David Reynolds

1 week ago | newstatesman.com | David Reynolds

Why are we marking the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe in 1945? The brief answer is because we got short-changed over the 75th anniversary on 8 May 2020. That occurred during the Covid lockdown, and it was commemorated only by VIPs – properly dressed and properly distanced – with brisk formality. So, May 2025 is intended as delayed compensation, taking in as well Victory over Japan (15 August). Bells, beacons and bunting. Fly-pasts and the “Great British Food Festival”.

1 week ago | ctmirror.org | David Reynolds

Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (PPSNE) and its political supporters gathered at the Capitol on April 16, to protest the recent freezing of Title X funding and highlighting the expected negative impact this action will have on low-income women. The limited list of services PPSNE offers to low-income women was constantly repeated. Every press report repeated PPSNE’s claims, almost verbatim, without challenging any of the facts given. When Lt. Gov.

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | David Reynolds

It began as a percentage disagreement about European defence spending. “I think Nato should have 5 per cent,” Donald Trump declared on 7 January. “They can all afford it, but they should be at 5 per cent not 2 per cent.” But once Trump took office on 20 January, percentages became peripheral. From the outset, the new US president shifted away from Nato’s unequivocal support for Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine in their three-year struggle against Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

2 months ago | ukandeu.ac.uk | Nicola Marchant |David Reynolds

David Reynolds examines summits throughout history and the recent meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump. The term “summit” was coined by Winston Churchill in 1950, during the dark days of the Cold War. He declared that it was “not easy to see how matters could be worsened by a parley at the summit.” One wonders how he would have rated Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s encounter with Donald Trump last Friday in the White House.

Nov 20, 2024 | newstatesman.com | David Reynolds

The approaching 150th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s birth on 30 November has prompted a surge of comment, both positive and negative, about his life. But across that spectrum one detects a shared assumption about how to characterise Churchill, especially during his “finest hour” as Britain’s wartime prime minister in 1940-45. Adjectives such as “defiant” or “resolute” recur; he’s often described as a “diehard” or a “bulldog”.