No one imagined that Romanian elections would become a big spectator sport, but they’ve really proved us wrong. Remember the TikTok Secret Police Election? Well now Romania is back with a sequel: Ethno-Nationalist Hooligan for President.

The question smart observers are asking is: why can the powers that be live with one, not the other? The smartest are keeping the answer to themselves.

Meanwhile, if you’re passing through Ben Gurion International Airport, hang onto your drink. You wouldn’t want a slice of Houthi rocket in your arak.

But bad news for the duty free counter is even worse news for the next twenty years in the global air defence industry.

Finally, the AfD has been officially designated as 'right-wing extremist' by Germany’s spy agency. It’s eyes down for a full ban. Who knows, one day, Germany could even aspire to the democratic standards of Romania?

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Three months ago, Pierre Poilievre was going to take 50 per cent of the total vote, a historic generational landslide. Now, he’s a pub trivia question. 

What happened in Canada? 

Did it warp beneath the enormous trade gravity of the Trump Presidency? 

And why did Canadians think that turning to a milquetoast former central banker would turn off the US electromagnet dismantling their country one bolt at a time? 

India and Pakistan are at it again. 

Early in the week, reports were of World War 3. Vishnu and Allah duking it out with nukes at the gates of hell. 

So far, it’s all sparks and no light, but this week’s rift shows how the region is both increasingly important and ever more a pawn of bigger powers. 

Finally, on Saturday Foreign Ministers from five central Asian countries met with China’s Wang Yi to talk over deepening trade ties.

It may seem like just a bunch of bros jawing over the agree-to-agree communiquê, but this is the dawning of the Middle Corridor. 

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Gold is going to the moooooooon. Fantastic news for gold bugs. Until someone works out that this is a short against America, and the Wall Street types celebrating are effectively blowing the kazoo for the end of their own industry. 

After all, if gold remains on the moon, they’ll have to figure out whether they still need financial services consultants in space. 

Meanwhile - it’s a day ending in Y so someone in the Pentagon must be plotting an attack on Iran. 

It seems incredibly illogical and stupid. Which makes it all the more probable, by Pentagon standards. 

Finally, China has raised tariffs on American goods to 125 %, restricted the supply of rare earth metals, stopped investment in US private equity, and cut off its natural gas terminals. 

Tit has given way to tat - we’ll be weighing up who has cut off more of their nose to spite their face.

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This week, in a special experiment, we've gone live on Twitter Spaces.

As Trump's tariffs bite, and the current account deficit zooms to the front of modern political economy, we're revisiting the idea of a new Bancor, a complete resetting of the global monetary system.

This week we scrubbed the decks and sounded the five bell alarm.

Donald Trump had only gone and done it. Tariffs. Thousands of them.

What could the greatest regression from the norms of globalisation since 1945 mean for a show called Multipolarity?

Even better: what would it mean for the world?

With the MAGA base both boisterous and uneasy in the face of this dawning reality, we wargamed out the answers.

Until, at 20:10 local time, news came of a stunning reversal...

Coming up this week: an audio essays special edition. 

Philip and Andrew, going head to head, a half hour each, on two big stories that have a more medium-term feel than the usual weekly news pegs. 

In the red corner, Mr Pilkington takes on the bear market. Is an icy wind coming for global stocks? How it could play out? From the bottoming out of NVIDA to the coming age of tariffs, what are the key triggers? 

Then, Andrew Collingwood will be taking on medium-term Europe. As the US shrinks from its hegemonic duties, will the EU seize the moment, to attempt to federalise through the stalking horse of re-armament? And given recent trends, could this laager mentality also come with a doubling-down on its own unique brand of autocracy?

Was the editor of the Atlantic actually accidentally included in some rangy groupchat among bros that included a denunciation of European defence policy? 

Are you stupid? Have you recently had an aneurysm?

Leaving aside this obvious straw dog, what is Washington actually signalling here? 

Meanwhile, the Chinese, Japanese and South Koreans are getting together to sign declarations of mutual support: pledging increased economic co-operation – and gently letting the whole Taiwan thing slide. 

When nations with rape slaves level of historical beef are making nice, you know something is shifting.

Finally, is Martin Bormann alive and well and living in Argentina? No. But as Milei’s government releases the papers on the Third Reich, the historical mythology of World War 2 is under attack as never before. 

What happens when the post-1945 world order has to deal with the messy reality of the pre-1945 world?   

All coming up this week, only for the people who pay. 

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The British right is starting to fracture on the Ukraine issue. Where once they would reliably be called upon to paint themselves blue and yellow and raise a whip-round down the dog & duck    for more MANPADS – now, as the endgame approaches, a group of the plugged-in are leaving the big tent. The civil war that follows may be its own Donbas. 

Meanwhile, further evidence is in that US firms are quietly reorienting their capital expenditure away from data centres and chips, and towards efficiency gains. Some say this is down to the DeepSeek effect. So will the hardware lite business model this implies end up driving a slow puncture into Silicon Valley?

Finally, have you heard of the Trump Put? A backstop against the crazy risks the Trump regime might be running. One that relies entirely on assuming that at some point the government intervenes to arrest a Wall Street bloodbath. It worked in the Greenspan era. But is this a bungee cord without a tether? 

Tesla is tanking. On the NASDAQ, the Magnificent 7 have become merely the 7. The talk is all of quarterly earnings in Musk towers. But is this just a smokescreen for the fact that DeepSeek has DeepFound Silicon Valley in DeepDooDoo?

Meanwhile, in Europe, the dream of rearmament is still alive and well. Two weeks in, we’ll have a report, direct from the frontlines of an unreachable fantasia.   

Finally, do Jihadis make good pets? For a few Washington and Brussels liberals, they have become the accessory du jour. But after the appalling scenes from Syria this week, well it turns out that befriending beheaders in flatbed trucks might not be such a good idea. More as we get it.

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As the world blows up, again, Andrew Collingwood has a dread cold.

Gavin Haynes fills in as best he can, with a soft Newcastle brogue.

We cover everything - from the rumble in the White House to the cultural amnesia coming up the pike.

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