News and Opinion

The attorney general must apologise after defending Boris Johnson’s most senior aide’s trip to Durham, the shadow home secretary has said. Nick Thomas-Symonds called on Suella Braverman to apologise for her intervention in the case surrounding the Cummings, suggesting her actions undermined the legal independence of her office. In a tweet on Saturday, Braverman said: […]

A minister has been branded ‘out of her depth’ after she tried to explain the rules on self-isolation in the context of Dominic Cummings’ trip to Durham. Health and social care minister Helen Whately appeared on Question Time to explain the rules of the lockdown, after Boris Johnson’s senior aide took a 260-mile trip to […]

Think you know Europe? Take our latest lockdown quiz As a New European reader, you probably reckon you know the continent inside out. Test yourself with our fiendish quiz…

With the European Union suggesting it is open to a two-year extension to the Brexit transition period, the government is set to be pressured in the coming weeks and months to take up the offer. The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator earlier this week said: ‘Such an extension of up to one or two years can […]

Boris Johnson said that he intends to ‘draw a line’ under the Dominic Cummings controversy and said he would not allow advisors Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance to answer questions on the row to ‘protect them’ from a ‘political argument’. He told a Downing Street conference: ‘I’ve said quite a lot on this […]

STEVE ANGLESEY reports on another Brexiteer that doesn’t think the rules apply to her. ANN WIDDECOMBE The former Brexit Party MEP, 72, told Daily Express readers they should ignore the government’s lockdown rules. She wrote: ‘What we need is a simple message, advising us all, young and old alike, to use our common sense and […]

Police have found enough evidence to suggest Dominic Cummings did break lockdown rules, but lawyers say it’s for a court to decide. Regarding a trip to Barnard Castle from a property on his father’s farm, Durham Constabulary said it had concluded ‘there might have been a minor breach of the regulations that would have warranted […]

In the country where the world’s first savings bank was founded, being frugal is a national virtue. Delayed gratification, fiscal discipline and stashing away your cash are part of Germany’s cultural DNA. And that attitude goes right to the top. For years, German leadership has staunchly resisted any pan-European plan that meant their own thrifty […]

WILL SELF on the cultural significance of Rick and Morty Rick and Morty is an American cartoon comedy show that has its origins in a spoof of Back to the Future. The eponymous characters are an inventor grandfather and his sidekick grandson, who, using a ‘portal gun’ travel through multiple universes engaging in adventures at […]

Opposition parties have said that Boris Johnson’s senior aide Dominic Cummings must go after his position became ‘completely untenable’ following a report from Durham Police. SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford told Boris Johnson in a cross-party meeting he should remove his aide from post, saying his position is ‘completely untenable’. ‘I told the prime minister […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the gradual spread of a language, the echoes of which are still heard in English today. Four and a half thousand years ago there was no such language as English. There would be no such language for another 3,000 years. But a language did exist which eventually became English, though you would […]

Cabinet minister Michael Gove has said the government will consider slapping tariffs on EU goods as a form of ‘economic rational’ to stop a trade deficit with the bloc after Brexit. Gove and chief Brexit negotiator David Frost told a Lords EU committee that the UK would put tariffs on EU products entering the country. […]

TIM WALKER recounts meeting Dame Vera Lynn, the singer of we’ll meet again. When it was said how wonderfully the Queen had uttered the words ‘we’ll meet again’ in her recent address to the nation, one woman would have had every reason to take umbrage. Dame Vera Lynn made them her own in innumerable concerts […]

MITCH BENN on the Durham dash that has everybody talking. So anyway, one day I woke up and thought do you know, I’m feeling a bit wobbly; in fact I’m not sure my sense of balance is everything it should be. Rather than take any chances, I decided to test just how good my sense […]

Xi Jinping is a man in a hurry. He is 66 next month and wants as his legacy to leave China as a rising power, ready to overtake the United States as the dominant economic and, soon, military force on earth. Other rising powers – Britain in the 19th century, the United States in 
the […]

The broadcaster and traitor – captured 75 years ago – exerted a mesmerising influence over his willing audience, says RICHARD LUCK. William Joyce aka Lord Haw-Haw, Nazi radio propagandist. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images) – Credit: Corbis via Getty Images ‘Germany calling, Germany calling’ – even today, those words can send a shiver […]

Britain’s rail industry will not return from lockdown in the same shape in which it went in. Researchers MARCUS MAYERS and DAVID BAMFORD say the changes forced on it could provide opportunities. Quietly, outside of the public gaze, a revolution has started on Britain’s railways. On March 23, Covid-19 destroyed the railway industry as it […]

Hungary is becoming Europe’s rogue state, says PAUL KNOTT. With the coronavirus accelerating the process, it is past time for the EU to act decisively on the issue It sounds wrong for a self-proclaimed defender of Christian values to take money away from the city of Göd. But Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is too […]

A Brexiteer has said that he would not appear on the BBC’s Newsnight with Emily Maitlis because he said she was guilty of intimidating behaviour which ‘would not be tolerated in any normal workplace’. Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski said he believed the presenter was ‘confrontational to point of intimidation’. His comments were made after Newsnight […]

MICHAEL WHITE on a revealing scandal and an even more alarming backdrop. Lynch mobs are always repellent, even when they’re keen to lynch the blameworthy Brexit mastermind. So I was not too upset last weekend to be accused of ‘backing Cummings’ after mildly suggesting to angry Twitteratti that it might be best to wait until […]

Footage has re-emerged of Matt Hancock ‘sighing’ when he was questioned for his views on Boris Johnson. The video, which shows The New European’s editor-at-large with Hancock, was posted by on Twitter with the comment: ‘They say a week is a long time in politics. Look at the difference a year and a half can […]

The resignation of Dominic Cummings could mean that Brexit comes back into play, says ANDREW ADONIS. The poignant bit of Dominic Cummings’s Rose Garden press conference was when he said he needed to drive 250 miles into the middle of nowhere in order to escape the public anger. The Special One is reaping what he […]

JASON WALSH reports on how countries across Europe are taking their first tentative – and tense – steps out of the shadow of coronavirus. EU politics appears to be working again. After a chaotic start, with countries fighting over vital supplies of protective equipment, somehow French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel hammered […]

However the scandal ends, the harm already done by the great disrupter is irreversible, says JAMES BALL. If the Conservative Party had ever been given time to decide whether Dominic Cummings should be essential to their success, they would surely have rejected him. He has never been ‘one of us’, has never shared their style, […]

A deal between the European Union and the British government is unlikely to be struck until the autumn, the BBC’s Europe editor has claimed. In a case of déjà vu for politics, there may only be a breakthrough in the Brexit process later this year, much like when compromise was reached with the Withdrawal Agreement […]

Who is on the BBC Question Time panel tonight? Here’s your full guide Tonight’s Question Time comes virtually from Glasgow, with audience members submitting questions from the Dear Green Place via video. But who’s on the panel? Here’s your complete guide… Helen Whately Who? Junior health minister Former deputy chair of the Conservative Party, Whately […]

A petition calling for Dominic Cummings’ departure after it emerged he violated lockdown guidelines has gathered almost a million signatures. Cummings is accused of flouting lockdown rules when he had travelled 270 miles to Durham from London to seek childcare support while he and his wife were ill with coronavirus. Despite a growing number of […]

Health secretary Matt Hancock has been criticised for laughing at questions about the government’s track and trace scheme on live television. Hancock appeared on Sky News with Kay Burley when he laughed at accusations the government had rushed its rollout of the track and trace scheme to deflect attention from Dominic Cummings. Hancock, who started […]