The Mirror Crack'd

Somehow, Starmer in China doesn't have quite the same ring as Nixon in China but his mission is still significant. The great 15th century Chinese explorer-admiral, Zheng He, led seven expeditions to the 'Western' or Indian Ocean. He brought back many trophies and envoys from more than thirty kingdoms, including Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) before being forbidden any further expeditions by the new Emperor, Hongxi, in 1424. This effectively put a stop to Chinese inquisitiveness about the world beyond its own borders and led to centuries of isolationism and introspection, leaving it ill-prepared to repel the mercantile, territorial and imperial incursions of Britain, France and the United States - with their unequal treaties, treaty ports and opium wars - in the 19th and early-29th centuries. For its part, the UK has not seen its Prime Minister visit China for eight years, the last to do so being Theresa May. Starmer's current visit, therefore, will probably be viewed, like C...

According to the old proverb, when you sup with the devil you should use a long spoon. This needn't, however, deter Keir Starmer from visiting Xi Jinping in China later this month, perhaps just make him a tad more cautious when he does so. Because the fact is, unpalatable as it may be, that we now need to bolster our ties with China if we are to have a hope in hell of countering the much greater danger presented by a madman in the White House. The fortuitous, if controversial, decision to green-light the new Chinese mega-embassy at Royal Mint Court near the Tower of London can only help to ensure Starmer receives a warmer reception in Beijing than might otherwise have been the case when he makes the first visit of a British Prime Minister since 2018. This is timely indeed as, having just listened to the entire rambling address of Donald Trump to the assembled delegates of the World Economic Forum in Davos, I have grave concerns for the future of the world while Trump remains in pow...

While Donald Trump casts covetous eyes on Canada, Greenland, Venezuela and Panama he may be about to lose his own country. In just under six months the United States celebrates its Semiquincentennial, but will it make it that far? I hope I'm wrong but it feels like something existential has shifted after the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Trump's arrest and effective kidnapping of the president of Venezuela and his wife divided opinion but, as Nicolás Maduro was hardly universally loved and admired, Americans seemed disposed to see how it panned out.  This latest incident, however, involving an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officer, feels potentially explosive. The City Mayor, Jacob Frey, publicly calling ICE's self-defence excuse "bullshit" and telling them to "get the fuck out of Minneapolis" expressed a level of popular anger and disgust which feels new and dangerous for the continued unity of the United States....

Well, that's it then; Christmas and New Year over, along with the post-war rules-based world order. Trump's seizure of Venezuela's President, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas - clearly illegal under international law - and his pledge to 'run' Venezuela for an unspecified period, spells the end of the fragile consensus that survived the US/UK invasion of Iraq in 2003. Maduro is to be indicted on charges (one might call them Trumped-up) of 'conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and to import cocaine'. Regime change is prohibited under section 2(4) of the United Nations Charter but since the US, China, Russia, the UK and France can veto any resolution they disagree with, any legal challenge via that route will be dead in the water. Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine is about to go into its fourth year (longer if you remember Crimea) and Trump has done nothing to stop it; on the contrary, it seems he has given Putin aid and succour ever...

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose and Kemi Badenoch has just proved the point. The Leader of the Opposition's condemnation of Rachel Reeves' budget provision for welfare as "unchristian" referenced St Paul's injunction in 1 Timothy 5:8, "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." In so doing she was following the example of her predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, who famously quoted St Francis of Assisi in her 1979 victory speech outside 10 Downing Street, "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony; where there is error, may we bring truth; where there is doubt, may we bring faith; and where there is despair, may we bring hope". In a 1980 TV interview she opined, "No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well." Two can play atp that game, so bear with me as I assume the r...

In an essay for the openDemocracy newsletter on the future of Ukraine, Aman Sethi discusses national.myths. As he puts it, "we are all shaped by our myths, but we needn’t be bound to them. We are all born into our respective national identities, but we can each choose to reinterpret what they mean to us". On the 50th anniversary of the death of the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, modern Spain is doing precisely that; re-examining its post-Franco settlement, with strong challenges emerging from the left to the prevailing narrative of a successful parliamentary democracy guaranteed by a constitutional monarchy - a myth if ever there was one. While the United Kingdom is clearly not experiencing the same kind of existential crisis facing Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression, or dealing with the troubled legacy of a forty-year fascist regime like Spain, it is nevertheless in the throes of a crisis of identity. It could be argued that this is merely the latest iteration of...