The whole affair is bordering on farce.
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 9:07 am
The pace of summer news is still relentless. I spent a couple of days in London this week, mostly for meetings in and around the Square Mile financial district, so I didn’t witness any of the riots first-hand. But the explosion of far-right, anti-immigration violence triggered by the horrific murders of three young girls was the main news topic in the U.K.
There has been no honeymoon period for new Prime Minister Keir Starmer. His Labour government finds itself battling not just a wave of nasty street violence but also the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and his penchant for trolling democratic leaders (while pandering to authoritarian ones).
The worst fears of continued violence seem to have died down. But we will have to wait until after this weekend (and the start of the football season, with its traditional accompaniment of hooliganism) to see if calm has really returned to the British Isles.
Meanwhile, on this side of the Channel, Spain’s most recognizable chinese overseas australia database and wanted separatist, Carles Puigdemont, managed to somehow sneak into Barcelona, give a speech and then evade police to escape the country back to his current home base of Waterloo in Belgium. That was despite a high-profile police effort to arrest him.
Speaking of fugitive leaders and civil unrest, this week also saw former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flee her country just hours before demonstrators ransacked her residence in Dhaka. In power for 15 years, the autocratic PM fled to neighboring India and is trying to gain asylum in the U.K. I’m told that is very unlikely. At one point, people with connections to the former PM told me she may try her luck in Belarus instead. The BBC has an account of how the final hours played out for the longest-serving leader of Bangladesh.
There has been no honeymoon period for new Prime Minister Keir Starmer. His Labour government finds itself battling not just a wave of nasty street violence but also the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and his penchant for trolling democratic leaders (while pandering to authoritarian ones).
The worst fears of continued violence seem to have died down. But we will have to wait until after this weekend (and the start of the football season, with its traditional accompaniment of hooliganism) to see if calm has really returned to the British Isles.
Meanwhile, on this side of the Channel, Spain’s most recognizable chinese overseas australia database and wanted separatist, Carles Puigdemont, managed to somehow sneak into Barcelona, give a speech and then evade police to escape the country back to his current home base of Waterloo in Belgium. That was despite a high-profile police effort to arrest him.
Speaking of fugitive leaders and civil unrest, this week also saw former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flee her country just hours before demonstrators ransacked her residence in Dhaka. In power for 15 years, the autocratic PM fled to neighboring India and is trying to gain asylum in the U.K. I’m told that is very unlikely. At one point, people with connections to the former PM told me she may try her luck in Belarus instead. The BBC has an account of how the final hours played out for the longest-serving leader of Bangladesh.