News and Opinion

The artist’s recent artwork for London Underground didn’t seem to quite hit the mark. But a new exhibition and book shows his energy and love for life remain undimmed Air travel stopped, and so did the hum of traffic: as humanity fell silent last year, the natural world took centre stage in an exuberant display of […]

Downing Street has confirmed plans to charge EU citizens and other foreign nationals to visit the UK. Home secretary Priti Patel said Monday that her department would legislation to introduce a new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), which she argued would help the government keep track of people entering and leaving the UK. ETAs will apply […]

Readers praise the former House of Commons speaker's column for The New European.

TIM WALKER remembers a meeting with a particularly pensive Rowan Atkinson I met Rowan Atkinson on an autumn day in 1988 that, he informed me, was the 10th anniversary of the start of his career in show business. Up until that point, his credits included the ground-breaking satirical television series Not the Nine 0’Cock News, Blackadder and its […]

Boris Johnson did not miss emergency meetings on the response to the emerging coronavirus pandemic because he was working on a book, Downing Street has insisted. The prime minister’s official spokesman said he was “not aware” of Johnson doing any work on a biography of William Shakespeare while in office. Johnson did not chair the […]

MPs are set to examine the effectiveness of the Electoral Commission at the time of the Brexit and Scottish independence referendums.  The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) will be hearing from senior officials of both campaigns on the Commission’s role of enforcing compliance with rules governing spending and donations during both votes. The meeting on Tuesday comes […]

The FA Cup holds an almost mystical appeal in south-east Asia. Now a Thai family have rewritten its history, as well as the destiny of unfashionable Leicester City If you ever spent time in South East Asia in the month of May you would know that there was one match that had almost mystical appeal. […]

Labour has warned Liz Truss against signing a post-Brexit trade deal with Australia before there is sufficient parliamentary scrutiny. Shadow international trade secretary Emily Thornberry urged the trade minister to come to parliament to face questions about the offer she has made to Australia and what it will mean for farmers. “The first proper debate […]

An alliance of councillors could form to take control of Durham County Council off Labour for the first time in more than 100 years, it has emerged. Independents, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are holding meetings to discuss how they would share power in what was once a stronghold of the Labour party. Labour has 53 […]

Keir Starmer is under pressure from within his own party to make electoral reform a manifesto commitment following four consecutive general election losses and the recent local election setbacks. The pressure comes after a recent Best for Britain poll had shown at least half of its respondents backed electoral reform to make the number of elected representatives […]

Liz Truss has called on the EU to scrap “border control and paperwork” on Irish Sea trade, setting up a clash with Brussels over the Northern Ireland Protocol. Asked if the government’s aim is to remove all red tape – despite those checks being agreed by Boris Johnson in his Brexit deal – the trade […]

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has said the BBC must project “British values” or face losing its licence fee. Dowden also accused the BBC of adopting a “we know best” attitude following the scandal surrounding its Panorama interview with Princess Diana. In his first detailed response since the report from Lord Dyson was released, Dowden said […]

A senior SNP politician has apologised after claiming that Scotland “hates the UK” after the final vote of the Eurovision song contest saw it come last with nil points. James Newman’s Embers, the track from the British hopeful, was the only contestant to scored zero points from the jury vote and from the public vote. […]

Home secretary Priti Patel is vowing wholesale reform of the UK’s “broken” immigration system as she unveils plans for a “fully digital border” within five years. Patel is set to promise to deliver a system that works for the “law-abiding majority” and against those who seek to “abuse our hospitality and generous spirit”. She will […]

Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds are to “celebrate their wedding” in summer next year, it has been reported. The couple have sent save-the-date cards to family and friends for an event on Saturday, July 30 2022, according to the Sun. The paper said details of where they will marry remained a secret. Downing Street […]

The challenge of funding and providing social care is not unique to the UK. So what can we learn from other countries?

Why did Britain fall out of love with speedway, and how did Poland take over as the sport’s new spiritual home? Not so long ago, the start of the British speedway season would have been big news. That wasn’t the case this week, when the first of this year’s Covid-delayed league fixtures took place. Speedway was, at one […]

Keir Starmer should reinstate Jeremy Corbyn as a parliamentary Labour MP, former shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said. Former Labour leader Corbyn had the party whip withdrawn in October following his response to an Equality and Human Rights Commission report into anti-Semitism in the party. But McDonnell said allowing him back into the Parliamentary Labour […]

Keir Starmer has spoken for the first time about the tragedy of losing his mother before she was able to see him become an MP. Speaking to Piers Morgan for an upcoming episode of ITV’s Life Stories programme, the Labour leader revealed the pain of watching his mother Jo’s health deteriorate as he closed in […]

Home secretary Priti Patel has denied a claim by Dominic Cummings that the government’s original response to the coronavirus outbreak was to pursue a strategy of “herd immunity”. In a series of explosive tweets, the prime minister’s former top adviser said the policy – to build up resistance in the population by allowing some spread […]

The sister of murdered MP Jo Cox has been chosen by Labour to fight the Batley and Spen by-election. Following a meeting of the local constituency Labour Party, Kim Leadbeater said she was “overwhelmed and humbled” by the support she had received from party members in the seat her sister used to represent. Her selection […]

Restrictions might be easing and art galleries opening their doors again, but are virtual visits now here to stay?  So here I am in the National Gallery relishing the pulsating drama of Rembrandt’s Belshazzar’s Feast. By my side, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, director of the gallery, no less, is enthusing about the “huge emotional punch” of the painting which […]

Often seen as serious to the point of greyness, former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has surprised many with his incendiary comments on immigration. So what lies behind them? He seemed to be everything Brexiteers disliked about the EU. A serious-minded bureaucrat steeped in the smooth workings of Europe’s capitals and chancelleries and adept at relentlessly channelling the orthodoxies of […]

Transport for London has retired its fleet of classic Routemaster buses, which has been running on the number 15 route, the capital’s last running heritage service. So, farewell then to the Routemaster bus – and while I fully appreciate that those of my readers who live elsewhere than the corporate death star formerly known as […]

Protests, polemic and polls show how Islamists and the far right are targeting Jews and attempting to rewrite the painful past “Our parents kept the suitcases packed, ready to leave any moment,” a friend wrote after I asked how she was coping with the anti-Semitic protests in Berlin. “Our generation of German Jews had long since stowed the […]

From his royal faux pas to his fury over the Queen’s Speech, our editor-at-large Alastair Campbell on his week as a guest host on Good Morning Britain The first thing ITV sent me, shortly after I agreed to guest present Good Morning Britain last week, was the Ofcom list of words you’re not allowed to […]

The song contest is just first of a series of events that highlight the tension between a desire to open up societies and the need to remain vigilant against the virus Never far from scandal, one of the greatest controversy’s surrounding this year’s Eurovision Song Contest is the fact that it is being held at […]

The government will look at whether reforms of BBC governance are required in the wake of Lord Dyson’s “damning” report on the 1995 Panorama Diana interview, ministers have said. Lord Dyson’s findings that the broadcaster covered up the “deceitful behaviour” of journalist Martin Bashir in the handling of his interview with Diana, Princess of Wales […]