ANDREW NEIL: It sends a shiver down the spine but I'm not sure Farage and Le Pen would do a worse job than these two puffed-up losers
Despite the windy rhetoric and relentless spin, with Keir Starmer in full-on global statesman mode and Macron at his aloof, preening, verbose worst, what was actually achieved barely amounted to a row of beans – or as the French would say ne vaut pas un clou (literally: not worth a nail).
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
23 minutes ago
- Telegraph
JD Vance: Europe is engaging in civilisational suicide
JD Vance, the US vice president, has accused Europe of engaging in 'civilisational suicide' by refusing to control its borders. Taking particular issue with Germany, which he has criticised before, he said some European nations were both 'unable' and 'unwilling' to stem the flow of migration. Mr Vance's comments are the latest in which the vice president has framed European values and policies as being at-odds with those held by the Trump administration, while also touching on issues that have driven support for European hard-Right parties. 'The Europeans annoy me sometimes. Yes, I disagree with them on certain issues,' he said in an interview with Fox News. The 40-year-old said the idea of Western civilisation has its roots in Europe and led to the founding of the US, but added: 'Europe is at risk of engaging in civilisational suicide.' 'If you have a country like Germany, where you have another few million immigrants come in from countries that are totally culturally incompatible with Germany, then it doesn't matter what I think about Europe,' he continued. 'Germany will have killed itself, and I hope they don't do that, because I love Germany and I want Germany to thrive.' The interview with Mr Vance came as Donald Trump completed a five-day trip to Scotland, where he met with Sir Keir Starmer. The US president told the Prime Minister he would have a better chance of holding back the threat posed by Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party if he made it a priority to lower taxes and tackle immigration. 'Keep people safe and with money in their pockets and you win elections,' said Mr Trump Mr Trump was re-elected with a vow to place a crack-down on illegal immigration at the centre of his second term's work. Since his election victory, he has effectively shut the US's southern border with Mexico and ordered the round-up of undocumented migrants and deporting them. In cities such as Los Angeles, he sent in the National Guard and US Marines to support immigration agents carrying out the round-ups. At the same time community leaders and activists say the vast majority of those being detained are not hardened criminals as Mr Trump has claimed but day labourers and farmers In Britain, figures such as Mr Farage have repeatedly accused Sir Keir of failing to follow a similar course. Following an unprecedented success for Mr Farage's party in local elections in May, Sir Keir promised a major crackdown over the next four years saying Britain risked becoming 'an island of strangers'. 'Make no mistake, this plan means migration will fall. That is a promise,' Sir Keir said. 'If we do need to take further steps... then mark my words, we will.' 'Free speech across Europe is in retreat' The comments of Mr Vance echo what he said in February in a speech at the Munich Security Conference. He accused some countries of limiting free speech, citing Adam Smith-Connor, a British pro-life campaigner who was convicted for breaching a buffer zone outside an abortion clinic. 'Free speech in Britain and across Europe was in retreat,' he said at the time, before going on to back Germany's Alternative für Deutschland party that has been classified as an extremist group by the German government. The Munich address was viewed by many European countries as the moment America signalled it was willing to put an end to long-standing trade and security arrangements, agreed at the end of the Second World War. Olaf Scholz, the then German chancellor, criticised Mr Vance and accused him of trying to interfere in his country's election. 'That is not done, certainly not among friends and allies,' he said. When Sir Keir met with Mr Trump and the vice president in the Oval Office earlier this year, he pushed back at the criticism, saying 'We've had free speech for a very long time, it will last a long time, and we are very proud of that.' Mr Vance has been widely tipped to be among those likely to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2028. Other hopefuls include Marco Rubio, the current secretary of state, who ran against Mr Trump in 2016 and lost badly. Asked about who he viewed as a potential successor, Mr Trump told NBC News in May that there were several contenders. 'I think [Vance is] a fantastic, brilliant guy,' he said. 'Marco [Rubio] is great. There's a lot of them that are great. I also see tremendous unity. But certainly you would say that somebody's the VP, if that person is outstanding, I guess that person would have an advantage.'
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Online Safety Act designed to protect kids has ended up becoming a blunt tool to censor free speech
Self-harm Act SOCIAL media is infested with dangerous content such as self-harm videos. So it's understandable that ministers should wish to protect children from such vile material on the internet. But the Online Safety Act designed to protect kids has ended up becoming a blunt tool to censor free speech. New laws introduced last week put a ban on 'legal but harmful' material. But it is so wide a term that it risks morphing into sinister state control. The new Act has already led to users on X being barred from viewing images from anti-immigration protests by anonymous moderators. It's only a matter of time before any kind of political content ends up being deleted for unexplained, anti-democratic reasons. The Act was sold as being necessary to prevent vulnerable children seeing content related to the likes of suicide, eating disorders and pornography. But an 1,800 per cent increase in downloads of VPN blockers — used to disguise the country of origin of internet users — shows that any tech-savvy teen can get round basic age verification checks. In the cause of banning hurty words, ministers have instead ended up curbing freedom of expression while doing nothing to improve safety. The real abusers — who mainly operate from abroad anyway — will carry on with their evil activity. Big changes come to PornHub and a dozen other XXX sites 1 Boom 'n' bust IT is simply unsustainable for Britain to be able to absorb a population explosion as massive as the one we have been subjected to in the last two years. Numbers in England and Wales grew by 706,881 in 2024 and 821,210 in 2023. That has taken the total to nearly 62million. What preparations did the Tories — who shamefully lost control of immigration in these years — make for such a fundamental change? Absolutely none. With a housing shortage, an NHS in crisis and a daily battle to keep the lights on and the water pumping, Labour must get numbers down. Migration on this scale — especially when so many are low-skilled workers — is ruinously bad for the economy. It ends up costing more to house and look after them than they contribute. No one voted for any of this. Pride in Ozzy BIRMINGHAM did its favourite son Ozzy Osbourne proud yesterday. The old showman would have loved the huge turnout for him in his native city. No doubt looking down from his black throne in rock heaven, Ozzy will have had a message for his many fans: No more tears.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trump backs Israel and rebukes Starmer over Palestinian state recognition
Donald Trump has doubled down on his backing for Israel after having appeared to give a green light to the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, to recognize a Palestinian state. Amid signs of mounting opposition among his Maga base to Israel's military operation in Gaza, Trump criticized Starmer's plan to grant recognition as 'rewarding Hamas' even after having not taken issue with it when the pair met in Scotland this week. Talking to journalists on board Air Force One on his return to Washington, Trump said the US was 'not in that camp', referring to Starmer's pledge, which followed a similar declaration by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, days earlier that France would formally recognize Palestinian statehood. 'We never did discuss it,' Trump said, in reference to Starmer's announcement. He added: 'You're rewarding Hamas if you do that. I don't think they should be rewarded.' His comments were in line with the US state department, whose spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, called the recognition decision 'a slap in the face' to victims of Hamas's deadly 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the current war. But they contrasted with his restrained stance when he and Starmer met at Turnberry in Scotland on Monday, after the UK premier said Britain would give recognition by September unless Israel met certain conditions, including allowing for a ceasefire in Gaza and allowing UN food aid to enter the territory to feed its population. 'I'm not going to take a position, I don't mind him taking a position,' Trump told reporters when asked if he objected to Starmer's move. The US president's response to Starmer seemed markedly softer than his riposte after Macron's statehood announcement last week, which angered Israel and its supporters. 'What he says doesn't matter,' Trump told reporters at the White House. 'He's a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn't carry weight.' The initial softer public posture toward Starmer came as Trump publicly contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, over conditions in Gaza, which numerous international aid agencies have described as famine. Netanyahu had said that, in contrast to the aid group assessments and searing images of hungry children, no one was starving in Gaza. Asked if he agreed, Trump said: 'Based on television, I would say 'not particularly', because those children look pretty hungry to me. There's real starvation, you can't fake that.' Some of Trump's most prominent supporters have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Israel's conduct, amid polling evidence that Americans generally are losing sympathy for a country that has traditionally been viewed as one of the US's closest allies. Steve Bannon, Trump's former adviser and still one of his leading cheerleaders with his War Room podcast, told Politico that the president's condemnation of the food situation in Gaza would hasten Israel's loss of support among his base. 'It seems that for the under-30-year-old Maga base, Israel has almost no support, and Netanyahu's attempt to save himself politically by dragging America in deeper to another Middle East war has turned off a large swath of older Maga diehards,' Bannon said. 'Now President Trump's public repudiation of one of the central tenets of [Netanyahu's] Gaza strategy – 'starving' Palestinians – will only hasten a collapse of support.' Another Trump supporter, the far-right Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, became the latest – and perhaps most surprising – public figure to label Israel's actions in Gaza 'genocide'. 'It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,' she posted on X. The comments came as a new Gallup poll showed support among Americans for Israel's actions in Gaza down to 32%, the lowest since the organization began asking the question in November 2023 – a month after the murderous Hamas raid that killed 1,200 mostly Israeli civilians and led to another 250 to be taken hostage. Israel's military response has led to around 60,000 Palestinians being killed, according to the Gaza health ministry. While Gallup's poll showed support for Israel's offensive still high, at 71%, among Republicans, Thom Tillis, a GOP senator for North Carolina who plans to step down at the next election, said Gaza could be a political problem for Trump, the Hill reported. 'I think that the American people at the end of the day are a kind people. They don't like seeing suffering, nor do I think the president does,' Tillis said. 'If you see starvation, you try to fix it.' Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, told Fox News that Trump's backing for Netanyahu remained unshaken. 'Let me assure you that there is no break between the prime minister of Israel and the president,' he told Fox News. 'Their relationship, I think, [is] stronger than it's ever been, and I think the relationship between the U.S. and Israel is as strong as it's ever been.'
