Ian Birrell

London

Foreign Correspondent and Columnist at Freelance

Foreign correspondent, columnist, campaigner, co-founder @africaexpress, citizen of the world and a bit more besides...

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Articles

Putin is toying with Trump - and he's falling for it

3 days ago | inews.co.uk | Ian Birrell

Donald Trump’s posts on social media have been a key tool in his fight to disrupt politics and redefine his country’s place in the world. His fusillade of impulsive and often impetuous tweets on first Twitter, and now also his own Truth Social platform, dominate headlines, shift markets and shatter diplomatic norms.
Reform is about to be put under the microscope - and it will crumble

1 week ago | inews.co.uk | Ian Birrell

Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Reform UK, has been busy in the media boasting about his party’s success in the local elections and calling for the “remoralisation of young people”. In one interview, he pointed to China and Russia as models for teaching a more patriotic version of British history in schools – two dictatorships that use their education systems to embed state propaganda with a distorted take on the past.
History will not be kind to Trump’s shameful sycophants

2 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Ian Birrell

Barely two weeks after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a Republican congresswoman called Anna Paulina Luna put forward legislation to carve his face on the famous Mount Rushmore memorial in South Dakota. “His remarkable accomplishments for our country, and the success he will continue to deliver, deserve the highest recognition,” she declared.
Don't count on Trump's volatility saving Ukraine

2 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Ian Birrell

Certainly the picture was historic: two presidents, seated in simple chairs amid the magnificence of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, as they discussed the prospects of peace in Europe’s most devastating war for eight decades. The pair are a study in contrasts that goes far beyond appearance and style.
IAN BIRRELL: These attacks on Kyiv are proof Putin is emboldened by US appeasement

2 weeks ago | dailymail.co.uk | Ian Birrell

It's 11 years since I watched Russian troops stripped of military insignia seize Ukrainian army bases in Crimea, while their president, Vladimir Putin, publicly denied that any of his forces had crossed the border. ‘We feel so helpless,’ one teacher told me with tears in her eyes as thuggish armed groups prowled the streets. ‘Our rights are violated, our children threatened with guns and there is nothing we can say or do about it.’She was right, sadly.
I was brutally raped by the man I'd been forced to marry to save my mother. And that was just the start of the horror: A survivor reveals the chilling truth about gang rape and torture in China's death camps | Daily Mail Online

3 weeks ago | dailymail.co.uk | Ian Birrell

For brides around the world, their wedding day is meant to be a magic moment, often filled with family, friends and fond memories. But for Gul, then a 23-year-old model in Shanghai, it was among the darkest of days. ‘When I had the wedding, it felt like a funeral to me; and when I signed the marriage certificate, it felt like I was signing my death certificate,’ she told me. ‘I did not wear the dress. I did not receive greetings from family members. I did not say anything to my friends.
Our biggest LGBT charity is in crisis. Are we just going to let it collapse?

3 weeks ago | archive.is | Patrick Strudwick |Ian Birrell |Yasmin Alibhai-Brown |Emma Barnett

Blood is in the water. Every expedient politician (and pundit) can see it, smell it, and sense an opportunity. After the Supreme Court ruling, which effectively removed trans women from the definition of woman in the Equality Act, the new British sport is: who can make the most rabble-rousing, dog-whistling jabat trans women? The answer was surprising. Bridget Phillipson, who identifies as the Women and Equalities minister, evidently believes that some people are more equal than others.
How British tourists can help to fight back against Trump

3 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Ian Birrell

Route 66, cutting through the heart of the United States from Illinois to California, offers drivers one of the world’s most magnificent road trips. This historic highway came to symbolise freedom, opportunity and optimism in pursuit of the American Dream almost a century ago as desperate migrants headed west during the Great Depression, then emerged as an icon of the country’s influential culture in books, films and songs.
China and private equity are cannibalising Britain

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Ian Birrell

The emergency rescue of British Steel is a significant moment for this government, highlighted by the first Saturday sitting of parliament since the Afghan crisis four years ago. It will cost huge sums for hard-pressed taxpayers at the expense of creaking public services. So it has been accompanied by the usual overblown rhetoric sprayed around at such pivotal moments, as Sir Keir Starmer rushed to Scunthorpe to tell relieved workers how he saved their plant.
Trump's tariffs mark the end of the most successful economic creed in history

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Ian Birrell

I am writing these words on a computer that was made in China for an American company. Later, I will play a game of football wearing a blue shirt made in Vietnam for a famous club from Liverpool, which is sponsored by a firm based in Curacao and is in a league with players from 62 nations and investors from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States.