The News You Need on Monday, June 22,2026
Democracy in Decline in Britain, Capitalism for Cuba? Olmert on Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank and Stevie Wonder,as always, for the Win.
In Britain, Game of Thrones Resumes
The Guardian
Scott: The two model democracies of the Anglo-Saxon world are busy demonstrating their profound flaws to a global audience. In the US, an octogenarian mentally ill incompetent has accretted more power than any president before him and proven that the US constitutional system affords no sensible path for removing him from power. Whereas in Britain, a stream of perfectly competent political leaders, including Theresa May, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, are forced from power through political machinations worthy of Macbeth, fomented and promoted by Britain’s reckless tabloid newssphere. What both systems have in common, to their great peril, is the unseen hand of Rupert Murdoch, who profits directly from all he orchestrates.
David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and now… Andy Burnham? Seven prime ministers in a single decade. A sign of severe government dysfunction, as Great Britain impoverishes itself, now thankful for Mississippi, the only American state which is poorer still.
Keir Starmer is expected to announce a timetable for his departure on Monday morning, clearing the way for Andy Burnham to become prime minister without a formal contest by the autumn.
Cabinet ministers say Starmer will set out his intentions outside No 10 Downing Street, starting a process of the UK installing its seventh prime minister in a decade.
No 10 officials were still insisting Starmer stood by his pledge on Friday to fight an anticipated leadership challenge from Burnham, who returned to Westminster via an overwhelming win in the Makerfield byelection.
But with more than half a dozen cabinet ministers having privately told him his time is up – and the additional pressure of a hostile cabinet meeting on Tuesday – the prime minister spent the weekend at the Chequers country retreat finalising a likely exit plan.
While other options remained open, Starmer and his inner circle began work on drafts of a resignation speech on Saturday, with the most likely timetable involving him staying in office until the autumn, allowing a new leader to rally Labour troops at the party’s annual conference at the end of September.
It is understood he will do so without having had a discussion with Burnham about his plan since the Makerfield result.
Trump Corruption Watch
“This is arguably the biggest grift in modern history”
Charles: Fifty-eight people have made money on Trump’s meme coin and 764,000 have lost money on it. Three hundred million dollars have been made on trading fees alone.
NYU Business Professor Scott Galloway explains to Anderson Cooper why this could be the greatest grift ever: in one three-month period the Trump family has gained $1 billion every month.
The top buyers of these coins are foreigners. Galloway asks, if Putin wanted Trump to switch sides on the war in Ukraine, wouldn’t he “be stupid not to be driving up the value of the Trump coin?”
And on one April afternoon at 1PM there was huge abnormal trading on the stock market–and at 1:18 Trump announced he was pausing the tariffs, causing the market to surge. Which is just one of many, many similar market incidents.
Raulito’s Way
The National (Dubai)
Raulito Castro speaks to The National
Scott: The biggest “missed” story of the past week was an interview given by Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as Raulito, grandson of former president Raúl Castro Ruz and great nephew of Fidel, to the Dubai daily The National. The entire interview reads as a plea to the Trump administration, and a delineation of just how far the Cuban Communist Party elites are prepared to go to survive a Trump-Rubio onslaught, and that is quite far indeed… including a Deng Xiaoping-style opening of the door to capitalism. There is an unmistakable tone of desperation to all of this. On the other hand, a hint of cynicism: perhaps if we give Trump a casino and resort exclusive, we can just muddle through all this.
“Cuba does not represent the slightest threat to the interests and national security of the United States … We continue to offer that civilised relationship, that relationship of respect and equal footing,” he told The National…
“Since the very first days of the revolution, our historical leaders always projected, and made it known to the world and to the different governments of the United States, that Cuba and its revolutionary government have always been willing to maintain a cordial relationship,” he said. “Why shouldn’t it even be a normal and natural relationship? It has not been Cuba that has thwarted that desire.”
Cuba is at a pivotal moment. On Thursday, the ruling Communist Party approved an emergency economic package with unprecedented free-market measures, expanding private enterprise, municipal autonomy and foreign investment incentives.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel said the plan draws on China and Vietnam’s model of market-oriented reform under one-party rule. US Vice President JD Vance offered a wait-and-see response…
Raulito was careful to frame Cuba’s overtures as consistency, not concession. “We continue to believe that the path of dialogue is the one that brings us closer, not confrontation,” he said. “But those opportunities will never be based on conditioning, on impositions, and our people bowing to demands that will not be possible.”
He was equally candid about the conditions under which those conversations are taking place. “It is really difficult to sustain any type of conversation, discussion, negotiation or dialogue in a very hostile environment of coercive measures, threats and pretensions of conditioning and imposition,” he said.
