Europe
Liz Truss Can Change Britain’s Tax Rates. She Cannot Order Anyone to Trust Her.
Liz Truss has been prime minister for less than a month, and her government’s economic programme has already produced one of the most dramatic confrontations between politics and financial markets Britain has experienced in years.
Britain Buried Its Queen. It Is Also Deciding What Her Seventy Years Meant.
On Monday, Britain held the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey. Around two thousand people attended the service, including presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and representatives from countries across the world. Archbishop of…
One in Five Swedish Voters Chose a Party the Political Establishment Once Refused to Work With.
Sweden’s election has produced a change of government, but the politician most responsible for changing Swedish politics may not become prime minister. After an extraordinarily close count, the bloc of right-wing parties finished with 176…
Britain Changed Its Prime Minister on Tuesday and Its Monarch on Thursday. The State Barely Stopped Moving.
On Tuesday, Liz Truss travelled to Balmoral and was formally appointed prime minister after winning the Conservative Party leadership contest against Rishi Sunak. Boris Johnson’s premiership, which began with an enormous parliamentary majority in 2019…
The G7 Still Has Enormous Power. It No Longer Represents Most of the World.
Seven of the world’s wealthiest democracies met in the Bavarian Alps this week trying to demonstrate that the Western coalition assembled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains capable of shaping international politics. The leaders of…
France Re-elected Macron. Then It Took Away His Parliamentary Majority.
Two months ago, Emmanuel Macron won re-election with 58.55% of the valid vote. Last Sunday, French voters gave his political coalition only 245 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, leaving it 44 seats…
France Elected Macron President. It May Not Want Him to Govern Alone.
Less than two months ago, Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen by more than seventeen percentage points and became the first French president in twenty years to win re-election while still in office. Tonight, France…
Britain Is Celebrating 70 Years of a Queen Nobody Elected. Why Does That Still Work?
Queen Elizabeth II has now been monarch for seventy years. She inherited the throne in 1952 because her father was king. She has never faced an election, cannot be voted out and occupies an office…
Finland and Sweden Want to Join NATO. Turkey Has Just Reminded Everyone That Alliances Are Not Democracies.
Only a few months ago, that would have seemed almost unimaginable. Both countries had spent decades outside the alliance, maintaining military non-alignment while cooperating closely with Western institutions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed that calculation…
Russia Wanted Less NATO Near Its Borders. Finland Has Just Decided to Join It.
For years, one of Vladimir Putin’s most persistent complaints has been that NATO expanded too far eastwards and too close to Russia. Russian officials have repeatedly described the alliance’s enlargement as a threat to Russian…
Sinn Féin Just Became Northern Ireland’s Largest Party. That Does Not Mean Ireland Is About to Reunify.
For the first time since Northern Ireland was created a century ago, an Irish nationalist party has won the largest number of seats in its devolved legislature. Sinn Féin emerged from Thursday’s Assembly election with…
Slovenia Just Gave a Party That Barely Existed a Landslide. Is That Democratic Renewal or Political Instability?
Last week I wrote that France’s old party system had largely disappeared even though its constitution and electoral institutions remained intact. This week, another European election has produced an even more striking example of how…
