News and Opinion

TANIT KOCH on just how close the Green Party are to power in Germany… and how they could throw it all away. Remember the many Britons who got hold of an EU passport after the 2016 referendum via the odd Irish granny? You may be among them. If you could now make that work vice versa, there’s a huge […]

The life of Black Panthers leader Hampton is the subject of a new movie starring Daniel Kaluuya. Bonnie Greer remembers the Hampton she knew briefly You never really go back to your youth. You move on, things happen to you. But your youth is still there, on the edges, and as you get older it moves […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a place where music has articulated the angst of a colonised community, as well as addressed its more modern taboos. Greenland is a place where colonial history is lived every day. The world’s largest island, lying mostly within the Arctic Circle, it was settled by Norsemen as early as the year 1,000 […]

Ahead of a crucial vote on Europe at the Lib Dem’s spring conference, LAYLA MORAN outlines the party’s position on Brexit. I don’t think many Liberal Democrat members will easily forget the crushing disappointment we felt when we saw the results of the referendum. I am sure many of you, like me, shed a tear […]

In these exclusive extracts from his diaries, ALASTAIR CAMPBELL talks about the response to his evidence at the Leveson inquiry. Wednesday, December 14 I was thinking a lot about losing friendships, and it wasn’t sensible. Neil and Glenys [Kinnock] after the “We’ve got our party back” comment [following the 2010 Labour leadership contest]. Maybe I just needed to forget […]

As the pride of the British fleet prepares to sail to the South China Seas, MARK MARDELL offers a timely analysis of what ‘Global Britain’ might actually mean. There’s little that says ‘Global Britain’ so well as traveling halfway around the world to deliver the message “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!” The Royal […]

TIM WALKER on the tax implications for the prime minister’s controversial Downing Street makeover. Boris Johnson‘s cunning plan to have party donors fund the £200,000 refurbishment of the Downing Street flat he shares with Carrie Symonds could trigger a significant personal tax liability for him. By any reckoning, this amounts to a “gift” and the Ministerial Code […]

The outpouring of women’s testimony prompted by the murder of Sarah Everard must create change, or the fury will become just a fact of life.  Occasionally, an event in the world will bring such a keen sorrow that to let it pass without demanding change would feel like an act of desecration. Sarah Everard’s murder was one […]

Downing Street has sought to distance Boris Johnson from Jacob Rees-Mogg’s verbal attack on a journalist, but declined to issue an apology. No 10 said on Friday they were “not comments that the PM would’ve made,” but a spokesman chose not to rebuke the Commons leader. Rees-Mogg abused the HuffPost journalist after he published a […]

Sir Keir Starmer has accused Nicola Sturgeon of hypocrisy over her claims the Alex Salmond inquiry has been partisan in response to the leaked findings that she allegedly misled parliament. He also said that there “should be a resignation” is there is found to have been a breach. After the Holyrood inquiry into the government’s unlawful […]

Miranda Sawyer reveals the best listens from politics, sports, true crime and more

A pair of BBC presenters have come under fire by a government minister after mocking Tory colleagues for their use of the Union flag during interviews. BBC Breakfast hosts Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty laughed as they pointed out large flags have begun regularly appearing in the background of Zoom calls with the frontbenchers. It followed an […]

Sir Keir Starmer has “gone mad”, a Tory government minister has claimed. Conservative frontbencher Christopher Pincher said that the Labour leader is a “prisoner of woke” and that the Labour leader should “direct” mayor of London Sadiq Khan to focus on housing and other projects rather than trying to “pull down” statues in parks. Khan […]

A former MP ousted by Boris Johnson’s landslide win in 2019 has been announced as Labour’s candidate in the Hartlepool by-election. Dr Paul Williams, formerly the MP for Stockton South from 2017 until 2019, has been chosen to contest the seat after incumbent Mike Hill resigned this week amid sexual harassment allegations. Hill’s sudden departure […]

The prime minister is due to receive his first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine as a host of European countries announced they would return to using the jab following fresh safety assurances. A slew of countries, including Germany and France, reversed their decision to temporarily pause its use over blood clot concerns after the European […]

Journalist JESS BRAMMAR was dubbed part of the “Woke Wing of Fleet Street” after she criticised the way much of the press shrugged off Harry and Meghan’s accusations of racism. Here she explains why the issue needs addressing, not evading. People expected the Meghan and Harry interview to have global ramifications but no one could have […]

In these exclusive extracts from his diaries, ALASTAIR CAMPBELL takes us back to the autumn of 2011: David Cameron leads a coalition government with Nick Clegg as his deputy; Boris Johnson is the celebrity mayor of London; Barack Obama is in the White House; and Britain is in the EU. While the London Olympics are on the horizon, politics is dominated by […]

Conspiracy theories abound, but what does explain the EU’s seemingly baffling attitude to the AstraZeneca jab? The precautionary principle has longstanding European roots and modern international credibility. It is a scientific idea that grew out of an older German concept. Properly applied, it is difficult to argue against it. An international academic conference in 1998 defined […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg was accused of smearing a journalist and was urged to apologise during a row over trade deal remarks made by the foreign secretary. A leaked video call, published by the HuffPost website, suggested Dominic Raab told officials the UK should strike trade deals with nations that do not meet European standards on human […]

The Liberal Democrats are pushing ahead with a pledge to overhaul the UK’s asylum seeker laws and boost refugee intake numbers at this weekend’s party conference. Members will be asked to vote on boosting the UK’s refugee intake to 10,000 applicants a year and strengthen family reunion rights.   A motion being brought forward by former Lib […]

Priti Patel’s clampdown on demonstrators is part of a chilling pattern of government moves to silence dissent Priti Patel is clamping down on the right to protest. She won’t admit it, of course. When she presented her new police, crime, sentencing and courts bill to the Commons this week, she insisted it had no impact […]

US president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris have been invited to Northern Ireland when public health conditions allow. The invitation was extended during a virtual meeting with Stormont first minister Arlene Foster and deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill on St Patrick’s Day. During the meeting, the president and vice president expressed their strong […]

A Tory candidate contesting the May 6 local elections has stood down after tweets emerged of him calling two female MPs “vile”. Stuart Brown, who planned to stand for the council seat of Ryde West on the Isle of Wight in the upcoming elections, said he did not want to be a “distraction” and that his words […]

A Porsche 911 convertible which the footballer was caught driving through a red light at 111mph just after buying fetched a huge price at auction A Porsche 911 convertible which Diego Maradona was famously caught driving through a red light at 180km/h (111mph) just 30 minutes after buying has sold for €483,000 (£414,000) at auction in Paris. […]

Asylum seekers could be sent to processing centres abroad under Priti Patel’s plans to overhaul the immigration system, according to reports. The British overseas territory of Gibraltar is a location under consideration by officials, according to The Times, as well as the Isle of Man and other islands off the British coast. Priti Patel has […]

More than 25 million people in the UK have received a first dose of coronavirus vaccine but the country faces a looming squeeze on supply and a possible block on doses from the European Union. The milestone was passed in the first 100 days of the vaccination campaign, but the NHS warned there would be […]

Brexit minister David Frost gets it wrong about the causes of January’s huge drops in trade with the EU It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where our first month of post-transition trading as a fully independent nation played out like a particularly tragic episode of Danny Dyer’s pachinko-styled BBC […]

Which minister’s mate charged the government £2.6million for the new No.10 Downing Street press briefing room, asks Mitch Benn as he hands out political awards to Boris Johnson and Priti Patel Hello and welcome to this, the first of my columns to be 100% compliant with the terms of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts […]