News and Opinion

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has been given a new role as a government adviser following Brexit. The Brexiteer rejoins government to become an adviser to Boris Johnson on regulatory reform after the UK departed from the European Union. He will chair the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform (TIGRR) alongside Theresa Villiers and George Freeman. […]

There is an urgent need to reboot security cooperation with the EU in the wake of Brexit deal which has left the UK “less safe and less secure”, a group of former Tory MPs have told Boris Johnson. The prime minister is being accused of “not being ambitious enough” after his deal shut down access […]

The return of a parish council which became an internet sensation was watched by thousands on Wednesday night and dogged by repeated interruptions by members of the public. Handforth Parish Council, which rose to stardom earlier this month after a chaotic Zoom call on December 10 went viral, met again for the first time in […]

Voters will reportedly be required to bring photo ID when casting their ballots in elections from 2023. The proposal is part of a new Electoral Integrity Bill which will form part of the Queen’s Speech in spring and be in force by the time local elections are held two years from now, according to the […]

Boris Johnson has created a minister for Brexit post – months after claiming he had got the issue “done”. Former negotiator Lord Frost will become an unelected member of the cabinet, overseeing the future relationship with the European Union. Downing Street said that the Conservative peer will become a minister of state in the Cabinet Office, reporting […]

We must not forget the plight of EU citizens in the UK. The Sun has been full of praise for the government’s treatment of European citizens in the UK. A recent piece celebrated the fact that “five million EU citizens apply to REMAIN in Britain despite us leaving the bloc”. It had all been an extraordinary […]

Steve Anglesey brings you your weekly check on how Project Fear is becoming Project Reality. It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, with Brexit red tape causing trade to take a Monty Python turn. There are empty shelves in some smaller UK cheese shops, with Michael Harte of importer […]

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is descending into the biggest transatlantic diplomatic crisis since the Iraq War. CATHRIN SCHAER explains how we got here. From to the War of Jenkins’ Ear, in 1793, to the Cuban Missile Crisis, international disputes have often been triggered by events on the high seas. One sparked by activities on the seabed seems rather more unusual. Yet […]

The future of the NHS cannot be separated from the future of social care. And on this there is a scandalous lack of vision from ministers, says Lib Dem leader ED DAVEY. The Covid pandemic has reminded us all of something Liberal Democrats have long understood: that caring for people’s health doesn’t stop at the […]

A new partnership between business and the state is needed as the country rebuilds from the coronavirus crisis, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will say. Next month’s Budget represents a “fork in the road” for British society, with a chance to reject the “insecure and unequal economy” of the past, he will say in a […]

Nicola Sturgeon has criticised Downing Street after Dominic Cummings admitted he made a recommendation that led to a friend’s firm receiving government work.  Cummings made the admission after campaigners took legal action against the Cabinet Office over the payment of more than £500,000 to research firm Public First without a formal tendering process. The first minister hit out […]

A majority of the public is unhappy about the post-Brexit trade agreement that Boris Johnson secured with the EU, a new survey has found. The report, published by the British Foreign Policy Group, an independent think tank advocating for a stronger UK global presence, shows that under a quarter of respondents believed the prime minister’s […]

Boris Johnson said he felt “like OJ Simpson” as he struggled to pull on a pair of gloves. The prime minister made the reference to the moment in Simpson’s murder trial when the US actor and sports star had difficulty putting on gloves thought to have been used in the killing of his ex-wife, Nicole […]

Boris Johnson has denied that he once claimed devolution was a “disaster” to Tory MPs. The prime minister said he had benefited from devolution himself by equating his experience as mayor of London to that of the administrations governing Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Johnson was speaking from a mass coronavirus vaccination centre at Cwmbran […]

STEVE ANGLESEY brings you some of the recent stories you might have missed from the continent. A man who used a blow-dryer to thaw a frozen water pipe set his home in southwest Germany on fire, causing 300,000 euro (£262,000) worth of damage. Police in Kämpfelbach-Ersingen said they believed the dryer had been left unattended […]

The promotion of languages is a key way of keeping the disparate Swiss nation together, says PETER TRUDGILL. There is much Britain could learn from its example. If our government truly believed in the United Kingdom as a “sacred union”, they would do well to study the example of another union, the united republic of […]

JAMES BALL on the long road ahead of the country – and the risks facing Boris Johnson’s government. We are, by this point, all old hands at lockdown and reopening – we have at point seen it all before. Twice. So to be back at the phase when newspapers are starting to publish details of […]

The Labour Party is mulling over a decision to add electoral reform to its manifesto after party activists vote to end the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. More than one-quarter of Labour branches are urging Sir Keir Starmer to dump the party’s historical support for FPTP voting in favour of proportional representation. Calls for Labour to change its stance has grown over […]

A DUP minister has said she would not oppose an EU/UK deal on agri-food movement similar to the one the bloc has with Switzerland. Stormont economy minister Diane Dodds she would not be against anything that offered “short-term relief” from recent Irish Sea trade disruption. However, Dodds expressed doubt about whether the UK government would […]

Michel Barnier has launched his own political faction, fueling speculation he could be preparing to challenge Emmanuel Macron in next year’s presidential elections in France. The EU’s former Brexit negotiator announced on Tuesday that he would be establishing a new political group within the French Conservative party, Les Républicains – mere weeks before his mission in Brussels […]

The brave young journalists exposing the high-level corruption and crimes in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Over 3,500 people have been detained during rallies across Russia in protest at high-level corruption and the arrest of opposition activist Alexei Navalny. Navalny was arrested on arrival at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on January 17 as he flew in after […]

Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin has called for the government to reopen pubs and restaurants to help improve Britain’s public finances. Martin said his pub chain contributes £1 in every thousand collected by the Treasury in the year to July 2019 and should be allowed to reopen at the same time as non-essential shops. He said the pub industry made […]

A senior Tory MP has ridiculed Boris Johnson’s plans for a 25-mile undersea tunnel connecting Scotland and Northern Ireland – calling for ministers to focus on the issues surrounding the Brexit deal instead. The tunnel – dubbed the ‘Boris Burrow’ – could cost £10 billion to create and was seen as a compromise to a […]

Paying social care workers “poverty wages” is holding back the economy, Labour will warn as it demands the government raise their salaries to £10 an hour. Deputy leader Angela Rayner is set to say that giving the frontline workers a pay rise will mean “every extra pound” is spent in local businesses and high streets […]

Is the Remain cause destined to share the same fate as the Jacobite one… romantic but doomed, and destined for the dustbin of history? Writer JAMES HAWES explores the parallels and decides probably not.. at least not yet. Consider a time when a great part of us Britons has been led by vain and tactically catastrophic leadership into epochal […]

ROB HUGHES on Captain Tom Moore and Marcus Rashford, two Englishmen united in their service. Captain Tom Moore and Marcus Rashford are two of a kind. Separated by three quarters of a century – and last week by death – they epitomise salt of the earth Englishmen, inspiration to the rest of us throughout the hardest of […]

Labour has written to the cabinet secretary asking him to publish details on meetings with Tory-linked firms that have secured contracts during the pandemic. Shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves last week revealed she had written to 10 firms with connections to the Conservative Party awarded contracts during the coronavirus crisis in a bid to […]

A French journalist has called into question Britain’s vaccine strategy after pointing out the UK lagged behind the EU in fully immunizing its population. Writing in the Guardian, Jean Quatremer, of the French newspaper Libération, said the reality of the UK’s vaccine drive was “a little more complex – and not quite such a stunning UK […]