News and Opinion

Piers Morgan has hinted that he could run for parliament after turning his attention to politics during the coronavirus pandemic. The Good Morning Britain presenter has been ranked by bookies 10/1 favourite to become an MP this year, and a 20/1 chance of becoming prime minister within the next decade. In an interview with The […]

A review of worker’s rights post-Brexit, which unions feared would lower standards, will no longer be going ahead says business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng in an abrupt U-turn. The move has come as a huge surprise after he confirmed to MPs just last week that the government would be investigating how EU employment rights protections might change […]

The first inaugural meeting between the UK’s new diplomatic team in Brussels and senior EU officials since Brexit has been “postponed” in response to a spat over the bloc’s diplomatic status. Lindsay Croisdale-Appleby, formally appointed this month to represent the UK in Brussels, was due to meet the chief aide to the European council president, Charles Michel, […]

PAUL KNOTT on the reasons behind Brussels’ stuttering vaccine rollout. Alarm bells are ringing loud across the European Union about the slow rollout of its Covid-19 vaccinations. Brussels opted for a characteristically centralised vaccine process in order to reduce tensions between countries, but may have ended up inadvertently stoking them. The original decisions that partly caused this unsteady […]

Touring musicians and road crews have been “betrayed” by the government in the Brexit trade deal, the Lords has been told. Liberal Democrat Lord Strasburger urged ministers to apologise for having “screwed up” negotiations and come back with nothing. Leading musicians have criticised the government’s Brexit deal for not including visa-free travel for musicians, with […]

Yes, schools must return as soon as possible. But to reduce the damage their closure has done we must look far further into the future, says JAMES BALL. Almost 11 months into the battle with coronavirus the UK’s political and media establishment are agreed on one – and perhaps only one – thing: we need […]

The government has withdrawn a “stay home, save lives” poster following backlash over its apparently sexist depiction of women. The poster showed one picture of a woman reclining in a man’s arms on the sofa followed by three images of women looking after children and doing housework. Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said: “It has been […]

A Tory MP has told Nicola Sturgeon to “grow up” after she questioned the necessity of Boris Johnson’s trip to Scotland. Steve Brine said the first minister was acting “childish” and said she should focus on “better things to do than worry about Boris Johnson” visiting Scotland. Speaking on BBC 2’s Politics Live, Brine said: “To […]

Boris Johnson has been accused of “misleading” MPs by claiming a Labour frontbencher’s 200-day-old comments on quarantine measures were recent. The prime minister told the Commons that shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon had “only recently” said quarantine measures should be eased. His remark was made during Prime Minister’s Questions as he criticised Labour for repeatedly […]

Much maligned and under attack from ministers – but more important than ever. Media studies doesn’t deserve the ‘Mickey Mouse’ tag, argues Martin McQuillan. In last week’s New European Ian Dunt gave us 15 bold steps to fix Britain. Top of his list was making media studies mandatory in schools. He suggested that equipping school children to approach […]

Samantha Cameron has said her fashion label has faced “challenging and difficult” times since Britain left the EU on January 1. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Cameron said her company had experienced “teething issues” in trading with the EU and urged No 10 to speak with small businesses. “[We] definitely deal with having […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has branded Nicola Sturgeon “Mrs Moan-a-lot” after she suggested Boris Johnson’s trip to Scotland this week would break coronavirus guidelines. Instead, Rees-Mogg said the first minister should be “proud” of the prime minister’s visit to a vaccine facility in Livingstone. Responding to the SNP’s Tommy Sheppard’s question on the matter, the Commons leader said: […]

An excursion to film a new BBC show provides some escape from politics… but not much. I virtually unplugged from politics for a whole day last week, and felt a lot better for it, until the day ended, and I caught up with what had been happening in my absence. Just another day in the […]

FIONA MILLAR on the devastating long term consequences of keeping schools shut. If only it were simple to calculate the impact of Covid on our young people. If we could say definitively that in five years’ time the gap in outcomes between the best and worst off children would be x, or in ten years’ […]

Question Time tonight features a virtual audience drawn from across the UK, the country best-known across the world for dealing with a deadly pandemic with all the command and aptitude of The Chuckle Brothers carrying a wedding cake across a frozen river. But who’s on the panel? Here’s your guide… Gillian Keegan Who? Well, quite. Junior minister […]

The Labour Party has attacked Jeremy Corbyn for “wasting time and money” after he lost a court battle to release documents relating to his suspension from the parliamentary party. On Wednesday, a judge dismissed Corbyn’s case, saying he had “sufficient evidence” to fight a High Court battle over the suspension. In a direct attack at Corbyn’s […]

Richard Hamilton eschewed the knockabout nature of other purveyors of Pop Art, says Richard Holledge, but his work packed just as much of a punch. Pop! Whaam! Blam. Exclamation marks!!! Technicolour explosions. That’s Pop Art for you. The comic book whizz-bangs of Roy Lichtenstein and a group of post-war artists typified the 1960s for many – […]

Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne has refused to apologise for telling vaccine sceptics to “persist” with their campaign against lockdown restrictions, arguing he was unaware of their position on jabs. After being told to apologise by Cabinet minister Michael Gove, the New Forest West MP told the PA news agency: “I have always had a […]

Berlin has been long been seen as the European capital most understanding – and indulgent – of Russia. But that’s  changing, says CATHRIN SCHAER. For several years now, German newspapers have been proclaiming the next new low in the German-Russian relationship. There was 2015’s Russian hacker attack on the German parliament that started the decline. Then the assassination […]

Podcasts have been with us for a few years now. But during the pandemic something has happened with this genre – a paradigm shift. A sea-change of massive proportions. Lately, I’ve been trying  to  understand what exactly is going on. And if what is happening is a kind of paradigm shift. A sea-change of massive proportions is […]

Cabinet minister Michael Gove has said there is “an opportunity to look back” at government decisions made during the pandemic as he dismissed concerns it should not have allowed households to mix over Christmas. Gove suggested the government was not to blame for a spike in infections after Christmas during an interview on Good Morning Britain (GMB). No […]

A Tory minister has refused to say if one of their MPs should lose the whip for “completely out of order” comments about Covid-19 statistics. Swayne was interviewed by a US anti-vaccine campaigner and urged an anti-lockdown group to persist with their efforts, suggesting official data should not be trusted. He said he is a […]

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove has claimed that Boris Johnson is a ‘huge asset’ to Scotland. Gove was interviewed by BBC Breakfast after they pointed out that a rise in support for Scottish independence was down to Johnson’s Brexit project and his handling of the pandemic. Asked if he thought he was an “asset” or […]

Michael Gove has insisted it is safe for Boris Johnson to visit Scotland. The senior Cabinet minister told BBC Radio Scotland: “It is the case that the prime minister will be operating in a Covid-secure way. “There will be no danger to anyone’s health as a result, in fact quite the opposite, what the prime […]

Tory Brexiteer Sir Desmond Swayne has been accused of spreading “dangerous misinformation” about the coronavirus after he reportedly said that the infection and mortality figures had been “manipulated”. In comments reportedly made in November, the lockdown-sceptic Tory MP told the group Save Our Rights UK that the UK was “bouncing round at the typical level of […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the life of Astrid Lindgren, creator of a children’s classic. It’s nearly two decades since the death of Astrid Lindgren but in her Stockholm apartment at Dalagatan 46 it still looks as if she’s just stepped out for a moment. A lightweight jacket dangles from a coathanger in the hall. A typewriter sits […]

TIM WALKER remembers a meeting with Malcolm Muggeridge, an encounter which has haunted him since revelations about the journalist and broadcaster later emerged. Malcolm Muggeridge – St Mugg, as he was known in his day – admitted to me that he had been an actor all of his life. His credits included I’m All Right Jack and Heavens […]

He’s only been gone a week, but what are the prospects of a return for Donald Trump in 2024? Last week, as he took to the podium one last time as president, Donald Trump hinted at his return: “We love you. We will be back in some form.” The question now is just what form […]