News and Opinion

An artist has created a huge tribute to the heroes of the NHS in a West Yorkshire field. A field art piece celebrating the NHS created by Jamie Wardley of Sand In Your Eye in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire. Photograph: Sand In Your Eye/PA Wire . – Credit: PA The 100m-wide (328ft) NHS logo, filled with […]

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The case for a broad political alliance holding the government to account is once again needed more than ever. Keir Starmer’s refocusing of Labour priorities is welcome. Less welcome is the postponement of the Liberal Democrat leadership election until the Covid-19 virus is under control. The Brexit debacle saw unprecedented cooperation between principled MPs of […]

The Covid-19 pandemic has amplified orientalist, anti-Asian sentiment in the West. HOLLY BARROW calls for those in the UK and US to look closer to home before attributing blame on other countries. A Chinese tourist wears a protective mask as she visit the almost empty Badaling Great Wall in Beijing, China. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty […]

The chair of European Movement has called on Labour’s Lisa Nandy to work with them to pressure the government into negotiating a two-year Brexit transition extension. Highlighting a clause within the Withdrawal Agreement, the pro-EU group’s chair Stephen Dorrell encouraged the newly-appointed shadow foreign secretary to stick with her previous comments and push Boris Johnson […]

Senior Tory ministers may be plotting to withdraw Priti Patel’s controversial immigration bill when parliament reconvenes next week. The bill, which is still scheduled for a ‘virtual’ second reading when parliament resumes on April 21, could be scuppered because of the coronavirus. Ministers have told POLITICO that introducing the contentious bill during the current epidemic […]

TIM WALKER recounts interviewing American actress Lauren Bacall, whose life remained shaped by Humphrey Bogart even after his death. Lauren Bacall’s publicist was adamant that the star would talk to me about any subject under the sun, except her first husband, Humphrey Bogart. ‘She feels she’s talked about him quite enough,’ he said. ‘So I’d […]

MITCH BENN issues a musical call-to-arms to a country under the coronavirus curfew. Mitch Benn’s song and video urged people to stay in during coronavirus. Picture: Contributed – Credit: Archant On the one hand, envisaging into what sort of post-Covid world we might one day emerge, fat and blinking, seems like the most exquisite form […]

Roger Domeneghetti on the 60th birthday of the boot that has left more of a footprint on Britain than any other It was in April 1960 that Brits first started sliding into their DMs. In 60 years since, the Dr. Martens boot has stomped its way off the factory floor, across football terraces onto catwalks […]

Blaise Baquiche explains how he has been able to regain EU citizenship via some very deep family roots After two years, £1,000 and zero lawyers I have officially become a Portuguese citizen. As a Remainer, previously jealous of my counterparts I was leaving behind in the rest of the EU after Brexit, I couldn’t be […]

Downing Street has rebuffed an appeal by the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to consider an extension to the Brexit transition period due to the coronavirus outbreak. Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the global financial watchdog, urged the UK and the EU not to add to the global ‘uncertainty’ caused by the Covid-19 […]

Health secretary Matt Hancock has blasted a radio presenter for interrupting him mid-speech. Today show presenter Nick Robinson asked Hancock why the government was not putting more effort behind combatting the coronavirus as it did with Brexit following criticism from key scientific advisors. Hancock snapped and said: ‘The thing is this Nick, and this is […]

There has been confusion in Yorkshire after a Brexiteer appeared to hire a plane to fly over Leeds and the surrounding areas with a warning for Boris Johnson over Brexit. A Leaver, going by the name of Roger, appeared so angered by talk of a possible delay to the end of the Brexit transition period […]

Who is on Question Time tonight? Here’s your guide Tonight’s audience-free Question Time virtually comes from Wolverhampton – in that they won’t actually be in the West Midlands city, but have sought out video questions from its inhabitants. But who’s on the panel? Here’s your complete guide… Robert Buckland Who? Justice secretary Mid-ranking Cabinet minister […]

The date has been set for Boris Johnson to return to work after a period of rest following his battle with the coronavirus. The FT reports that ministers are expecting the return of their leader on May 7, coinciding with announcements of an easing of lockdown restrictions ahead of the May 8 bank holiday and […]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged the British government to ask for a longer Brexit transition period due to the impact that the coronavirus is having on the government. Kristalina Georgieva, head of the IMF, warned that ‘it is tough as it is. Let’s not make it any tougher. She said: ‘I really hope […]

MIKE GALSWORTHY considers how the NHS and science communities will be transformed by the coronavirus. The current crisis has propelled the two areas I love, and have been campaigning on, into the spotlight: the NHS and British science. The SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus, a tiny prickly sphere just 120 nanometres wide, has shaken an entire globe 12,742 […]

We have to try to find a language for us all in this alien world, says BONNIE GREER. Connection during coronavirus: Hackney Carers Collective have been streaming dance classes on Zoom to help carers over 50 keep connected during the lockdown. Picture: Anne-Marie Payne – Credit: Anne-Marie Payne Something new and something very old… coronavirus […]

The Department of Health and Social Care has defended its decision to issue badges for care workers despite undersupplying the sector with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and Coronavirus testing kits. Health Secretary Matt Hancock during a media briefing in Downing Street, London, on coronavirus (COVID-19). PA Photo. – Credit: PA Social care staff will now […]

As the first flights of 180 Romanian workers arrives in the UK to help pick fruit and vegetables, one leading voice in the horticulture sector has said the demand will continue to grow. Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association, was speaking after reports of Romanian workers were being urgently flown in as […]

The economic response to the 2008 financial crisis prioritised finances over people. This time, says FRANCES COPPOLA, it must be different. ‘May you live in interesting times,’ says an apocryphal Chinese curse. For what is going on today, ‘interesting’ is an understatement. Governments around the world are deliberately shutting down their economies to prevent a […]

This terrible crisis can still become a catalyst for long overdue changes to the country, says JOHN KAMPFNER. Britain may ultimately emerge strengthened from Coronavirus. With so much suffering, so many deaths and with so much of the economy about to go to the wall, that might seem a bizarre, indeed insensitive, prediction. It comes […]

ANDREW ADONIS on his experience of an earlier accident-turned-scandal in China and its echoes in the coronavirus crisis. This is China’s Chernobyl: the moment a local health crisis became a global pandemic and the secretive, brutal dictatorship which allowed it to happen became the world’s most serious problem state. The Covid-19 outbreak last December in […]

Health secretary Matt Hancock has ruled out taking a pay cut, despite calling for footballers to have their pay docked, so that everyone ‘does their bit’. Hancock was questioned by Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan after New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced that she would be taking a 20% pay cut along with her […]

Fears about climate change are translating into serious political gains for Green parties in German-speaking countries. PAUL KNOTT reports from the region where the environmental movement is having its biggest impact Have your say Send your letters for publication to The New European by emailing letters@theneweuropean.co.uk and pick up an edition each Thursday for more […]

STEVE ANGLESEY remembers the time he hired David Icke… before having to let him go Both St Jerome and Morrissey agree that the devil finds work for idle hands. So, just as a bored schoolboy on a long summer’s day might poke a stick into a dead bird to see what happens, it was almost […]

As countries consider how to restart their virus-halted economies, early experiences in parts of Europe and China show it will be no easy task. Workers back on the job are wary of spending much or going out; shoppers are staying away from the few reopened shops; masks and social distancing measures are not fading; and […]

More than seven in 10 healthcare workers do not think the government has done enough to protect them from coronavirus. A poll of almost 1,000 workers – including nurses, midwives, doctors, allied health professionals and managers – found 72% claim the government has not done enough to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing. The […]