She has caused uproar by questioning whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is a trusted ally and pursued a policy in Northern Ireland that has upset the White House. Should Liz Truss become prime minister on 5 September, she will come with some unhelpful baggage to the top table on the international stage at a fraught time. The challenges will come thick and fast. From the war in Ukraine, the global energy crisis and the urgent calls for more and deeper action on the climate crisis, the world is looking…
Tag: Conservatives
Beijing urges British politicians not to ‘hype the China threat’
Beijing has urged British politicians to exercise restraint in their comments on China, saying “hyping the China threat” would not help solve the UK’s own problems. Asked about Rishi Sunak’s comments, where he labelled China as Britain’s biggest long-term threat and pledged to close all UK-based Confucius Institutes, Zhao Lijian, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, declined to offer specific comments, saying the election of the next Tory leader is the UK’s internal affair. But he added: “I do want to inform some UK politicians that they can’t solve their own problems…
Liz Truss: why EU praise for foreign secretary may be unwanted
It was only a few months ago that Liz Truss, perhaps best known until recently for her strong feelings about the “disgrace” that is imported cheese, was appointed foreign secretary. Some had questioned Truss’s suitability for the role given a patchy record in the cabinet, but the liberty-loving minister has seemingly already made a mark on the global stage. While Downing Street was battling further claims over alleged lockdown-breaching parties, Truss was the recipient of two eye-catching reviews of her performance at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Over…
The importance of being allowed to act up | Brief letters
The inconclusive ending of David Baddiel’s article (‘Why don’t Jews play Jews?’ – David Baddiel on the row over Helen Mirren as Golda Meir, 12 January) is unavoidable, because the only way to achieve consistency is to revert to the assumption that actors can act. Take the case of the late Richard Griffiths’s posh gay Uncle Monty in Withnail and I. He came from an underprivileged background and was married to a woman. To have disqualified him on the basis of the latter but not the former seems risibly arbitrary.Peter…