News and Opinion

Legal campaigners are taking the government to court contending the £4.8billion Levelling Up Fund is unlawful as 40 out of 45 scheme to be approved had at least one Tory MP. The Good Law Project claim Rishi Sunak and Robert Jenrick’s constituencies are among the areas to have benefitted from that a funding formula that […]

A group of Scottish Tories who want Scotland to have access to the EU single market are urging voters at the Holyrood election to cast their second vote for Alex Salmond’s Alba Party. Scottish Yes Tories say around 15% of their members voted Yes in 2014 – a number they say has been steadily growing since the […]

Boris Johnson’s former deputy at the Foreign Office has claimed the prime minister is an “embarrassing buffoon” in a new book. Sir Alan Duncan, who was MP for Rutland and Melton from 1992 until the last election and who served on the Conservative front bench over a period of 18 years, also criticises former PMs […]

Public health budgets are effectively being cut or frozen in a host of areas where Covid-19 case rates are higher than the national average, according to Labour. The party said new pressure on public health spending, which has impacted 2021/22 budgets, will hit efforts to tackle the pandemic, especially in “red wall” areas of traditional […]

Boris Johnson faces a substantial Commons revolt over plans to use a vaccine passport scheme in pubs and restaurants. Cabinet minister Michael Gove is said to have promised MPs a vote on the use of “Covid status certificates”, raising the prospect of defeat in the Commons. The idea would allow people to provide proof of […]

While wealthier newspapers with larger readerships bowed the knee to the prime minister, this proud regional broadsheet refused to toe the line. Few in academia will profess ignorance of “no-platforming”. This expression of ideological zealotry seeks to restrict debate to orthodoxies with which its supporters sympathise. It restricts freedom of speech upon which, since the […]

Labour has accused Boris Johnson of using the latest coronavirus press briefing to make “another unprompted political attack” on London mayor Sadiq Khan. Boris Johnson accused his successor at City Hall of “blowing” Transport for London’s (TfL) finances through an “irresponsible fares policy” after declaring that he had left them in “robust good order”. But […]

Labour must be ready to fight a general election in as little as two years, Sir Keir Starmer has warned as he promised bold action to “get Britain working again”. Sir Keir, who marks the first anniversary of his election as party leader, said Labour’s ambition “must match the moment” with a plan to build […]

Violence has broken out on the streets of Northern Ireland again, despite appeals for calm. A car was set alight in Sperrin Park in the Waterside area of Londonderry, while there were also reports of violent incidents in Carrickfergus, near Belfast on Monday night. Both locations have been the scene of violence and unrest among […]

FLORENCE HALLETT on two new books that offer a corrective to the much mythologised early biography of Francis Bacon, and place him at the heart of the European artistic tradition. At some point in 1944, Kenneth Clark, director of the National Gallery and chairman of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, walked into Francis Bacon’s South Kensington studio. The […]

Test your general knowledge with The New European’s Easter quiz. How many will you get out of 10?

TOM CHESSHYRE on tantalising plans to reboot Europe’s legendary rail service for the modern, post-pandemic age. Kraftwerk’s 1977 song Trans Europe Express, inspired by the first-class only rail service of the same name that ran between 130 cities in Europe between 1957 and 1995, is not known for its scintillating lyrics. To a clickety-clack drumbeat – evocative […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a brilliant writer whose recently rediscovered story of a Jew forced to become a fugitive of the Nazis has echoes of his own itinerant, tragic life. When 27-year-old Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz leaned on the deck rail and watched the sun set over the Atlantic on October 29, 1942, he felt his wanderings […]

A recent decision to remake The King and I musical is a striking one, given the production’s politically incorrect undertones and unpopularity in Thailand. Just in time for the 70th anniversary of the Broadway premiere of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I later this month, Paramount Pictures revealed it had purchased the rights to create a […]

A tale familiar to generations of schoolchildren, the savage killing of Thomas Becket, and its depiction in a Canterbury Cathedral window is now the focus of a new British Museum exhibition. For several hours after his assassination the body of Thomas Becket was left where it had fallen on the floor of Canterbury Cathedral choir, his […]

No country in the world is having a good time right now. But – coronavirus aside – why does Finland keep topping the international happiness charts? According to the old Nordic joke, a Swede goes into a bar in Helsinki. The chirpy Swede takes his drink and says “cheers” to the Finn on the barstool […]

His Church is assailed on all sides, its role in the modern world in question like never before. Is Pope Francis the man to meet the challenge? The central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica was empty, there were no crowds in the square below. Instead, beneath the vast cavernousness of the basilica itself, a lone […]

Starting last spring, the pandemic has generated a passion for wildlife in many. A year on, as an easing of restrictions and return to normality finally nears, we must not lose the connection we’ve made with nature. It was the loveliest spring in living memory. Or perhaps it just seemed that way, because so many people actually noticed it. I mean, really noticed […]

The same factors that led up to his incursion into Ukraine are in place again, including domestic protests, a struggling economy and a desire for glory. So are the likes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania next on the Russian leader’s list? A trained KGB agent, Vladimir Putin knows how to hide his feelings, but in […]

Tony Blair has said he did not enjoy being the UK prime minister due to the huge responsibility it entailed. Blair, who was prime minister between 1997 and 2007, also said it was “crazy” that the experience required for the role is so “nugatory”. The comments were made during an interview with BBC Radio 4 […]

Test your political knowledge with The New European’s Easter politics quiz. How many will you get out of 10?

The chairman of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities has defended it against accusations of putting a “positive spin on slavery and empire”, saying that to suggest it was “trying to downplay the evil of the slave trade” is “absurd”. The commission’s report into racial disparities in Britain, published on Wednesday, was hit by […]

If our letters page is anything to go by, The New European’s readers are no fans of First Past The Post. But what exactly is the best way to ‘make every vote count’? MICK O’HARE considers the options. December 2019’s general election suggested that voters wanted an opportunity to think again about Brexit. Parties advocating […]

Dominic Raab has been accused of breaking the law over his decision not to offer MPs a vote on shrinking the UK’s aid budget. A group of 28 MPs from seven different political parties wrote to Raab claiming his plans to abandon the 0.7% of GDP spend on aid would break a law instituted by David Cameron, […]

Covid-19 has overshadowed the splits over Brexit that dominated the last general election Boris Johnson was only three months on from his December 2019 election win when a pandemic was declared. The world has changed entirely since then, and the UK has suffered enormously. More than 125,000 people have died of COVID-19. Per capita, this […]

Scotland’s departure from the United Kingdom would lead to more of the politics pro-Europeans have fought against. Douglas Alexander’s excellent article seems to have stirred up some nationalist reaction in your letters page but none seems to answer the fundamental question raised, which is that if you think Brexit is a mistake, then why on […]

Britons are being accused of ‘ignoring’ new rules to leave Spain after legislation was passed that would mean those choosing to live “under the radar” could face deportation or fines. The British community in Spain are allegedly “burying their heads in the sand” over new Brexit rules on residency that come into effect this week. It comes as […]

A vaccine ban would essentially get Boris Johnson off the hook over coronavirus and Brexit.  Last week’s letters were full of debate about vaccine rates, but one thing is certain: if the EU does go ahead with its proposed vaccine export ban, it will essentially get Boris Johnson off the hook for both coronavirus and […]