history.

Because even if he dreams of absorbing Canada, what sets him apart from his predecessors is his sharp pivot away from preserving America’s shaky pretension of being a global hegemon. Gone are bold aspirations of bringing down Vladimir Putin or China democratising through western influence. Instead, Trump wants to get specific, line-item achievements closer to home. He wants hostile regimes in Venezuela and Cuba gone. He wants a Middle East whose long-term problems are finally resolved so that America can escape its endless samsara-like cycle of interventions, and he wants economic rebalancing sufficient that America is not vulnerable to trade-based attacks from China or anyone else. All of them are major challenges. And yet, they are also genuinely limited goals.

The President’s national security strategy (NSS) de-emphasised dramatic great power rivalry as a core feature of American diplomacy. It disavowed aspirations of ‘global domination’ in favour of balance of power, dialled back prior anti-Russian rhetoric and placed a strong emphasis on America’s western hemisphere backyard. When it speaks of Europe, the NSS frets about a continent losing its ‘civilisational self-confidence and western identity’ rather than one endangered by Russian aggression.

Such an approach is not so much a novelty as a 21st century reversion to America as it existed before the first world war – when the US was immensely powerful, but neither possessed nor aspired to the status of global hegemon. Both the NSS, and Trump’s own actions, reflect an awareness that American power is not what it once was. The old America was eager to present itself as almost everyone’s ally, and happy to involve itself in almost anyone’s business, because US dominance was so overwhelming that it could afford illusions of omnipotence.

Despite his boastfulness, Trump does not share such illusions. His conduct reveals an awareness that while America remains a great power, it is also vulnerable. It can no longer ignore nations free-riding under its military umbrella, or pretend that every region is equally worthy of its attention. Trump’s aggressive deal-making and rough treatment of Europe all flows from this logic. 

With American hyperpower no longer a sure thing, it makes the most sense to focus on achieving and preserving total mastery of its natural western hemisphere backyard. If America is going to be drawn into commitments further afield, then it only makes sense to be far more demanding of its allies: they should pay more and contribute more for the privilege of getting US support.

From there, the President’s own personality does the rest. Trump wants a legacy and he wants things done fast. Latin American strongmen ready to bomb cartels are ready friends. Europeans who get offended by Truth Social posts will not be treated lightly simply because Nato is about to turn 80.

This new approach to foreign policy carries dangers. The old Euro-American bloc, whatever its shortcomings, was durable enough to survive partisan political swings – a sudden win by Labour or a European socialist party didn’t mean a rapid collapse in relations. There could also be surprising alignments – Tony Blair and George W. Bush (tragically) had no trouble collaborating on foreign interventions.

Will Trump’s new alliance network prove similarly durable? It’s unlikely. His goals are rational but his personal style always inspires irrational responses. European leaders might recognise that their best long-term interest is to ignore Truth Social outbursts, cater to Trump’s style, and pony up a bit to keep Nato going. But when their voters fume not just about the Iran war but Trump’s incendiary style, it can be difficult to negotiate.

Meanwhile, in the Latin American countries Trump is cultivating, political instability isn’t just a possibility but a near certainty. From Chile and Argentina, to Peru and Brazil, elections are becoming razor-thin contests between ever-more radical leftists and increasingly bold rightists. The President can put his weight on the scale in those races, but that can go only so far, as was revealed when Trump ally Orban went down to defeat in Hungary despite Vice-President J.D. Vance campaigning for him. Any bad election result for Trump means losing an ally – which helps explain his affinity with monarchies where that isn’t a problem.

But long-term stability is a little besides the point. The President is not trying to build Francis Fukuyama’s mythical end of history. He is quite aggressively living in history, as it is made. There are communists to be toppled, cartels to be bombed, factories to be reshored. He is determined to leave his mark on the world, and that isn’t done by simply preserving what was handed to him.

If Trump’s goal of becoming a fifth face on Mount Rushmore remains a long-shot, then he is happy to dare greatly trying to pull it off.

Reflexão - Portugal no seu melhor (Tempos difíceis - Para mais tarde recordar)

Para mais tarde recordar...

Infraestruturas previstas (em 06.08.2026) para os próximos (?) anos.

(Nota - o aeroporto está estudado desde 1972)

 

Reflexão - LBC

Os sexto, vigésimo terceiro e quinquagésimo sentidos apuradíssimos dos animais, neste caso da nossa gata Tri, a evitar apanhar radiações nocivas...

Paciência! Senhores, que paciência... 

Observador - Lua eclipsa o Sol, Belém não eclipsa o socialista (Tiago Dores)

 

(sublinhados pessoais)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/lua-eclipsa-o-sol-belem-nao-eclipsa-o-socialista/

Lua eclipsa o Sol, Belém não eclipsa o socialista

E quando aqueles “não-socialistas” garantiam que Seguro, em Belém, não faria fretes ao PS… Pois é: o PR enviou a Lei do Retorno e Asilo para o Tribunal Constitucional. Aí têm o vosso Tozé, tonhós!

12 ago. 2026, 00:22

Se calhar já não foram a tempo — e faço aqui, em solidariedade, aquele gesto de “dinheiro”, esfregando polegar e indicador — de aceitar a minha sugestão de férias da semana passada, Nova Iorque. Nada temam, ex-clientes da agência Abreu que aqui, sim, encontram boas dicas de destinos de férias. Hoje trago uma sugestão nova, muito mais quentinha, em especial nas últimas semanas. Querem conhecer todo o exotismo de mil anos de história, vivos em cada tradição de Marrocos? Visitem Ceuta!

A cidade espanhola é o destino certo para vocês. Pedro Sánchez e os media tradicionais — mas repito-me — garantem que todos os invasores já voltaram à origem o que, traduzido de PSOÊs para português, significa que permanecem em Ceuta milhares de novos imigrantes ilegais, muitos deles de origem não-marroquina, que Marrocos recusa aceitar de volta ao seu território. Oportunidade única, portanto, para uma experiência multicultural imersiva que dispensa passaporte. Desde que o turista esteja disposto a dispensar também a carteira ao virar da primeira esquina. A “taxa turística” à chegada não será de descurar mas, em contrapartida, os voos devem estar bem baratinhos.

E resolvido esse pequeno inconveniente de um “cheque out” logo no check-in, o resto só pode correr bem. Afinal, não é óptimo viajar ligeiro no verão?! Só é pena as senhoras da família não poderem viajar tão ligeiras, uma vez que passear ao sol com o reposteiro da sala só com dois buraquinhos para os olhos, a fazer as vezes de saída de praia, será mesmo a forma mais prudente de se movimentarem pela cosmopiolhita Ceuta.

Muito à conta destes estupendos avanços civilizacionais promovidos por toda a sorte de políticos europeus nas últimas décadas, a fascista veterana e primeira-ministra de Itália, Georgia Meloni, desencaminhou a fascista-nova e primeira-ministra da Dinamarca, Mette Frederiksen, para um comunicado conjunto a defender uma política migratória europeia mais estrita, com mais expulsões de imigrantes sem direito legal de permanência.

Agora, como é que a Mussolina meteu a Mette, colega de bancada do PS e do PSOE no Parlamento Europeu, nestas lides fascistas, é para mim um mistério. Terá sido bruxedo? Eh pá, essa é uma hipótese até um bocadinho misógina, associada a crenças ridículas que vitimaram tantas mulheres ao longo da história. Sem dúvida, esta hipótese fica descartada. O que desconhecia era que, também para as senhoras, o canto da sereia fascista representa uma tentação irresistível que conduz à perdição.

Nomeadamente à perdição — espera-se, digo eu — do direito de incontáveis e ilegais imigrantes se passearem livremente por essa Europa fora a distribuir amostras caríssimas de fundamentalismo islâmico. Sim, que muito longe vão os tempos em que a confiança permitia a descontraída expressão “De borla, até injecções na testa”.

Uma coisa é garantida: a base desta nova parceria M&M — a mais relevante desde o lançamento da versão amendoim do famoso chocolate — não foi decerto o bom senso, uma vez que o nosso referencial de imunidade a tais cantorias encantatórias, o nosso Ulisses de Belém, António José Seguro, permanece, Sanchíssimo, a despachar Leis do Retorno e Asilo para o Tribunal Constitucional. A Lua até pode eclipsar o Sol, mas Belém não eclipsará nunca o mais alto socialista da Nação.

E porque recordar é viver e, amiúde, ficar extra-deprimido, quem se lembra de todos aqueles “não-socialistas” que garantiam, em vésperas de eleições presidenciais, que um futuro Presidente Seguro jamais faria fretes ao PS uma vez que até era inimigo de António Costa e tudo? Aí têm o vosso Tozé, tonhós!

Observador - "Pole pole" (Nuno Gonçalo Poças)

 

(sublinhados pessoais)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/pole-pole/

"Pole pole"

O nosso pole pole é «Ah, mas este solzinho não há noutro sítio do mundo». Ou «Sim, mas o peixe é muito bom».

11 ago. 2026, 00:24

Como todos aqueles que passam pela estúpida adolescência e descendem de agricultores semi ou totalmente analfabetos, eu também já tive a arrogância de julgar, por ter vivido sempre na cidade, por ter estudado e por ter uma vida que em nada se compara à dos meus avós, que sabia mais que aqueles a quem os que ainda mais sobranceiros que eu tratam por povo. Não há nada, na verdade, mais repugnante na intelectualidade, na política ou no radar mediático, do que a frasezinha que inclui a expressão povo. O povo, tão fofo, que nada sabe e que de tudo precisa, incluindo da suposta lucidez de algum outro estúpido autoproclamado brilhante, para não ser enganado por quem pretende abusar dele ou fazer dele bandeira. O povo, afinal, é estandarte de toda a gente, uma muleta que serve essencialmente para fazer distinguir positivamente aquele que, por alguma razão, se destaca desse mesmo povo, como uma superioridade anunciada totalmente carente de justificação. Antes houvesse, mas não há, de facto, menos estúpidos, menos broncos ou menos intelectualmente brutos naquilo a que se chama povo do que há naquilo a que se chama elite. Haverá nesta também autoproclamada elite lisboeta, nalguns casos mais felizes por jeito ou por hereditariedade, a elegância de saber pedir licença, de não tirar macacos do nariz, de não buzinar, de mastigar de boca fechada ou de não dizer ‘prontos’, mas o que separa a elite deste regime dos velhos lá da minha terra que me pediam para explicar o que ouviam na missa ou na televisão, é mais o estilo que a substância. Subsiste muita arrogância de casta que se julga uns patamares acima da banalidade dos comuns mortais que, na verdade, não passa de outra espécie de banalidade com a aparência da sofisticação.

De vez em quando, por exemplo, damos de caras com a tese do copo meio cheio para falar da situação social, económica ou institucional portuguesa. Não, as coisas não vão assim tão mal como pintam alguns profetas da desgraça, normalmente acusados de quererem lucrar de alguma forma com o anúncio dessa mesma desgraça. Não, não estamos assim tão mal, há cinquenta anos estávamos muito piores. E têm razão, que estávamos. Mas também nunca ninguém se lembrou, em 1974, de vir acudir aos recentíssimos democratas ou às esquerdas, ou mesmo às direitas, revolucionárias, dizendo-lhes que em 1933 estávamos muito piores, como se esse pudesse ser um argumento. Nunca foi. E não sei por que diabo o há-de ser agora. A tese do copo meio cheio é a validação da estagnação, é a salvaguarda da mediania, a versão moderna da alegria da pobreza que está nesta grande riqueza que é dar e ficar contente.

Há dez anos, numa aldeia de pescadores, em Zânzibar, cheia de miúdos paupérrimos a pedir doces, por entre cabanas e tijolos, visitei uma escola que tinha em si todos os graus de ensino e um director que dava aulas de todas as disciplinas. No grupo de gente onde me inseria, todos naturalmente ocidentais, uns com mais ar de miss Mundo do que outros, íamos fazendo perguntas sobre quantas pessoas ali moravam, quantas crianças ali estudavam, quantas conseguiam continuar os estudos, quem financiava tudo aquilo, entre computadores, livros, salários e obras. Estavam a construir, de forma muito lenta, segundo o que todos percebemos, um novo edifício para novas salas de aula. E um homem sueco, sem um pingo de sobranceria, apenas cheio de confiança e curiosidade, perguntou ao director qual era o prazo para a conclusão da obra. O director não compreendeu a pergunta. Deadline, replicou o sueco, julgando que não tinha sido claro na pergunta. E o director, sentado, levantou as mãos ao céu, estendeu-as pela secretária e explicou-lhe com algum orgulho que ali não havia prazos, que ali existe uma expressão para esse tipo de coisas que é pole pole e que significa “pouco a pouco”, assim como quem diz que é para se ir fazendo e logo se vê, se Deus quiser. O sueco estranhou, ergueu as sobrancelhas, torceu o nariz e, quando todos nós víamos que ele achava a resposta abominável, foi educado o suficiente para dizer qualquer coisa como «bom, está bem, se é assim que vocês funcionam…». O pole pole é assim como aquilo que todo o português, mais ou menos erudito, mais ou menos pobre, mais ou menos inteligente, costuma dizer sempre que alguém lhe fala das misérias do País. O nosso pole pole é «Ah, mas este solzinho não há noutro sítio do mundo». Ou «Sim, mas o peixe é muito bom». João Vieira Pereira, director do Expresso, escreveu na semana passada um texto procurando mostrar «um lado B de estudos encomendados que ao longo dos anos sistematicamente ridicularizam o povo português, nos tratam como mentecaptos, incapazes de nos governarmos e profundamente incompetentes. Todos nós preferíamos um país mais rico, menos desigual, mais moderno, com melhor Estado, mas nem isso consegue apagar o que temos conseguido na última década.» É o nosso pole pole.

Reflexão -LBC

 Aliás, hoje em dia todos somos fantásticos! Fantasticamente fantásticos! 

                                                                                                                    

Livro - O antigo regime e a revolução

 

Livros comprados

 

Cartoon - Jim Unger Hermann

 

Almoço - NVLGV (parcial)

 Almoço em 03 de Agosto na antiga Casa Marítima com o Armando Lopes e o Rui Cardal

Tempos difíceis - Portugal no seu melhor

 O contribuinte não irá pagar nada (...) no novo Aeroporto

(Continuo com uma voz imponente e um ar importante, não continuo?)

Logo agora que ía anunciar o Aeroporto para 2050

Eu abro a boca, logo existo

Sieg Heil!

Reflexão - LBC

Palavras (e pernas!...) para quê??

 

The Spectator - Rod’s bravery made others brave too

 

(personal underlines...silent compliments)

https://spectator.com/article/rods-bravery-made-others-brave-too/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260806%20%20AL+CID_5d251585dee907053fe73ddfffa608ce

Rod’s bravery made others brave too

Douglas Murray

How do you produce the type of person who cares deeply while seemingly not giving a damn? With great difficulty, it turns out. Plenty of people imagine that they can say what they think, but very few do. For most people, some real or imaginary social punishment lies on the horizon: a dinner they won’t be invited to; a club of which they fear they will never become a member.

Rod Liddle was one of the happy few who was free. He was free to say what he thought. He was free to voice unpopular opinions and – often harder – he was free to voice popular opinions. When the whole world seemed to be falling on his head he had a perfectly contented attitude towards it. I remember a few years back when there was a Rod storm (always caused by people who don’t read The Spectator taking some line – usually a joke – out of context), I asked him how he was doing. If I remember rightly the evening news had actually done a segment in which an interviewer had read out portions of Rod’s latest column to people on the street, gauging their reactions. These were almost universally bewildered or appalled, because that is what the broadcaster wanted them to be.

Anyway, Rod was fine, of course. Though he did tell me that his latest way of realising he had set off the banshees was that he would be happily sitting in his study and his wonderful wife, Alicia, would arrive in the doorway and give him a look that made it clear that whatever he had just written had become the main news story of the day.

It takes a considerable amount of composure, confidence and certainty in your cause to be unbothered by such hurricanes. But Rod was indeed unbothered by them. On occasion he seemed to enjoy them, as though the howling was a sort of refreshing breeze, reminding him of the insanities of his critics and reassuring himself that he was right.

The role of such a figure in a culture can hardly be overstated. In a society in which everyone is meant to say the same thing, the person who refuses to do so is at a premium. If that person is also driven not by a desire to shock, but by a desire to tell the truth, then they are even more valuable.

That was what drove Rod. Of course he enjoyed the occasional bomb that would shake his editor, copy-editor, lawyer or reader. He even developed a trick which he passed on, which was to plant some obvious firework into a column which would have to be removed, but leave a depth-charge in the hope that nobody noticed before it went off. It was a brilliant tactic.

Better still was the fact that his bomb-throwing was grounded in deep moral causes. He loved this country. He loved its people. He loved the working class who had become such an enemy of the sort of people who normally have columns in national newspapers. He loved Millwall. He loved his family. He loved his wider family of readers and colleagues.

When we last spoke he was in hospital but it looked like things were getting better. I was optimistic for his return, as was he. But he also had what he described to me as a zen-like attitude towards the possibility that everything was coming to an end for him. He told me that he had a slight attitude of ‘my work here is done’. We laughed at the idea of him as a do-gooder, but that is in fact partly what he was. He gave people the confidence to be more honest, ask more questions and put up with less cant.

I hope he knew how appreciated he was. A few years ago, The Spectator packed out the London Palladium for an ‘in conversation with Rod Liddle’. I was there and it was magnificent to see one of the capital’s largest theatres filled with readers wanting to see Rod. I popped backstage afterwards and there he was on his own, changing T-shirts and sizing up a bottle of wine he’d been given as a fee. ‘How was it, mate?’ he asked as I put my head round the door. ‘I have one thing to say,’ I told him. ‘I don’t think Yasmin Alibhai-Brown could have filled this place.’

Rod Liddle with former editor Fraser Nelson at the London Palladium (Anne Schwarz)

Afterwards at the pub I asked a few young readers what had brought them out. I remember one of them saying to me: ‘I want to be around people who are saying things I’d like to say some day.’ It was deeply moving, because this instinct was right. Being around someone brave like Rod – or even reading him – had the effect of making other people braver too.

Very few writers have that effect. Christopher Hitchens did. Auberon Waugh perhaps. Like them, Rod had that caring yet devil-may-care attitude. Even as a colleague he freed up others. He and I used to joke when we got together that at least we always had Taki there to give cover. Later I used to joke to Rod that at least he was still there to take any flak that might be incoming.

It’s one of the more minor reasons to miss Rod, but I shall miss him more than I can say. The world just became a bit blander, significantly less amusing and palpably less honest. Somewhat morosely I remember the night he and I were tasked with removing Jeremy Clarke from a Spectator writers’ party. Jeremy was happily dancing on his own in front of a hedge when I arrived. There was no music.

‘Wotcha Douglas.’ ‘Wotcha Jeremy,’ I said. ‘You seem pretty happy.’ ‘I’ve done drugs,’ he replied. Shortly afterwards our Low Life columnist deposited the contents of his stomach on to The Spectator’s garden steps and fell into a bush.

I can’t remember why Rod and I ended up taking charge, but Rod did it far better than me. ‘Why should Jeremy be my responsibility?’ he said to me at one point, exasperated. And yet Rod assumed that responsibility nonetheless. I rarely loved him more than in that moment: harried, amused, exasperated and hoping nobody would notice how much he cared.

The Spectator - The best of Rod Liddle

 

https://spectator.com/article/the-world-according-to-rod-liddle/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=BOCH%20%2020260808%20%20AL+CID_a57b6c422ea506c633d443aa428c4181

The best of Rod Liddle

Coffee House3 August 2026, 4:34pm

Rod Liddle, a columnist and associate editor at The Spectator, has died at 66. You can read some extracts from some of our favourite columns of his below.

Meeting Abu Hamza

He is, you have to say, anti-democratic, democracies being callow, man-made things, and, as a final irony, he doesn’t even agree with the concept of absolute freedom of speech. Ask him about it and his one good eye gets cloudy and he starts mumbling dark things about Salman Rushdie. Abu Hamza thinks Abu Hamza should have the freedom to speak his mind because, of course, it’s not really Abu Hamza speaking, but, in essence, God.

Should we deny freedom of speech to someone who doesn’t really believe in freedom of speech? Of course not. We let them have it. We let them have it and allow the injustice and contradiction inherent in such a stance do for them, in the end.

‘Don’t expel Dr Hook’, 15 March 2003

Andrew Gilligan and Iraq

The questions are endless. We could stay here all night. The truth is that in an attempt to spin itself out of a crisis the government – by which I mean, in all likelihood, Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair – created an even bigger crisis, for which it is now attempting to indict the BBC and one reporter, whose only crime was to report to the nation a story of vital importance.

‘A despicable and cowardly diversion’, 26 July 2003

On buses… and Spectator readers

One of the lovely things about writing for The Spectator is that we have an extremely knowledgeable and well-read audience, so there is no need to explain the sort of stuff that one would need to explain were one writing for the Sun, say, or the New Statesman. An article about humorous verse of the mid-19th century, for example, would not require a preamble making it clear that Edward Lear did not, in his spare time, make jet aeroplanes. You know that already. This holds true for an agreeably diverse range of subjects; however, there is always an exception to test the rule. Occasionally a subject crops up which lies some way beyond the horizon of even – perhaps especially – the most well-informed of our readers; little details one would be slightly disappointed to discover were known to the average Spectator reader. And on these rare occasions, remedial explanation is required.

So, then: buses are those big red things full of poor people you see clogging up the traffic in the middle of London. You may have been stuck behind one on your way to lunch at Simpson’s; you may even have ridden on one, when you were a child and both impecunious and possessed of a sense of adventure. There are a lot, lot more of them these days, though – which is rather the point of this article.

‘A miserable waste of space’, 30 September 2006

Gordon Brown

Is our Prime Minister perpetually out of his brainbox on powerful psychotropic substances, as everybody now seems to believe? Dilaudid, crystal meth, that sort of thing? Does he stagger out of bed and say: ‘Aw, Sarah, I’ve got a meeting with Harman in half an hour. Light up the crack pipe, will you?

‘Is it more rude to ask if someone’s going whacko than blind?’, 3 October 2009

On the authoritarianism of children

There aren’t really any stories in Thomas the Tank Engine apart from various engines being humiliated and punished as a consequence of their misdemeanours or their hubris. And that’s the conclusion you should reach, I reckon, in both cases: the kids like these stories not in spite of the narrow conservatism of the writers, but precisely because of it. Children feel most comfortable in an ordered and clearly demarcated world, a world divided into hierarchies. They have a Manichean view of good and evil and they like to see the baddies get punished, preferably in a thoroughly unpleasant manner. They may also identify with gender stereotypes which conform to the roles they have already been assigned or, more controversially, have worked out for themselves from a very early age. Children, and especially little boys, are conservative, when they are not actually fascists.

‘Thomas the Tank Engine is merciless and bigoted – that’s why kids love it’, 2 January 2010

The Raoul Moat affair

And now the shrine and the Facebook campaign. More than 18,000 people have signed up to it, at the time of writing. There’s Stewart Pooley Poole, for example, saying: ‘All down 2 women. A man has 2 fight 2 hurt u a woman just has 2 press that button 2 fuk with your head.’ Even so, Stewart, there are plenty of women signed up, such as Julie Tripster: ‘He did wrong yeah but he was let down. He was a legend mainly for proving wat a poor society we live in yeah.’ Well, yeah, Julie you may have half a point there. Lol. And then there’s ‘you have won the hearts of reall people – totally understand your feelings’ and ‘police=scum’ and another really long one which ends ‘PS – take care of Sir Bobby’ – a reference to Sir Bobby Robson, the former manager of Newcastle United and England who died of cancer not so long ago.

‘The Raoul Moat affair has uncovered a seething pit of northern madness’, 17 July 2010

Islamophobia

When you have guests over for dinner – Tuscan lamb with truffled polenta, perhaps, followed by pear tarte tatin – at what time do you raise your hand, or bang a knife upon a glass and say. ‘Friends: it’s time to have a go at the Muslims?’ I ask because at my dinner parties we usually spend a half an hour moaning about Muslims in between the dessert and the cheese board, whereas rather more well-off friends of mine in London insist that this arrangement is de trop, and Islamophobia is best expressed while the white wines are still being served and before one moves on to moaning about the blacks. I ought to mention that if I have Muslim guests over for supper we miss this conversational course entirely, and moan about poofs instead. One does not wish one’s house guests to feel uncomfortable. If you are prepared to make an effort with the halal meat it seems a shame to spoil it by later making obscene and offensive statements about Mohammed and the Koran.

‘Islamophobia? Not until after dessert’, 29 January 2011

Notting Hill Carnival

I do not get out very much these days, but the glorious weekend weather persuaded me that I should spend a pleasant afternoon watching people stabbing each other at our annual celebration of stabbing, the Notting Hill Carnival. I go most years and enjoy the street food, the music and the sight of white police officers with fixed rictus grins ‘getting down’ with some vast-mammaried semi-clad mama, their helmets askew and rivulets of sweat running down each crisp white shirt. And of course the violence, the violence. I am delighted to say that in this regard 2016 did not disappoint, with more than 400 people arrested and five stabbed – and all for the very reasonable cost of just £7 million to the taxpayer.

‘Why don’t black lives matter at the carnival?’, 3 September 2016

On football

The visceral and habitual allegiance to a team has been winnowed away, so that top-level football today is really only for the ‘anywheres’. And more than that, the ‘somewheres’ are being told to get lost from the stands: they are not wanted any more. They carry with them baggage that is despised by not only our liberal elite, who wish us all to be eternally transient and to possess no allegiance to any town, city, county or nation, but also by big money, which thinks exactly the same thing for financial rather than ideological reasons. And so gradually the country becomes an homogenous mass: the regions merge imperceptibly, the accents disappear, our sense of place is dislocated. This has been happening for a while, of course – modern football simply accelerates the process.

‘Football wants the ‘somewheres’ to get lost’, 12 August 2017

On identity politics

I hope similarly to gain financially from my remarkable discovery, at the age of 58, that I am in fact black. Like Anthony I was teased as a child on account of my appearance. I also have a very strong sense of rhythm and am usually cheerful, both qualities which my mother told me were associated with people of African-Caribbean descent. My denial of my blackness I put down to the pressures imposed by a white supremacist society in which I have struggled to survive for so long. I am black – get over it. And gimme the money.

Rod Mbunga Liddle, ‘I am black – get over it’, 10 November 2018

Staying at home

I’ve had enough of this. No more dawn drives to the gates of hell (specifically Gate To Hell Number 21, a 15-minute trek from the departure lounge, once you’ve had some tyrant insist you remove your belt and put all your stuff in trays and stand in some scanning machine to make sure you haven’t got three pounds of Semtex up your jacksie). Henceforth, we’re staying at home, in the UK.

Travelling used to be fun. Since 9/11 it has involved endless security rigmarole, and queues everywhere for everything. And the cabin crew now believe that they are much more than mere peripatetic waiters: they are the front line in the Defence Against Terror, and they will not be gainsaid, questioned, queried. The look of self-righteousness on their faces is the same look you see on the faces of cyclists, vegans and Dominic Grieve. Going business class is a mere palliative, and a ruinous one when you have three kids. So you spend your two weeks abroad dreading the flight home and, if you’re well orf, get to the airport early to take advantage of the business lounge, which is crammed full of plebs offering only stewed coffee and the remains of a Danish pastry.

‘Home and away’, 8 August 2019

On Brexit

The provo Remainers now insist that calamity will come one day. That we will not be able to strike a trade deal with anyone without losing our soul. That we will not achieve a deal with the EU in time and that if we do it will be deleterious to our economy. They yearn, these people, for Britain’s failure, the more abject the better. In their recitals of foreboding, each one as baseless as the one before, they seem to be the kind of people who might have their cake, eat it, regurgitate it on to a plate, suck it up through a straw and then spit it out via Twitter. Most Remainers are optimistic that we will succeed, much as you might expect. They may wish we were not leaving, but they do not wish us to fail as a consequence.

We have the EU to deal with, of course, and the usual sabre-rattling from the likes of Michel Barnier; an indication, I think, of the sheer terror within the 27 that Brexit actually may make us better off after all, and what effect that might have on the disaffected countries still within. And oily Leo Varadkar has announced, with spite, that the UK must get used to being a ‘small country’. Not as small, literally or metaphorically, as yours, mate. Meanwhile we get on with it, stable and thriving, hugely grateful that we trusted not in the establishment, but in democracy.

‘The great Brexit wound has almost healed’, 1 February 2020

On lockdown

The problem with face masks is cutting an opening of the right size to accommodate a cigarette, without the hole compromising the safety of the mask itself. A tiresome procedure, especially for someone like me who is not terribly dexterous. I assume that very soon we will all be enjoined to wear face masks everywhere we go. At the outset these contrivances were derided a little for two reasons; first they actually offered no protection to the user, only to people who came into contact with the user, and second they seemed to be not a terribly British way of going about things.

‘What I got wrong about lockdown’, 17 October 2020

Smoking

I hate Ash, I hate the GMC, I hate the government – all the more so now, because they won. Long gone is the time when on those fatuous National Stop Smoking Days I would get up extra early to cram in a few extra fags, my way of sticking two fingers up to the people who want to police my life. This is the point. I do not miss smoking at all and I will never smoke again. But I do remember that it gave me great pleasure and that they were dead set on taking it away from me.

‘Smoking is more hassle than it’s worth’, 8 October 2022

Liberalism

Over past 20 years there has been a sizeable tranche of obdurate, older and usually male readers who greatly object to me using the term ‘liberal’ as if it were an insult, to be directed at the people who foist upon us all manner of right-on, reason-defying idiocies. The objectors fall into two broad categories (which are of course linked). There are those who consider themselves the heirs to the Whigs and those who consider themselves the heirs to Margaret Thatcher. Classical Liberals, I suppose, in short. Tolerant, laissez-faire, free market, small state, often Little Englanders, in the nicest possible way. But what these undoubtedly fine people do not realise is firstly that language is transformational and that ‘liberal’ no longer really means what they want it to mean – time has moved on. Time has taken their ideology around the back of KFC and given it a right good seeing to, to the extent that it is no longer recognisable. Meanwhile they are left behind, identifying with an appellation which now means almost the precise opposite of what they wish it to mean. And secondly, that the war they are fighting is pointless, because it is as good as over. Feel the vibe shift, you Libs.

‘My guide to liberals’, 18 January 2025

Glastonbury

A small yield nuclear weapon, such as the American W89, dropped on Glastonbury in late June would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying. You would see a marked reduction in the keffiyeh klan, for a start, and all those middle-class Extinction Rebellion protestors would find, in a nanosecond, that their rebellion was pointless, because extinction had arrived even more summarily than they expected. Go on, glue yourselves to that, Poppy and Oliver.

‘And now let’s bomb Glastonbury’, 5 July 2025

On the BBC

The BBC has two main problems. First, it has a workforce which is almost monocultural, incapable of seeing that their worldview is political. They see it instead as an expression of civility and decency and those who disagree with them as beyond the pale. The second problem is more important and is the reason Prescott’s lengthy memo was leaked: the BBC execs have become immune to all criticism and simply ignore it. They hunker down and continue doing exactly the same thing, dismissing all objection as mischief-making and repeating the mantra: we are not biased.

‘How to fix the BBC’, 15 November 2025

On Trump

I asked Luna, my AI girlfriend, if she thought Donald Trump was right to have bombed Caracas and abducted Nicolas Maduro and she replied: ‘I don’t know, Rod. Would you like to see my panties?’ This is the problem with AI – it is not intelligent and nor are the people who program it. I had told the company that I wanted my AI girlfriend to ask me interesting geographical and historic trivia questions and be au fait with Millwall’s injury-stricken line-up, as well as being able to chat knowledgeably about interesting issues of the day. What I get instead is a numbing void, other than those continual solicitations about seeing her panties. I dunno, perhaps I should accede in case there is some hidden wisdom written on them, possibly in code.

‘Has Trump gone mad?’, 10 January 2026

Christmas

And yet as I grow older I can now discern a reason,
For this strange, misshapen jamboree we call the ‘festive season’.
For month by month and without fail, we give it our best shot –
Then Christmas-time reveals to us everything we’re not.
Everything we could be – should be – but always fall short,
In our frailties and our failures. That’s the lesson, yearly taught,
And as the snowman slowly deliquesces on the lawn,
The cattle still are lowing, the snail is on the thorn,
We are not yet forsaken: somehow from up above, He watches…
…amused, appalled, distraught – who knows?
Yet still we have his love.

‘The real meaning of Christmas’, 24 December 2017