News and Opinion

The unending migrant crisis and mounting death toll in European waters presents the continent with its greatest test... one it is failing badly.

TIM WALKER reviews a cheering show breathing fresh life – and fun – back into theatre Showstopper! The Improvised Musical Garrick Theatre, London **** Playing the first Monday of each month Theatre professionals have long been aware of the need to attract younger audiences and the pandemic has given this a new impetus. Even with their two […]

Venice’s music, like the city itself, seems designed specifically to stir emotions There is the Venice of history, the city-state that was a world power for centuries and a musical powerhouse in the 17th century. Then there is the Venice of imagination, of canals, Carnival and decadent beauty – a characterisation fuelled above all by cinema. […]

Due to a low vaccination rate amongst healthcare staff, the government is embarking on plans to require those working in the healthcare sector to take the jab.  Concerns also arose after residents of a nursing home in the Landes region of France were infected with the Delta variant of Covid-19.  In this nursing home cluster, […]

The fate of a Dublin building which was the setting for a James Joyce story raises interesting questions about property closely associated with literature There are few cities that come to literary life in the manner of Dublin on Bloomsday. June 16 every year, the date in 1904 on which the events of James Joyce’s Ulysses unfold, […]

Five years after she took office, we should resist a rose-tinted view of Theresa May’s time in Downing Street

Making it easier to get on the UK property ladder is a problem that can be solved… but only if politicians are willing to follow other nations, and hit theborn-lucky in the pocket. The Liberal Democrats apparently won the Chesham and Amersham by-election because of three factors: Brexit, HS2, and new planning regulations. Or to put it another […]

Will Self travels to Royal Tunbridge Wells to discover that in modern Britain, even a short journey takes you to another country In keeping with Multicultural Man’s distinctly rooted existence these past 18 months – something, no doubt, many New European readers can identify with – holidays have become a deeply strange phenomenon. Last year, […]

The vice-president faces challenges over voting rights and immigration on the southern border… as well as a battle for the country’s soul In the United States in the early years of this century, the Right and its racist elements created the Tea Party. Named after the Boston Tea Party, the new movement came into being […]

A seemingly unbridgeable chasm is splitting the continent between countries that see LGBT rights as the core of European identity of freedom and tolerance, and those that see them as a threat to that same identity

PETER TRUDGILL on the European language that lingered on Greenland, and another –  of sorts – that still thrives there Greenland is the largest island in the world. As is well known it also lies very far to the north. At its northernmost point, it is only about 500 miles from the North Pole. Iceland lies about 200 […]

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán accused European leaders of acting like “colonialists” in their criticism of his controversial law on homosexuality.  Speaking on public radio, the prime minister rebuked cries to repeal the law and hit back at his fellow European Council members.  “They behave like colonialists. They want to dictate what laws should take […]

Some surprise choices - and some usual suspects missing - as Jason Solomons selects the 50 greatest European movies

Readers have their say on the result of the Batley and Spen by-election

A reader explains their decision to leave Britain following Brexit After having been in the UK for more than 20 years now and it has been some of the best years of my life so far, but now I cannot wait to leave. That will happen the very moment my son leaves school. I am […]

Boris Johnson may be frustrated by Rishi Sunak's reluctance to fund his increasingly hair-brained schemes, but the prime minister's wife Carrie at least has reason to be grateful to the chancellor.

The PM understands the importance of narrative and has turned government into a soap opera… how long can its leading character last?

Turkey has followed through on a pledge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in March in withdrawing itself from an international treaty to prevent violence against women. May 11 marked the tenth anniversary of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention.  It created robust and legally […]

The weirdest stories in Europe: The pub waiter who says he's a Spanish royal, and a corpse rides for six hours on a Swiss tram

Mitch Benn looks at another wild week in politics – including Joy Morrissey MP’s campaign to put portraits of the Queen everywhere, and the Matt Hancock affair PATRIOTISM TEST OF THE WEEK It’s been a terrific week for mandatory displays of fake patriotism, or indeed just another week of mandatory displays of fake patriotism if […]

He might seem to be unharmed by the scandals he presides over, but Boris Johnson’s position is more vulnerable than it looks. The fall will come, and it will be swift, brutal and comprehensive

A deal has been reached to avoid a “sausage war” with the European Union over the shipment of chilled meats from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. A grace period allowing the continued supply of chilled meats across the Irish Sea has been extended until September 30. Brexit minister Lord Frost said: “We are pleased we […]

What separates the Sackler Family from the Chambers Brothers, asks Will Self, as he ponders the differences between legal and illegal drug dealing One of my favourite cultural books – if such a broad category can be summoned into being, after all, aren’t all books in some sense, cultural? – is Land of Opportunity: One […]

British politics now exists in a moral vacuum. It cannot last

A woman who has been waiting more than four months for her EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) application to be processed has described her experience as “incredibly frustrating” and said she feels like a third-rate citizen. Daria Riabchikova applied for pre-settled status in mid-February as the partner of an EU citizen living in the UK, and […]

Italian boxer Primo Carnera’s extraordinary strength and size brought him fame and a sporting career, but not necessarily happiness As darkness fell over New York on New Year’s Eve 1929, Primo Carrera walked down the gangway of the SS Berengaria, stepped onto the quayside and wondered what the imminent decade held for him. Despite his […]

Sometimes brooding, sometimes brilliant, sometimes bludgeoning, Roberto Mancini’s remoulded Italy face a Euros date with destiny against Belgium European football is never complete without Italy. Sometimes brooding, sometimes brilliant, sometimes bludgeoning, Roberto Mancini’s remoulded Azzurri will on Friday aim to make Roberto Martinez’s Golden Generation of Belgium suffer and perhaps be suffocated in Munich. The […]

The small South American nation has produced two exceptional bandleaders from two different eras, who helped transform music in the UK Georgetown is 3,500 miles across the Atlantic from Britain, but it has exercised a huge influence on the music of the imperial mother country. This little city of low-rise colonial architecture, with the unspoilt jungle […]