Steve Bloomfield

Birmingham

Executive Editor at Monocle

Head of news, The Observer

Featured in: Favicon

monocle.com Favicon

medium.com Favicon

theguardian.com Favicon

independent.co.uk Favicon

yahoo.com (+2) Favicon

foreignaffairs.com Favicon

prospectmagazine.co.uk Favicon

pulitzercenter.org Favicon

msn.com

aol.co.uk + 1 more

Articles

No ordinary war: we have entered the age of impunity

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

Last Thursday night, amid reports of an imminent attack on Iran by Israel, an emergency war meeting led by Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace unit, was held at a military base in Tehran. Hajizadeh and his senior officials had been told not to congregate in the same location, but they ignored the warning, assuming that any attack would be days off. They were wrong. The bunker was one of 20 sites across Iran bombed by Israel in just 15 minutes.
Your country needs you - shame about the poor pay and t...

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

The UK’s strategic defence review has a lot to say about military hardware. There are 50 mentions of weapons, submarines appear on 30 occasions, drones crop up 26 times, while there are several references to carriers (16), jets (seven) and tanks (six). The word “soldier”, though, appears just twice – and the first is in the introduction describing one of the report’s authors.
Trump thinks that he can bully Africa – but America will ...

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

By spurning African leaders, Trump risks ceding ground in trade and security to US rivals At around the same time last month as South African president Cyril Ramaphosa was arriving at the White House ahead of his Oval Office ambush, a Gulfstream V was on its way to South Sudan. On board were eight migrants to the United States who were all being deported, but at least five of them had never set foot in Africa, let alone in South Sudan.
In pictures: the liberation of Khartoum

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

The story of the war in Sudan has mostly been told from elsewhere – from the desperate, dusty refugee camps in neighbouring Chad or the formal, stilted diplomatic meetings in New York or London. Access has been all but impossible, be it for journalists, diplomats, aid groups or the UN.
Labour should look to Carney’s Canada for a plan on immigration

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

Despite higher levels of immigration than Britain, voters weren’t that concerned about the issue – and that’s the point When Canada went to the polls last month, the centre-left government felt immigration had grown at a “rapid and unsustainable pace, with our housing and social infrastructure failing to absorb all the people arriving”. Numbers would come down, Mark Carney promised. But there was no talk of “incalculable damage” or fears that the country would become an “island of strangers”.
Analysis: Nations that dismiss soft power can end up on the naughty list

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

As Harvard professor Joseph Nye put it: 'Seduction is always more effective than coercion' Once upon a time in Lapland I gave Santa Claus a lift. As he squeezed himself into the passenger seat of my rented Kia, I tried and failed to resist the urge to make a comment comparing this with his normal ride. Santa is a pro, he wants you to feel welcome, so he managed a small chuckle, but it wasn’t the full ho ho ho.
In pictures: Putin’s power on parade

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

Xi Jinping of China listens to an interpreter translate Vladimir Putin’s commentary as they take in the spectacle. Sergei Bobylev/AP Last year’s Victory Day parade was an embarrassing affair for Vladimir Putin. Just nine other heads of state turned up and the only one who wasn’t a) leader of a former Soviet republic or b) a communist, was the president of Guinea-Bissau (pop 2.1 million). This year’s event, which took place on Friday, was very different.
In pictures: Trump’s first 100 days

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

At a rally to mark the first three months of the second coming of Donald Trump, the US president claimed that it had been “the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country”. The data suggests otherwise. An opinion poll released to mark the moment revealed that just 39% of Americans approve of the job he’s doing, the lowest 100-day job approval rating for a president in the past 80 years.
Could Friedrich Merz be the European leader we’ve been waiting for?

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

On Tuesday morning, at a relatively low-key session of the Bundestag, the new leader of Europe will be sworn in. Technically, Friedrich Merz will merely become Germany’s 10th postwar chancellor. But at a moment when a divided and panicked Europe is trying to work out its role in a world where it can no longer rely on the US, there is a hope – even from those traditionally wary of German power – that the leader of the rightwing Christian Democrats can fill a void.
Winners in the fight for Africa's democracies are getting hard to find

2 months ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

When the Sudanese telecoms billionaire Mo Ibrahim launched the Ibrahim Prize for African Leadership in 2007, he hoped the prestige and the $5m cheque would give democracy on the continent a much-needed boost. Leaders were eligible if they had been democratically elected, strengthened their country’s human rights and prosperity, and – crucially – had stepped down when their time in office came to an end.