News and Opinion

Emmanuel Macron is finding that overseas engagements can be difficult to disentangle from. Crowds of Malians gather on the streets of Bamako as the smell of burning polyester wafts through the air. Another French flag has been set alight. Elsewhere, a tricolour adorned with a skull and crossbones is held high, flanked by signs that […]

The vendetta between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the press cannot end well for anyone. That’s it then. They’ve gone for good. Driven out by the press. There have been plenty of instances where newspapers have been accused of hounding celebrities and royals and every time the same defences are wheeled out: “They want the publicity […]

European leaders have made catastrophic errors over vaccines, for which their citizens are paying a price. But the shambles has not undermined the basic principles on which the EU is built. The roll-out of the Covid vaccine should be a moment for universal celebration, but something disturbing is happening. It’s being wrapped in a Brexit narrative […]

BONNIE GREER on the death of the first conflict entrepreneur. There was Marconi. And then there was Rush Limbaugh. Marconi, of course, is the father of radio and arguably of all broadcasting. Before him, the general public largely read what was called the ‘news’ and made their assessment from that. Print was the only reliable medium. Then came […]

Long sceptical about whether such a phenomenon existed, CHARLE CONNELLY starts to wonder if there might be something in it after all. I sat down to write this piece about writer’s block at eight o’clock this morning. It’s now 11.20am and I’m only just putting words onto the blank document that’s been sitting here open and […]

It has few fans, but the Northern Ireland protocol is going nowhere. The focus must be on dialogue  – not rhetoric – to make it work, says Irish politician Neale Richmond. For many of us, there is no such thing as a good Brexit, particularly those of us in Ireland, proportionately more impacted than any other EU member state, […]

WILL SELF on what to do when confronted by racism. “You know,” said Annette, a woman from Cote d’Ivoire with whom I’ve struck up an acquaintance while queuing for the post office, “some people say Hitler had the right idea.” I shook my head, as if to dispel this meshegas, while nevertheless continuing the conversation: “What makes you […]

PETER TRUDGILL on why the term for spring has not sprung from where you thought. The English word spring has many different meanings. It can refer to a place where water comes up out of the ground – a source or wellspring. It can signify an energetic forward or upward movement – a leap or jump. It […]

SNP plans for Scottish independence would be a “Brexit 2.0” that would harm the NHS and cost jobs, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has insisted. With Scottish parliament elections due to take place in May, the Lib Dem said voters were now “weeks from an election that could determine the fate of the United […]

The government has moved to unilaterally ease another element of the contentious Brexit arrangements governing trade to Northern Ireland. A ban on importing plants potted in soil from Great Britain to the region has been temporarily lifted. While most agri-food goods are, or will be, subject to extra regulatory processes to enter Northern Ireland under […]

The Northern Ireland Protocol undermines the guiding principles of the region’s historic peace deal, a former No 10 chief of staff has warned. Jonathan Powell, who worked for Tony Blair and was involved in negotiations that forged the Good Friday Agreement, said he understood why loyalists and unionists were upset by the economic border in […]

Despite attempts to bridge it since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the chasm between Eastern and Western Europe remains wide. The pandemic has pushed the two regions even further apart. No-one better embodies the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe from Communism than Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright, dissident and first democratically-elected president of the modern era. […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has suggested the success of the coronavirus vaccine rollout has led to the Conservatives establishing a 13-point lead over his party. He said “people want the government to succeed” during a pandemic, but conceded there is a “lot of work to do” to rebuild support. The poll by YouGov for […]

The SNP’s John Nicolson was in for a surprise when he revisited his family’s ancestral Highland home. When John Nicolson, the redoubtable SNP politician, decided to revisit his family’s ancestral Highland home, he could have had no idea it would turn into Through the Keyhole meets the MacKardashians. “It was a modest Georgian house at Langwell, near Ullapool, […]

A former first minister for Scotland has said Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond must stop “knocking hell out of each other in public”. Labour’s Henry McLeish said there is “no serious path” to the current first minister’s resignation. McLeish told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “The first minister, I think, has rebutted most […]

Sky producers are searching for a Michael Gove lookalike to play the cabinet minister in the upcoming series, This Sceptred Isle. The five-part drama charts events surrounding the prime minister, Downing Street, and the country during the first wave of the global pandemic. A casting brief says producers are searching for a male “in his early 50s, […]

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has claimed that his party is a “better” choice for voters in Scotland than either Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP or Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. With the Scottish parliament election due to take place in May, Sir Ed is making his pitch to voters north of the border in a speech to the Scottish […]

Mark Drakeford has told a Welsh Affairs Committee that the union “is over” and a new one was needed to reflect a “voluntary association of four nations”. The first minister also condemned Downing Street’s approach of bypassing the devolved administrations through levelling up funds. He stated: “For the first time since devolution, we are dealing with a UK government […]

Health minister Nadine Dorries has been left to defend the government’s decision to give a 1% pay rise to nurses and other health workers, following the revelation that the figure has been submitted to the sector’s pay review body (PRB). She gave a series of media interviews on Friday defending the government’s position, saying nurses have […]

A Scottish independence referendum could take place “as early as late 2021”, according to Ian Blackford. The SNP Westminster leader said, however, that the first priority of the Scottish government is tackling the Covid crisis. Blackford explained the “key” would be putting in place circumstances that would allow for an independence vote to be held. […]

Brussels has warned it will launch legal action “very soon” following a move by the UK to unilaterally delay implementation of part of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland. European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic said the announcement by Government on Wednesday had come as a “very negative surprise”. The Cabinet Office Minister Lord […]

Former French ambassador to the UK Sylvie Bermann made recent headlines with her very undiplomatic comments about Boris Johnson. She talks to TIM WALKER about how the country changed in her time here, and what she sees for its future. Almost a month after the EU referendum, the newly-appointed foreign secretary Boris Johnson bounded into the opulent residence […]

The French president is a politician like no other: neither from the left, nor the right; bold and decisive, yet the antithesis of a populist. And if he can win re-election next year he will shape not just the future of France, but of Europe. By ALASTAIR CAMPBELL  The first time I met Emmanuel Macron, he […]

The government is understood to have agreed a “substantial” payout to settle a top civil servant’s employment tribunal claim after he quit amid allegations of Priti Patel’s bullying.Home Office chief Sir Philip Rutnam is reported to have accepted a six-figure sum after launching legal action against the home secretary. The department’s former permanent secretary dramatically […]

A Conservative former minister has suggested the majority of Britons are economically illiterate for supporting the chancellor’s corporation tax increase. Sir Christopher Chope criticised the move to raise the tax on company profits from 19% to 25% from 2023, suggesting it was a policy which had more in common with those proposed by former Labour […]

The Police Service of Northern Ireland is investigating sinister graffiti in a loyalist area of Belfast mentioning Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove. The message painted on a wall in Sandy Row included Gove’s name and an address above the words “We don’t forget, we don’t forgive”. It is the latest example of anti-Northern Ireland Protocol graffiti […]

MEPs have dropped plans to approve Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal after the UK government was accused of violating the agreement. The UK’s latest Brexit move saw the government unilaterally extend the Northern Ireland Protocol grace period until October, despite on-going conversations with the EU. In a damning statement, Maroš Šefčovič, vice president of the European Commission, said the move announced […]

The allocation of £1 billion funding to mainly Conservative seats “feels like pork-barrel politics”, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has claimed. He said of the 45 areas allocated cash under new towns deals, 40 were represented by Tories and it sounded “fishy”. But Boris Johnson said it was partly due to his success in the […]