News and Opinion

Britain needs its theatres back because Britain IS theatre – a country obsessed with role-playing When I stumbled on the English National Opera’s rendition of Handel’s Messiah recently and watched it for a while, I suddenly burst into tears. There, in the empty London Coliseum where the ENO were performing amidst the shadows of the empty […]

Bill Kenwright’s Love Letters and the National’s After Life have announced opening dates – but a full return for the London stage seems as far away as ever As a theatre critic, I am sometimes asked when am I going to start reviewing theatre again. It is not an unreasonable question, especially now that there appear […]

Will Self looks at the differences between the mourning for Princess Diana and Prince Philip – and the Vanuatu tribe who worshipped the Duke of Edinburgh To Buck House, to check out how the collective hysteria was manifesting itself in the wake of Phil the Greek’s demise. There were cut flowers lined up along barriers […]

Britain’s slack system for regulating politics is responsible for a devastating lack of public trust. If he were a more sympathetic figure, David Cameron would have a certain air of pathos about him – the longer he lives, the worse his reputation gets. Born to riches and elected to the highest office in the UK, everything since […]

The pandemic might finally be giving the party a purpose, but it will also highlight the tensions of its dual heritage of economic liberalism and social democracy For the first time since the last election the Liberal Democrats are getting some national attention. In his unqualified opposition to vaccine passports and some of the other pandemic constraints […]

Former Conservative politician Alan Duncan’s new memoir In The Thick Of It contains much criticism of Boris Johnson – but why didn’t he say this earlier? “NOW YOU TELL US” OF THE WEEK Former Conservative politician Alan Duncan, whose new memoir In The Thick Of It (can’t imagine where he came up with that title) […]

Misunderstood and mischaracterised by the rest of the UK, the plight of Northern Ireland’s Unionists, trapped between London and Dublin, is a melancholic one The Unionist identity in Northern Ireland has always been a difficult one for outsiders to understand. The stock images that travel so reliably abroad – of towering bonfires and Orangemen in bowler hats […]

Outgoing SNP MSP Alex Neil has urged his party to work with Alex Salmond’s Alba Party to achieve a “supermajority” of MSPs in Holyrood in support of independence. Neil, who served as a minister under Salmond, said in a statement on Friday that a supermajority is needed to “force Boris Johnson’s hand” on an independence […]

A BBC journalist says she is still “haunted” by complaints the broadcaster received claiming it had “built up” Nigel Farage and UKIP. According to The Times, Samira Ahmed recalled complaints received by Newswatch in the early 2010s. Speaking on her podcast How I Found My Voice, Ahmed said: “I’m haunted by that and I remember talking […]

In this second extract from his new book on fairness, BEN FENTON asks how it affects the way we see politics, and how societies have dealt with coronavirus. When did you last vote? At an election? For an MP? A mayor? A president? Perhaps in a referendum? Or did you fill in an online survey about […]

A very limited review has been set up to look into the Greensill lobbying affair – do not expect much from it. Alexander “Lex” Greensill, formerly of Morgan Stanley, is clearly a forceful and persuasive personality. The Autralian farmer-turned-financier was adviser to the government from 2012 to 2015, during which time, he appears to have […]

A German MEP has called on EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to “take full responsibility” and resign over the bloc’s “disastrous” coronavirus vaccine programme. Gunnar Back also praised the UK for taking “a different path” to Europe on its vaccine rollout. Beck, an EU lawyer and lecturer at the University of London, said: “She took […]

The European Commission has warned that the Northern Ireland Protocol in the Brexit divorce settlement remains the only way to prevent the return of a hard border with the Republic. Late-night talks between the commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic and Brexit minister Lord Frost aimed at resolving differences over the implementation of the protocol broke up […]

TIM WALKER on the travails facing the co-chairman of the Conservative Party. Boris Johnson may have appointed him as treasurer of his London mayoral campaign and later asked him to sort out the Tory party’s finances as its co-chair, but Ben Elliot, pictured, risks prosecution for failing to make the deadlines with the book-keeping at […]

The Welsh government is taking legal action against the UK government over its post-Brexit Internal Market Act which it says “severely curtails” the powers of the Senedd. Counsel general for Wales Jeremy Miles is trying to bring a full High Court challenge over the Act, which he argues could prevent the Senedd from making laws on […]

Boris Johnson has been urged to act after an Indian Covid variant with potentially harmful mutations was discovered in the UK. Scientists said the appearance of the ‘double mutant strain was a “disaster” and branded the prime minister “crazy” for still considering a trade trip to India later this month. Questions have been raised as […]

IAN DUNT on what the death of the Duke of Edinburgh tells us about our country. The royals help define an age. It doesn’t matter if you support the monarchy, couldn’t care less about it, or want to overthrow it. As long as they’re there, they become part of the country’s sense of self. They […]

A new survey suggests that 60% of Labour supporters across the UK back another independence referendum “in principle” in the next few years, and 56% think the party should too. The YouGov study, which spoke to 1,073 Labour members between March 17 and March 24, found that while supporters in the rest of the UK […]

The US has announced a raft of new sanction on Russia over their interference in the 2020 US presidential election. This comes as Britain accused Russia’s foreign intelligence agency of responsibility for a major cyberattack affecting thousands of organisations in the West. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it had been assessed that it […]

Talks have taken place about Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit arrangements amid warnings from MEPs the breakdown in trust could derail the trade agreement struck between the UK and European Union. Brexit minister Lord Frost and European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic discussed the problems around the Northern Ireland Protocol at a dinner in Brussels. The meeting came […]

Labour has accused Matt Hancock of committing “cronyism at the heart of government” after it was revealed he and his family own shares in a firm that was contracted by the NHS. Hancock declared in the Commons register of MPs’ interests that he now owns shares in Topwood Ltd, a waste disposal company owned by his sister […]

“How many divisions has the Pope?” sneered Stalin at Yalta in 1945 when asked to lessen persecution of Catholics in the USSR. Today that question is being asked around the world about Britain as the British Army is being reduced to its lowest numbers in 300 years.  The figure of 82,000 men currently in the […]

Nicola Sturgeon has said she has no plans to call a separate referendum on whether an independent Scotland should join the European Union. She said a “detailed prospectus” would be put to Scots ahead of any second independence referendum, and she claimed most people would want to be part of the EU again. She was […]

Further links have emerged between Whitehall and Greensill Capital, the collapsed lender that David Cameron lobbied for. David Brierwood combined a role as a crown representative in the Cabinet Office with being a director at Greensill for three and a half years. The Cabinet Office stressed that Brierwood’s role was nothing to do with supply […]

“The working class people I grew up with are voting Tory, and the trendy middle class professionals I work with in London are voting Labour. It’s all topsy-turvy.” I wish this was the warm-up to one of those long, rolling observational gags that have made Russell Kane one of the country’s most successful comedians. Sadly, […]

The German giant caught in one of industry's biggest-ever scandals, 'Dieselgate', is now making its play to dominate the world of electric cars

How did this Greek, Danish and German immigrant come to be lauded as the epitome of Britishness by many who most dislike immigration? Had home secretary Priti Patel been around a century ago, we’d never have heard of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.  His father, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, may have been a terrific […]

Peers have defeated the government in demanding help for an estimated 250,000 “mortgage prisoners”. The House of Lords backed by 273 votes to 235, majority 38, a change to the Financial Services Bill, which would require the regulator to introduce an interest rate cap for affected households. It would also ensure in some cases access […]