Lionel Barber | The Spectator columnists & writers

What if Putin hasn’t miscalculated – but the West has?

Conventional wisdom dictates that Vladimir Putin has ‘miscalculated’ in his invasion of Ukraine. His blitzkrieg has been poorly executed. He has reinvigorated the Nato alliance and the EU and triggered heavy sanctions. And he has lost the ‘information war’ to Volodymyr Zelensky, the TV comedian turned global hero. But what if the West has ‘miscalculated’ in reading Putin’s intentions? What if the West’s sanctions, along with intensified military aid to Ukraine and a courageous local resistance, encourage Putin to double down? What if he decides to use a weapon of last resort, a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon, even at the risk of World War 3? At Emmanuel Macron’s latest bout of telephone diplomacy, Putin was intransigent, insisting that all Russian demands are met.

Europe’s unvaccinated don’t take kindly to being turned into second-class citizens

Amsterdam These are dangerous times in the Netherlands. Anti-lockdown mobs have torched cars, thrown rocks and attacked the police. In Rotterdam, police used live fire, in scenes more reminiscent of New York or LA than the birthplace of Erasmus. The protests are ostensibly in response to government plans to restrict the use of indoor spaces only to people with a Covid pass, showing they have been vaccinated or they have recovered from the virus. The (unvaccinated) Dutch — very much a minority — don’t take kindly to being turned into second-class citizens. Frank Paauw, Amsterdam’s tall, silver-haired police chief, suspects darker forces are at work. I met him during a TV interview, his gun conspicuous by its presence.

The Edition

The Covid revolts: Europe’s new wave of unrest

33 min listen

The Edition

The Covid revolts: Europe’s new wave of unrest

33 min listen

Is Germany really such a role model?

The British romance with Germany has always been an on-off affair. At the turn of the century, Kaiser Bill enjoyed brief popularity, based on dynastic ties, until his bombastic militarism set Germany on a path to war. Thirty years on, as Tim Bouverie reminds us in his book Appeasing Hitler, many in the English ruling class favoured Nazi Germany over revanchist France. After the war, Rhenish capitalism, Germany’s social contract between management and labour, appeared to offer a soothing alternative to strike-torn Britain. Then Mrs Thatcher arrived with stiffer medicine. John Kampfner’s Why the Germans Do It Better is a beguiling title because the British have undoubtedly hit a bad patch. Three prime ministers in five years; a resurgent separatist movement in Scotland; a political class unmoored by Brexit.

How will the world be changed by the war against coronavirus?

The world as we have known it for the past 40 years has come to a stop. We have a supply chain crisis, a demand crisis, a labour market crisis and an oil price crisis. The second crash that people were long predicting has arrived — but against the backdrop of the Covid-19 threat, it seems like a second-order story. The pound has already hit its lowest rate for decades, and more shocks may occur in the bond and currency markets. How long the disaster will last — or how much worse it will get — is anyone’s guess. Thanks to the virus, events which earlier this year would have been scarcely conceivable have come to pass. A Conservative chancellor calmly pledged hundreds of billions of pounds to support working people — sums on a scale that would make even John McDonnell gulp.

The Edition

Coronomics: how surreal is this economic crash?

40 min listen

The Edition

Coronomics: how surreal is this economic crash?

40 min listen

On the podcast this week, we take a look at the exceptional nature of 'coronomics' and what comes after (00:55), how the Swedish are dealing with coronavirus differently (18:50), and lessons in solitude from a polar explorer (31:15).

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