News and Opinion

The decision to delay second doses of Covid vaccines in an effort to jab more older people has been credited with saving a “large number” of lives after data suggested hospital admissions are being greatly reduced by the rollout. The “exciting” and “hugely reassuring” results from a Public Health England (PHE) study have indicated that […]

Former prime minister David Cameron has claimed that the EU referendum was ‘necessary’ and defended his decision process that led to the vote being held. Cameron defended the vote while speaking to parliament’s National Security Strategy Committee. He explained: “The Brexit referendum was discussed and called in 2013, two years before the general election and three […]

Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds has accused the government of “furiously trying to manage expectations down” over its post Brexit trading arrangements for financial services. Ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Budget, the Labour frontbencher said she was “particularly concerned” over the uncertainty surrounding the memorandum of understanding with the EU for the sector. There was she added a […]

JASON SOLOMONS on a new Netflix documentary which places the footballer’s rise amid his country’s oppressive regime. Talk about finding a new angle. I’ve seen that Carlos Alberto goal, the fourth for Brazil in the 1970 World Cup Final against Italy, over a hundred times. Maybe we all have – but never from Alberto’s point of […]

Few scandals have provided as vivid a cast of characters as Watergate. Yet the story often overlooks the one man without whom it would simply never have been detected. Washington DC, 2.30am, June 17, 1972, and security guard Frank Wills is doing his rounds at the Watergate Building Complex. It’s been a quiet night. In […]

The European Commission expects permanent post-Brexit border control posts to be ready in Northern Ireland by the middle of this year. Commission spokesman Daniel Ferrie said the UK had obligations to meet under the Northern Ireland Protocol, which governs the trade in goods from the rest of the UK. Irish Sea checks required under the […]

The Liberal Democrats have offered to work with Scottish Labour’s new leader to build a “federal UK”. Anas Sarwar won the top job on Saturday, beating Monica Lennon and taking 57.6% of the vote. The Scottish Lib Dem leader congratulated the new leader and offering to work in partnership. Willie Rennie said: “I would like […]

A French court has found Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of influence peddling, as the former president was sentenced to three years in prison. Sarkozy’s trial was the first time a former French president has stood trial over corruption charges as he was accused of using his political influence to bribe a judge. The ex-head of the […]

Labour has warned Rishi Sunak against immediately raising taxes in his Budget on Wednesday, urging him instead to focus on securing the economic recovery. Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said now is “not the time” for tax rises, but signalled that she could support an increase in corporation tax in the future. Her comments came amid […]

A former senior Labour staffer has lost a High Court bid to force the party to reveal who it believes leaked an internal report into the handling of allegations of anti-Semitism. An 860-page report on Labour’s governance and legal unit, which found “no evidence” of anti-Semitism being handled differently from other complaints, was leaked in […]

Vote Leave turned Brexit into its own religion to capture supporters, a recent study by the universities of Birmingham and Warwick has found. Researchers said slogans such as “take back control” used the NHS as the country’s Holy Grail that could be rescued from European forces threatened by Britain’s unique historical place in the world. They also said […]

Scottish Labour has indicated it will back the Tories if it lodges a motion of no confidence in Scotland’s deputy first minister John Swinney over the publication of legal advice, the party has announced. On two occasions, MSPs have voted to compel the Scottish government to produce legal advice taken as part of the legal challenge […]

A post-Brexit move to dilute human rights laws in the UK would undermine Northern Ireland’s historic peace agreement, academics have warned. Amending the provisions of the Human Rights Act (HRA) risks upsetting the delicate constitutional balance achieved in the 1998 Good Friday accord, experts from Queen’s University claim. The concerns of the academics from Queen’s […]

Slovak president Zuzana Čaputová has praised the EU’s joint vaccination procurement programme, arguing without it, small countries like hers would have struggled to source their own jabs. Čaputová said though negotiations could have started earlier, member states made the right decision in pooling their resources. The president told POLITICO it was a “good thing, that we had a […]

A hunt is underway to locate one of the first people in the UK believed to have contracted the Manaus variant of coronavirus, a new strain that may spread more rapidly and respond less well to existing vaccines. Public Health England (PHE) said on Sunday that six cases of the concerning P.1 variant first detected […]

A new record is about to be set for the longest period of time since a parliamentary by-election was held in the UK. On March 5, a total of 582 days will have passed since voters last went to the polls in a Westminster by-election. The gap is unprecedented in post-war history, according to analysis […]

Time and money is being wasted chasing unnecessary paperwork for businesses exporting from Northern Ireland to the EU, a leading cargo firm said. Belfast Port and Northern Irish hauliers are losing out because of red tape associated with duties which do not need to be paid, Quay Cargo Services said. The firm is based in […]

In music, as in much else, the New Zealand city is a place apart.  Faced with coronavirus, New Zealanders have proven one thing about themselves: they plough their own furrow. When a single family of three from Auckland tested positive last week, prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced an immediate three-day lockdown for the city. Total […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY profiles Marguerite Duras, an author whose career was profoundly influenced by a fleeting glance at a stranger. In 1924 a new regional governor arrived at Vinh Long, a small city in the Mekong River delta in what is now Vietnam but was then part of French Indochina. He came from a previous posting in Laos […]

ED WEST on the fantasy of the ‘free-born Englishman’. Guffawing and thigh-slapping his way through the 1938 version of Robin Hood, Errol Flynn stops at one point to tell the audience he is fighting as a “free-born Englishman” and fighting for a “free England”. This obviously wasn’t really about attitudes in 12th century England and no one […]

Labour will only make headway once it is able to move the debate onto its favoured territory, rather than allowing the Tories to set the agenda. By ZOE WILLIAMS Funny thing about the prime minister’s roadmap: he mentions golf and beauticians; touches schools, universities and colleges; makes a huge number of fine distinctions between the […]

As he is knocked off his bike for a third time, WILL SELF wonders what effect the pandemic has had on the reaction of passersby. The first time it happened, it was some young Trustafarian driving his dad’s Jag, and I lost my rag completely: ranting how he should learn to look in his bloody wing […]

Peter Trudgill on the dubious master of multilingualism. There are many things to be said about Ján Ludvik Hoch, many of them very bad, even though he was a war hero. But this column is interested in his linguistic prowess: he was a remarkable polyglot. Better known as Robert Maxwell, Hoch did not learn English […]

The case of Manchester United’s talented young winger Amad Diallo highlights awkward questions for football about the way it procures young players from abroad, says ROB HUGHES. Bill Shankly, the sage of Liverpool FC, once corrected a misconception of mine. “Listen son, coaches do not make good players,” he said in that familiar rasping Scottish pitch. […]

TIM WALKER on the director John Schlesinger, a man with just the right sense of perspective. John Schlesinger resided in one of those vast Christmas cake mansions in Kensington that signal to all the world its owner has achieved his wildest dreams. He couldn’t exactly claim to be a self-made man – dad had been a […]

MITCH BENN starts his weekly look back at some of the highlights and lowlights of recent days… UNFATHOMABLE STRATEGY OF THE WEEK The trouble with an inscrutable and mysterious strategy is that to the untrained eye, it’s indistinguishable from an entirely non-existent one. What is Sir Keir Starmer’s plan as leader of the opposition? Does it […]

Recent days have given a clear sign of how the West is realigning after the Trump era and seeking to re-engage with its challenges. Within minutes the picture had become an internet sensation. It showed Angela Merkel and other world leaders standing over, and glaring at, a seated Donald Trump, his hands crossed in defiance. It had […]

Lahti is leading the way in carbon reduction. So what lessons does it have for other cities? As Finland’s ninth-largest city, with a population slightly smaller than Gloucester’s, Lahti is not used to being a capital. But this year is different. The city – around 100km (60 miles) north of the country’s actual capital, Helsinki – is the European Green […]