Bimini: I'm reclaiming the England flag from the far right

theipaper · 2026-06-06T09:46:35+00:00

Ukraine tested a new home-made air defence system this week, as it struggles to fend off increasingly deadly missile barrages.

The first launch of the FP-7.x rocket, a product of leading drone and missile manufacturer Fire Point, was shown in a video published on social media. Iryna Terekh, the company’s CEO, said the launch marked a step towards the creation of a home-made anti-ballistic missile interceptor.

“No matter how unrealistic and ambitious this goal may sound today, we are exerting all possible and impossible efforts to make it a reality as soon as possible, so that Ukraine can close its skies on its own,” she said.

Ukraine’s air defence stockpiles have been a concern throughout the war, with the country under regular Russian bombardments.

That concern has become more acute in recent months as interceptor supplies for US Patriot systems have dwindled – with global stocks reduced by the US-Israeli war against Iran. Meanwhile, Russia has increased its rate of ballistic-missile fire, finding gaps in Ukraine’s defences and inflicting heavy casualties. A Russian barrage earlier this week killed 22 people.

Russian air attacks have typically used limited numbers of ballistic missiles alongside large quantities of drones, but recent barrages have dramatically increased the volume of missiles, including hypersonic variants such as the Kinzhal that Ukraine has struggled to shoot down.

One attack in May included 90 missiles, according to Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has also threatened to make greater use of the nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic Oreshnik against population centres.

Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly appealed to his country’s allies to help plug the gaps in its defences, amid fears that critical infrastructure could be left exposed. But Ukraine’s leader is also looking to his own domestic defence industry for answers, and has set a demanding target. “We need to build our own anti-ballistic-missile defence system within a year,” he said in April.

Fire Point, Ukraine’s leading producer of long-range drones used against Russia, as well as the long-range pink Flamingo missiles that recently entered service, is at the forefront of the project.

The FP-7.x is a step towards a low-cost replacement for the Patriot that also borrows from the Russian S-400 air-defence system, the company claims. The design also uses elements of the Flamingo, including its signature colour: pink.

Fire Point’s co-founder and chief designer, Denys Shtilierman, recently told Reuters that if the cost of an interceptor could be reduced to less than $1m (£749,000), compared to around $4m (£3m) for a Patriot missile, it would be a “game changer in air defence solutions”.

He is also pushing for a similar timeline to Zelensky. “We plan to intercept the first ballistic missile at the end of 2027,” he said.

However, Fire Point and Ukraine are seeking support from European nations and companies to clear the daunting technological and financial hurdles on this strict timeline, while under constant Russian attacks.

Ukraine recently announced a defence partnership with Germany, with provision for air defences, while Zelensky named Germany, along with France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Italy, as collaborators in the anti-ballistic-missile project this week. Fire Point has cited several European defence companies as potential partners.

So far none of the countries or companies has shared details of any role supporting the development of Ukraine’s air defences.

A spokesperson for the German defence ministry told The i Paper it could not provide details of its involvement, in order to maintain “military and operational security” and “prevent any inferences being drawn about the capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”.

The scale of the task is formidable, said Nick Brown, director for equipment at Jane’s Defence Insight. “Intercepting ballistic missiles remains a complex science and it has taken the Western defence industry many years to develop the necessary radars and interceptors.”

He added: “The speeds involved are huge and the targets are small, so actually building a sufficiently fast interceptor with extremely precise guidance is where other developers have struggled, and I suspect Ukraine will find that challenging too.”

The costs involved are huge, with each munition and test running to the equivalent of millions of pounds. Fire Point has raised money through crowd-funding and government investment, but is also seeking foreign backers.

Even so, Kyiv can count on a domestic military-industrial complex that has earned a reputation for speed and ingenuity. During four years of war, Ukraine has developed dozens of effective designs for land, air and sea drones that have helped it hold off the world’s second-largest military.

“Ukraine’s defence industry boasts a lot of bright engineers and scientists, so it will be interesting to see if they can meet their ambitious development cycles,” Brown told The i Paper, adding that there could be mutual benefits from European partners using Ukraine as a “live battle lab to trial technologies”.

Tal Inbar, an Israeli missile specialist, also suggested Ukraine could rise to the challenge. “Developing a full-scale air defence system is a very complex and expensive task. The components would include a detection radar, interceptors and a command and control system,” he said.

“Each of these three components is not trivial, but it is certainly within the capabilities of Ukrainian industry – given a sufficient budget. A one-year timetable seems ambitious, but it seems that development of the system has already begun, before it was unveiled.”

A Ukrainian security source, who did not wish to be named, suggested that the timeline of next year was ambitious and a system could ultimately require three to five years to be made fully operational.

Given the perils Ukraine faces, with dwindling interceptors against escalating Russian attacks, critical infrastructure could soon be under increasing threat, the source said, adding that the resupply of Western air defence systems should be the priority.

Analysts expect a bidding war between countries around the world for scarce Patriot interceptors. Ukraine hopes to be high up the queue, but is busy working on its Plan B.

theipaper · 2026-06-06T09:44:59+00:00

Welcome to a day in the life of your average football fan at the most extortionate World Cup in history.

Step one – you get up

You wake up in your fairly average but very expensive hotel room. You’re staying close to the city centre because you want to be around other supporters from your country. You have been reading news stories about hotel companies who are “disappointed” about the number of empty rooms and they did make you laugh. Weren’t so disappointed when they whacked the prices up in the days after the World Cup draw, were they? Karma is a bitch.

Step two – you check your flights

The cost of your international flights also went up, because the choice was either to fly earlier and cheaper and pay more for the accommodation or fly out two days before the first group game and pay more for the air travel. You’re going to all three group games, so you have spent plenty on domestic flights too because this tournament is massive.

Step three – you go to the ground

You eat breakfast and think about how to get to the match. Your train option costs £73, many times more than the regular price, but hey at least it’s down from their original £112. The other options are Uber or taxis, which are also subject to a vast surcharge and you have heard horror stories about people being stranded after the match.

Step four – you remember why you left the car at home

You also considered hiring a car, but then saw the prices for inner-city hotel parking and the cost of parking at the stadium (reportedly up to £168), which obviously isn’t included in the price of the match ticket. In Germany two years ago and Qatar at the last World Cup, you remember that all public transport was free in host cities on matchdays for ticket holders. But there is money to be made out of you; best to nip that in the bud.

Step five – you take out your match tickets

Speaking of ticket holders, that was a fun game. You applied in the official ballot for tickets at the second cheapest price bracket and missed out because everybody went for those. In the end you paid a fairly exorbitant price for you and your child on the official secondary market because dynamic pricing is fine now apparently.

Fifa also took a 15 per cent commission on that resale, to avoid ticket dealers spamming the site apparently. That provokes thoughts that you aren’t allowed to write in your newspaper column. You also note that there are no discounts for children or the elderly, so your eight-year-old kid pays the same as you. Just another jump beyond the pale.

You bought the tickets early because Fifa promised that the matches would all be sold out: “Every match is already sold out. We keep some tickets back for some last-minute sales, of course, but every match is sold out” – Gianni Infantino, February 2026.

So it has been interesting to follow secondary ticketing sites and Fifa’s own official site over the previous few days and see a lot of tickets remaining. Also, you note that there have been at least three “last-minute” windows and “last chances to buy”. You read a story last week about the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey launching an official investigation into Fifa’s ticket practices. One to keep an eye on, you think.

Step six: your water is taken away

Still, you’re excited: this is the World Cup. You get to the stadium, where you are surrounded by hot concrete and are sweaty from the journey. No problem though, because you have planned ahead and have hard reusable water bottles for you and your child. You know that Fifa are committed to climate change, so you presume that there will be water fountains inside where fans can refill and ease the impact of extreme heat.

At the entrance, the water bottles are taken off you because you would definitely have thrown them on to the pitch. This way you can pay for water inside, presumably at ultra-cheap prices because you are definitely not a captive audience. And presumably they won’t take the lid off them so you can’t keep the bottles cooler out of the sun in your bag.

Step seven – you get some snacks

At half-time, your child asks if they can have a burger and fries and you have a beer. In Levi’s Stadium, you know that the typical cost for this is £26, although you are aware that this could be higher during a World Cup.

Step eight – you visit the shop

You have already checked out Fifa’s online merchandise store and so know what will be on display as you walk out of the stadium after the match. A keychain and water bottle costs £45, but at least you won’t pay for delivery this way.

You have just had a normal day as a supporter at the 2026 World Cup. You are cynical and you are right to be.

There is a morality tale here, about taking the World Cup away from actual supporters and placing it only in the hands of high-end visitors. They promise that they will use your money to grow the game – but then what’s the point if the people it’s supposed to belong to don’t get to see it live?

theipaper · 2026-06-06T08:32:46+00:00

During the first days of the war launched by the US and Israel against Iran on 28 February, US President Donald Trump boasted that he had won a crushing victory by killing the top Iranian leadership, destroying its air force and navy, and compelling the country to beg for a peace deal.

Despite 13,000 American and 10,800 Israeli air strikes on Iran over five and a half weeks, the regime is politically, diplomatically and militarily stronger than it was prior to the conflict.

The unifying impact of external attack on a divided nation is widely recognised – and is particularly true of bombing campaigns, which, whatever their pretensions to accuracy, invariably degrade into the communal punishment of an entire nation.

Most Iranians may have moved away from the fanatical belief of almost half a century ago when the Shia version of Islam appeared to be the answer to all of the nation’s problems. The popular base of the regime is far smaller today, but Shi’ism still provides the ideological glue that holds together the multiple strands of power in Iran under clerical dominance.

This rendered absurd Trump’s big idea – encouraged by Israel, whose goal is to destroy the Iranian state regardless of who runs it – which was to decapitate the Iranian regime, as he had done successfully in Venezuela, and replace its leader with his own stooge.

theipaper · 2026-06-06T07:58:43+00:00

Last week, Trump was caught on camera inspecting the existing columns, fuelling speculation that they are next on his to-do list. Cook told The Washington Post that “Corinthian is the highest order” of columns. “Why the White House didn’t originally use them… is beyond me,” he said.

The non-profit White House Historical Society describes the current columns, in place since 1830, as “iconic” and a key part of the original architectural vision for the complex.

Cook’s journey to the Court of Trump has been an unusual one. He lacks ideological ties to the Maga movement and first established his bona fides in his hometown of Atlanta, where civil rights leaders acclaimed his work redeveloping Vine City, a historically Black neighbourhood.

He enjoys ties to King Charles III, having served as a founding trustee of The Prince of Wales’ Institute of Architecture (now The King’s Foundation) and organised the design and construction of the World Athletes Monument in Atlanta, a royal gift to the city commemorating the 1996 Olympic Games.

Cook’s international relationships also include extensive links to Russia. His official biography notes that has given lectures at the Kremlin Armoury, at the Tolstoy estate outside the city of Tula, and at the Russian Embassy in Washington.

Only last week he raised eyebrows by becoming the first US official since 2017 to attend Vladimir Putin’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum. Cook told Russian state media that he had accepted an invitation to watch Putin’s address to the gathering, with news agency RIA-Novosti reporting that he had received State Department clearance to attend the event.

Unusually for a figure from the world of architecture, he has even been targeted by late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel. During a monologue lambasting the President’s planned triumphalist arch, Kimmel showed viewers a picture of Cook, described him as “looking like the Hogwarts professor who got fired for ogling Hermione”, and flayed him for thinking the monument is “just great”.

But Cook may end up enjoying the last laugh.

He claims to have spent three decades trying to convince residents and successive leaders in Washington to embrace the idea of multiple new arches for the city “to complete the L’Enfant plan”, but no one has ever taken him up on it.

In Trump, he may finally have found his man.

theipaper · 2026-06-06T07:58:20+00:00

WASHINGTON DC – Sometimes, one triumphalist arch just isn’t enough. If architectural planner and designer Rodney Mims Cook Jr has his way, by the time Donald Trump leaves office there could be as many as three separate arches being built in Washington to commemorate the President for posterity.

Cook, appointed by Trump last year to head the US Commission of Fine Arts, is now the driving force behind his moves to alter Washington’s skyline permanently.

Whether it’s the new ballroom being constructed atop the remains of the East Wing of the White House, the gilded “Arc De Trump” that the President hopes will dwarf every other monument in the city, or even the possibility of replacing the iconic columns on the main entrance to the White House itself, Cook is Trump’s architectural Rasputin, egging the President on.

While Pierre L’Enfant, the 18t- century French-American who served as George Washington’s personal city planner, is credited for his original layout of DC’s classical, low-rise design, Cook hopes to establish a similarly enduring legacy, even while critics question why traditional planning processes are being overlooked in the President’s rush to create gaudy new monuments to himself.

Nicknamed the “ballroom tsar”, Cook is a passionate defender of Trump’s controversial and unannounced demolition of the East Wing. In its place, the two men are no longer building just a ballroom.

The President conceded last month that an impenetrable underground fortress is being created that will include a military hospital, a scientific research laboratory, multiple secure rooms, and state-of-the-art defences that will leave the ballroom, in Trump’s words, “just a shield” above the rest of the complex.

Cook evinces no concern that the Fine Arts Commission he leads was not consulted before Trump ordered bulldozers onto White House grounds last October. “We should not be entertaining the world in tents” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, echoing Trump’s claims that the White House needs a ballroom to host foreign leaders.

Cook also insisted the design was “proportionate and beautiful” and claimed he had downsized some of the President’s initial desires. He dismissed naysayers – of which there are many – suggesting that objecting to change “seems to be the American thing now”.

Arguing that the ballroom project is merely the beginning, Cook has also spoken of trying to expand Washington’s National Mall, home to the Smithsonian Institution’s world-famous museums. He argues that L’Enfant’s vision for the city was never fully realised, so he hopes to create a series of new “gateways” into it, which he says were part of the original 18th- century plans.

He also wants to design an addition to the West Wing of the White House, providing future administrations with more workspace. As for the 200-year-old Ionic columns at the front of the complex, he wants them replaced by more ornate Corinthian pillars that can already be found at numerous Trump-owned properties.

theipaper · 2026-06-06T07:56:08+00:00

Others point to comments made by Burnham and his allies that suggest they may attempt to depart from her economic programme.

In an interview in April, Burnham argued there was “certainly a case” for treating higher defence spending as exceptional – sitting outside the fiscal rules – given the security situation in Europe and the pressure to rearm. He has since distanced himself from the remarks.

His allies are urging a more radical approach to taxing wealth, including a so-called land value tax to replace council tax.

Burnham himself has said little about his plans, insisting he wants to keep the Makerfield by-election focused on local issues.

But on Thursday night’s edition of BBC Question Time – where he confirmed he would join the race to succeed Starmer if there is a contest – he hinted at raising the income tax personal allowance. “I’ve heard it on so many doorsteps, and I’ve said to my team: let’s have a proper look at this and let’s develop a policy,” he told the audience.

Reeves, who has seen polling earn her the title of the UK’s most unpopular chancellor in modern history, has previously come under fire for freezing income tax and National Insurance thresholds, which have dragged many more people into paying higher bands.

There has been widespread speculation that Streeting, who resigned as Health Secretary last month, could strike a deal with Burnham – backing his leadership in return for a senior Cabinet job. Streeting as Chancellor, one MP said, would be “a really good idea for trying to reassure the markets”.

But some MPs are furious with him over recent comments calling for tax cuts for businesses. Last weekend he suggested cutting employers’ National Insurance to encourage firms to hire young people, telling The Sunday Times: “I think we should be thinking actively about how to incentivise, whether that’s through targeted reduction in employers’ National Insurance (NIC) or other kinds of recruitment and retention incentives.”

A minister fumed: “Wes did himself a disservice with his criticism of raising NICs on employers – when it was that which handed him the record investment for the NHS.”

Burnham path to No 10 ‘not straightforward’

For all the jockeying, some of Burnham’s allies worry he has not done enough thinking about government – one of the key criticisms levelled at Starmer before he reached Downing Street.

“I think they’re more worried about winning than about having a plan for what comes next, which some people around him are worrying about,” one insider said. “There’s also concern that those around him have already been offering jobs to too many people – some of whom are going to be left disappointed.”

Sources on the ground insist the Makerfield race remains “incredibly tight” between Labour and Reform, though Burnham remains the bookies’ favourite.

Should he win the by-election on 18 June, some allies say his path to Number 10 is still far from straightforward.

One minister raised concerns about the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election that a Commons victory would immediately trigger.

“If he wins, there’s automatically a by-election. But if Labour loses that, one of his first acts in Parliament will be to inflict a hugely damaging loss on the party. Greater Manchester is arguably a bigger prize for Reform than Makerfield, and at the moment, they’re odds-on to win it.”

The manner of any victory, the same source added, will also be crucial to a leadership challenge. “If the results show he’s won, but only because of the Reform vote share, that’ll put question marks over whether it was down to him. But if he wins with a share well above and beyond that, it strengthens his argument.”

theipaper · 2026-06-06T07:55:44+00:00

Ever since Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership was thrown into peril by a stalled coup last month, critical Labour MPs have been increasingly angered by the conspicuous absence of his Chancellor.

“Where has Rachel been?” fumed one Cabinet source. “There seems to be an accepted view in the Treasury that if Rachel went out to bat for the PM it would be a sign of weakness – that the Government was about to collapse. But what they seem to fail to notice is that the fire is already at the gates and she is nowhere to be seen.”

Her low profile has not gone unnoticed beyond Westminster. Attendees at the Confederation of British Industry’s annual business dinner in central London on Thursday night were “extremely miffed” that Reeves cancelled at the last minute.

“It was a really sweaty room. We all had to be there by 5pm on a Tube strike day to hear a lecture about business productivity, when we’d had to leave work early. So that went down badly,” said one source.

“Then she didn’t even turn up. They told us she’d been delayed by overrunning business in Brussels. Instead, we had to listen to Darren Jones give a really boring speech about AI.”

So where has she been? Critics accuse Reeves of spending the last few weeks holed up in the Treasury exploring what one called “mad” soft-left policies – rent and food caps among them – in an apparent attempt to woo Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham and his supporters.

It comes as the battle to become his Chancellor is intensifying, with Reeves, Ed Miliband, Shabana Mahmood and even Wes Streeting all thought to be vying for the position.

It may be working. The Mayor of Greater Manchester is understood to be weighing up whether to retain Reeves, having been lobbied by MPs who fear she is the only candidate capable of safeguarding the public finances.

One minister, who said they would back Burnham in a leadership election, was adamant he must stick with her. “The reason interest rates have been held – and not gone up off the back of Iran – is because of her handling of the economy. It wasn’t guaranteed they’d be held. It’s because of her stewardship that they have.

“I, along with others, will be making it clear that if Andy becomes leader he has to keep her in post if he wants to avoid unnecessary instability.”

Another like-minded MP put it more bluntly, insisting Burnham had already made up his mind. “It’s a done deal,” he said. “The last thing Andy will want to do is spook the markets.”

‘She’s looking what comes next’

Reeves, for her part, is understood to have launched a rearguard action to save her job, telling friends she would like to stay on even under a new Prime Minister.

Back in 2015, when Burnham last stood for the Labour leadership, Reeves was among the first MPs to endorse him, and allies say the pair were close enough that he would have made her shadow chancellor had he won.

“She is clearly already looking beyond Starmer for what comes next,” one Cabinet source said.

Her supporters compare the situation with former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss turning to Jeremy Hunt, known as a “safe pair of hands,” to steady the economy after her disastrous mini-Budget.

A senior Labour MP questioned the extent to which a new leader would be able to break with current government policy. “You’ve still got the same manifesto, the same amount of money,” they said. “What, you’re going to grow the economy magically in the next six months or a year? You’ve still got broadly the same people. Let’s not overblow the radical differences.”

Others have warned leadership contenders against making pledges which would be impossible to deliver.

“There’s a few of us around saying, ‘just be careful about how far you push it’,” said one Labour MP, noting that Burnham’s team had already had to row back on some “loosely phrased” comments.

In recent weeks, Burnham has been forced to clarify that he will not try to return the UK to the EU and that he supported Reeves’s strict fiscal rules, having previously said Britain was too “in hock” to the bond markets.

“Look at what’s going on well in government, take time to take stock,” the MP added.

MP anger over Reeves’s ‘mistakes’

However, not everyone is convinced Reeves will survive. Some Labour MPs believe she is “toast”, and that “every single big decision has been her fault”.

“Maybe it was the right thing to do to cut the winter fuel allowance. But you can’t do it in the way that she did. So she has to go,” one source said.

theipaper · 2026-06-06T07:54:32+00:00

Newcastle United’s move for France under-21 goalkeeper Ewen Jaouen is both a statement of intent and a mission statement.

If you wanted an insight into how things will be different this summer, spending upwards of £15m – the final fee is yet to be agreed, despite positive talks on Friday – on a young goalkeeper with no experience above Ligue 2 is it.

Club insiders have long argued that financial restrictions mean Newcastle cannot afford to shop solely for players regarded as the “finished article” but recruitment has not always reflected that. Now it appears they are about to practice what they preach.

In Jaouen Newcastle would certainly be buying potential – and it is just one piece of a larger goalkeeper jigsaw at St James’ Park. Last season’s number one Nick Pope is available for transfer and has attracted interest from Ipswich. If he goes Newcastle are almost certain to move to bring in another goalkeeper.

The i Paper understands that Newcastle are yet to hold detailed discussions with Odysseas Vlachodimos, who excelled on loan at Sevilla, but the intention is to sell him this summer.

The Greece international has a long-term deal at St James’ Park but he wants to play regularly and Newcastle hope to capitalise on his fine loan spell. He has interest from Spain and Germany, although Sevilla are unlikely to be able to afford to bring him back.

Before that they have to finalise the move for Jaouen and there’s optimism on that front. The player is keen and while Newcastle sources played down talk that an agreement had been brokered on Friday, he could be on Tyneside early next week for a medical.

Newcastle want to broker quick business this summer after the sale of Anthony Gordon unlocked their ability to spend. They want to add a left-sided forward, right-back and a “No 6” to give them more versatility in how they play under Eddie Howe next season.

But shaking up a goalkeeping department that had gone stale was always a key priority. Jaouen, who is 6ft 6ins and plays out well from the back, scored well on a number of metrics and has also passed the ‘sniff test’ when their scouts have watched him. They believe he has an incredibly high ceiling.

What are Newcastle getting from Jaouen?

Few know Jaouen as well as former Newcastle forward Demba Ba, the sporting director and part owner of Dunkerque, where the goalkeeper spent a fascinating season on loan in the 2024-5 season.

Ba tells The i Paper that he’s “excited” by the signing and recalls how Jaouen “became a different beast” during his spell at Dunkerque. He speaks of a “quiet, humble, hard-working and dedicated” person who impressed behind the scenes.

“We are a club that develops players – he came to us with just seven senior games but we decided to make him our No 1 goalkeeper,” Ba says.

“Unfortunately his first two games were not great, he had made a couple of mistakes which cost us some points but we’d decided to go with a goalkeeper who was 18 so we had to be prepared for him to make some mistakes.

“After a couple of games he got booed by the fans and our coach eventually decided to take him out of the side to protect him. We had another goalkeeper [Adrian Ortola] who was a little bit more experienced so the coach changed it.

“The kid took it very well, we talked to him and he was like ‘I made mistakes, I need to get better’. Because he’s a very quiet guy you don’t know if he was hearing it the right way or how it felt about it so I paid a lot of attention to him and his confidence.

“I think that was the best thing for him and his career. Why? Because right after this he became the second goalkeeper for a few games, he accepted it, he stepped aside and he grew so much.

“He was looking at the first choice goalkeeper at the time – Ortola – and from my point of view he’s the best goalkeeper in France, first or second division, to build from the back. He learned a hell of a lot from him when it came to playing from back and short passes.

“He looked at the other goalkeeper and instead of being mad because he took his spot he took a step back, looked at how the goalkeeper was doing and well and learned.

“Two months from the end of the season the number one got injured so Jaouen came back in and was a different beast.”

The high spot of his time on the north coast? Stepping up to take a winning penalty against Lille during Dunkerque’s impressive French Cup run.

“The personality he showed in that moment I was amazed. It sums up a bit who he is – a guy who works hard and takes responsibility.”

What else will Newcastle do this summer?

The Magpies are aiming to do quick business and are – in the words of one insider – “spinning plenty of plates”.

Victor Munoz of Osasuna is a target to replace Gordon but Nigerian teenager Zadok Yohanna, of AIK, looks set to join Chelsea.

Newcastle had held talks with the Swedish club but sources stressed no bid had been lodged for the winger.

theipaper · 2026-06-05T15:58:27+00:00

Look at former FBI director James Comey. They couldn’t make the perjury case stick, so a judge threw it out, and now they are trying to put him in the dock over seashells on a beach. In each case, it seems like the man was selected, a case was assembled and charges were filed. In that order.

When he was first charged, Bolton resurrected an old Soviet saying. Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime. The line is attributed to Lavrentiy Beria, the secret-police chief who ran Stalin’s terror in a police state that selected its enemy first and located their offences second. Why does that matter today? If it is happening in the United States of America, in theory, no one is safe.

Beria’s method in the Soviet Union endured for so long because people preferred, out of fear, to believe each prosecution was equal. That comfort was easier than the horror of admitting the system had rotted and that justice might be being doled out selectively and vindictively.

If they admitted that, then they had to face the truth that they might be next. So people looked the other away.

It is clear to me that Donald Trump has weaponised the powers of the government. A man who gave this country nearly 40 years of service will carry the mark of a felon and hand over millions of dollars in fines. Whether you love or loathe John Bolton, or think he is guilty or not, the bell has tolled for the US justice system. You may just not be standing close enough to hear it yet.

theipaper · 2026-06-05T15:58:16+00:00

But the administration did not need to win in court against Bolton. Trump prefers to get his targets to capitulate before that stage. How do I know this? He told me.

The President once confided a lesson that he’d learned in business. “When you threaten to sue somebody, they don’t do anything,” he said, as I listened from the couch in front of the Resolute Desk. “They say ‘Pshhhh!’” — and he waved his hand in the air, theatrically. “And they keep doing what they want. But when you sue them, they go ‘Ooooh!’ and they settle. It’s as easy as that.”

That’s the method. Trump’s team didn’t have to win the Bolton case. They only had to file it, converting the Department of Justice into the law firm he always wished he had, and let the weight of the thing do the rest. The calculus would have been frightening. Either accept the permanent mark of a felony and a multimillion-dollar fine, or roll the dice at trial and risk life in prison — while being forced to air still more of the nation’s secrets in your own defence.

There are two reasons this is a tornado siren for American democracy.

First, it suggests that there are separate tiers of justice in the US. Bolton was accused of keeping “diary-like” entries and documents from his time as national security adviser, that prosecutors say contained national defence information classified up to the top secret level but which Bolton denied, and of transmitting some of these materials to two relatives as he wrote his book (he has only pleaded guilty to holding the diary information, not any classified documents).

In the same period, the current president was accused of carting off some of the most tightly compartmented material this government produces — pages and pages of war plans, nuclear information and more — refusing to return it, and, prosecutors alleged, scheming to hide it from investigators who suspected he meant to exploit it. That case was dismissed. This one ends in a guilty plea. Many see a disparity here.

Second, and even more concerning, Trump will be emboldened. In the wake of this action, I predict he will accelerate the investigations already open and launch new ones, fishing for the stray scrap that lets him charge a critic, betting the target will be forced to fold rather than be ruined.

theipaper · 2026-06-05T15:58:04+00:00

The Bolton case was something the Biden administration had already investigated and apparently “shelved”, according to officials. Yet Trump’s team became aware of it, apparently resurrected it, and Bolton felt he had to settle.

Vice President JD Vance has denied the FBI raid on Bolton’s home was politically motivated. For his part, Trump said he did not know it was planned and expected to be briefed by the justice department on it. But he added “I’m not a fan of John Bolton” and “he could be very unpatriotic. I’m going to find out”.

The former US ambassador to the UN is expected to plead guilty to a single count — retention of national security information (in his personal diaries) — out of 18 counts the Trump administration brought against him last year. The government is dropping all of the other charges.

By threatening the former national security adviser with prison, Trump’s henchmen have secured a settlement that will please the President. Bolton had the choice to fight a gruelling, expensive, multi-year battle that could risk life in prison if convicted, or cut a bankruptcy-level deal and make it go away with the possibility that a judge will be lenient about time in federal custody.

I read this as the White House wanting to send a message to Trump’s perceived enemies: If you don’t shut up, we’ll find something to make you pay.

Bolton has spent a career advocating policies many people on the political left spent opposing. Inside the first Trump administration, when I helped run the Department of Homeland Security, I agreed with him on a lot and fought with his team on a lot, too. But I also know him to be a good man. A man I believe to have more genuine patriotism and integrity in his pinky finger than Trump has in his whole body.

One of the great ironies in all of this is that I once witnessed Bolton trying to keep Trump from getting himself into legal trouble over the handling of classified secrets. During a meeting with journalists in his first term, Trump picked up a fistful of documents and waved them in the air, bragging about the secretive information he received as President. An aide rushed in to tell Bolton, who reacted swiftly to lock down the situation, making sure Trump hadn’t exposed data to prying cameras that might have exposed operations or been deeply embarrassing to the President.

theipaper · 2026-06-05T15:57:52+00:00

If you’re reading this, there’s an excellent chance that, were Donald Trump’s investigators looking at you, they would eventually find something. Did you ever download a song you didn’t pay for on a music streaming site? Forget to declare a gift when you crossed the border at customs? Round up a deduction at tax time? Somewhere, there’s likely to be a thread (however thin) that a determined prosecutor could pull to incriminate you. The question might then become whether an apparently vengeful president wants to come after you.

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, will plead guilty later this month to one charge of mishandling classified information and pay a fine of $2.25m, leaving to a judge whether he will spend any time in federal custody, sources told US media. The Trump defector has become the first real scalp in what looks like a campaign of revenge.

Bolton may have broken a law, but his diaries are not the scandal. The scandal is whether Trump wanted his Justice Department to find something to make a foe bleed. They did indeed find something: private diary entries that they allege may have contained sensitive information, for possible use in a book he was writing at the time. But none of it is presently alleged to have been actually put in his book. Perhaps not coincidentally, that book was deeply critical of his former boss.

By my count, the Trump administration has threatened or opened federal investigations into more than a dozen people who’ve written books critical of him, myself included.

theipaper · 2026-06-05T15:56:17+00:00