News and Opinion

DUP leader Arlene Foster and senior party MPs are launching legal action challenging the post-Brexit agreement surrounding the Northern Ireland Protocol. They will be joining other unionists from across the UK in judicial review proceedings unless alternative trade arrangements are put in place which secure their consent. DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, the party’s Westminster […]

Matt Hancock has declined to apologise after the High Court ruled the government unlawfully failed to publish details of billions of pounds’ worth of coronavirus-related contracts. The health eecretary has faced calls for greater accountability after a judge said he did not publish redacted contracts in accordance with the transparency policy. However, Hancock insisted legal […]

Our understanding of Covid, and of how to treat it, has grown enormously over the past year. But mortality hasn’t significantly fallen. In the early weeks of 2020, the NHS prepared for the pandemic however it could. Wards were labelled red and green to keep active Covid cases away from those not infected, where possible. […]

New French film Slalom creates a creepy atmosphere amid the beauty of the Alps and hothouse atmosphere of its resorts. JASON SOLOMONS talks to its director, and comes up with his favourite movies set in the mountains. Snow falls outside, settling softly on the cars and on the muddy green of a little park. It’s an […]

Once noted for climate scepticism, the Express has now launched a green campaign. LIZ GERARD assesses the extent to which newspapers can ever comprehensively switch their stance.  Under new management! It’s a sign we’ll be seeing a lot when we finally emerge from this pandemic, as collapsed enterprises are rescued or people decide they’ve had enough after […]

Historian JAMES HAWES reviews Gavin Esler’s new book foretelling the imminent end of the UK. Things that have been a long time coming, finally come suddenly. And the end of the UK has been a long time coming. The band may still be playing, but it is playing on the deck of the Titanic: we […]

A year ago coronavirus switched from being something remote to something much more real. For everyone, that precise moment of understanding was different. Nicky Woolf reports. There is a before, and there is an after. Before was normality – going to the pub, socialising, hugging, shaking hands, not being afraid. After was isolation, despair, loneliness, sickness and death. […]

For the right, the appropriation of the term ‘woke’ is a means to police society. We should go back to its true, original meaning, says BONNIE GREER. The Superbowl halftime show features the kind of commercial breaks that advertisers dream of. Here the latest products are displayed, usually fronted by mega stars. Messages can be conveyed there, […]

New Zealand has attracted the envy of many European liberals, not just for its handling of Covid but – perhaps not unconnected – also its political leadership. Returning native Garth Cartwright reports back from a nation experiencing a very different pandemic. Imagine a land where the populace is enjoying a long, blissful summer; theatres, cinemas, […]

WILL SELF on missing the point of memes. ‘Meme’ is a coinage by Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most notorious – if not the most celebrated – of neo-Darwinians. In his brilliant exposition of the Darwinian worldview, The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins theorises that given environmental selection pressures may no longer be working on the great mass […]

TIM WALKER on the fallout from the the Duchess of Sussex’s legal victory over the Mail on Sunday. The Duchess of Sussex‘s legal victory over the Mail on Sunday and what she called its “illegal and dehumanising practices” represented a defeat, too, for the newspaper group’s editor-in-chief Paul Dacre against Geordie Greig, his successor as editor of the Daily Mail. Mandrake […]

Editor-at-large ALASTAIR CAMPBELL interviews novelist Kate Mosse about her campaigning for feminism, and now for carers, and why she won’t be writing a Brexit or Covid novel just yet. The thing about rights, says historical novelist Kate Mosse, is that it can take years, decades, centuries, to win them, but they can be lost all […]

Scottish government buildings will be allowed to continue flying the EU flag alongside the saltire every day of the year, the SNP has said. The EU is only raised on May 9 to celebrate Europe Day. By contrast, the Union Flag will only be flown one day a year – Remembrance Sunday. The move did […]

The government unlawfully failed to publish details of billions of pounds’ worth of coronavirus-related contracts, the High Court has ruled. The Good Law Project took legal action against the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for its “wholesale failure” to disclose details of contracts agreed during the Covid-19 pandemic. The government is required by […]

Boris Johnson had to ask German leader Angela Merkel to put herself on mute after she inadvertently interrupted his remarks to a virtual meeting of G7 leaders. As with many video conferences throughout lockdown, the prime minister’s address from 10 Downing Street did not get off to a smooth start. While French president Emmanuel Macron […]

A man has been charged with sending threatening emails to a series of anti-Brexit politicians – including former Commons speaker John Bercow and European Movement leading campaigner Dominic Grieve. Court documents show Paul Ritchie, 34, has been charged with nearly 30 counts of sending a letter, communication or article conveying a threatening message against a […]

England should impose a “traffic light system” for re-opening various sectors of the economy, Tony Blair has advised in a report published by his thinktank, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI). The former Labour prime minister weighed into the lockdown debate by publishing his own plans on how the nations should ease restrictions. The plan includes a […]

Rights and democracy groups are urging the government to rethink its ban on political leafleting during England’s current coronavirus restrictions. Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith said in a letter to members of the Parliamentary Parties Panel that leafleting and door-to-door campaigning was “not considered (an) essential or necessary activity” in lockdown. But rights and democracy […]

It is an attractive idea, but flawed, says MITCH BENN. You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I suggested that when one is considering whether a given project has ‘worked’, one should bear in mind that its ostensible objective (ie. what the public are told it’s supposed to achieve) and its actual objective (ie. […]

The acquittal of the former president has exposed flaws in the first past the post system that are just as relevant in Britain.  The Senate’s acquittal of Donald Trump, though expected, has thrown up some uncomfortable questions for democratic countries where representatives are elected under a majoritarian system. It is now becoming very apparent that unelected, self-selecting supporters and […]

Our new football correspondent ROB HUGHES on the symbiotic relationship between Barcelona and Lionel Messi, its mainstay, that must one day come to an end. No player has better displayed the joy of football more sustainably than Lionel Messi. I first saw him at La Masia, Barcelona’s academy, when he was 13, and still feel […]

Brexit has caused hauliers to become “their own customs agents” due to shortages, MSPs have been told. Appearing before the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee at Holyrood, Martin Reid, the Scotland and Northern Ireland director for the Road Haulage Association (RHA), said his members had been forced to recruit and train administrative staff […]

The number of companies moving to the Netherlands because of Brexit remained consistent in 2020, despite foreign investment falling by a quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic. Amsterdam topped the list of favoured Dutch cities by companies looking to relocate, after it overtook London as the largest trading hub in Europe last month. The Dutch capital has lured […]

Readers respond to calls to reclaim the Union flag from nationalists. I am, have been and will remain an admirer of Mitch Benn. However, in his article he explores why the Union Flag should be reclaimed from “the insular, the nationalistic and the xenophobic”. He then lists reasons for loving it and what it represents […]

Sir Keir Starmer pledged to lead a “moral crusade” to address inequalities and injustices exposed by the coronavirus crisis, as he announced plans for recovery bonds to give savers a stake in Britain’s future. The Labour leader used a major speech to call for a “new chapter” in the country’s history after the pandemic laid bare […]

Dominic Cummings urged Boris Johnson to scrap the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), an inside source has revealed. Johnson was being told the disband the committee over fears some experts were leaking information to the press in order to pressure the prime minister into pursuing tougher coronavirus restrictions. A source told the Mail that matters […]

Alexei Navalny has done his bit, but only the president’s corrupt inner circle have the power to topple him. “I mortally offended him by surviving an attempt on my life that he ordered. That’s driving this thieving little man in his bunker out of his mind. Murder is the only way he knows how to […]

Newly-released UCAS statistics show that the number of EU citizens applying to study in the UK has dropped by 40% since Brexit. UCAS reported a 26,010 drop in the numbers of students from the European Union looking to study here this September. It is a 40% drop and UCAS reports it reflected the uncertainty surrounding the UK’s […]