News and Opinion

Downing Street has attempted to clarify Boris Johnson’s remarks after he said the government will be “looking at the potential of relaxing some measures” before mid-February. Speaking to reporters on a visit to a vaccination site at Barnet Football Club in north London, Johnson said ministers were looking at infection rates and progress in vaccinating the […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he has been told to self-isolate after coming into contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus. Sir Keir wrote on Twitter: “This morning I was notified that I must self isolate after coming into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19. “I have no […]

Liz Truss is tipped to receive a more senior role in government after Boris Johnson seeks to promote more female ministers in the next reshuffle. The international trade secretary is likely to join Kemi Badenoch, Lucy Frazer, Gillian Keegan and Victoria Atkins in receiving boosts in the next reshuffle, the Daily Mail reports. Housing secretary […]

MEPs have voted to add British overseas territories such as the British Virgin Islands, Guernsey, and Jersey to its post-Brexit tax havens blacklist. The resolution passed through the European parliament with a majority of 537 and saw territories with 0% tax regimes automatically added to the list. Britain’s membership of the European Union had afforded […]

A Brexiteer has encouraged the UK government to buy the Eurostar business from the French – and to rename it ‘Britstar’. Eurostar, which operated more than 50 daily services before the pandemic, revealed in November it is “fighting for its survival”. The firm has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, with a 95% fall […]

A picture of Boris Johnson on the phone to US president Joe Biden has caused a stir online after social media users spotted something odd. Johnson was the first European leader to speak with the new US president over the weekend. The pair discussed strengthening the transatlantic relationship, the critical role of NATO, and joked about […]

The UK risks becoming a “failed state” unless it makes reforms to the Union, former prime minister Gordon Brown has warned. Brown urged prime minister Boris Johnson to consider ideas like replacing the House of Lords with a “senate of the regions” and to review the way the UK is governed. It comes after the […]

A government minister has shut down an interview after suggesting the British public’s weight and age was to blame for the coronavirus death toll in the UK. Appearing on Good Morning Britain, Thérèse Coffey denied suggestions from presenters Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid that the government was not prepared for the pandemic. “There’ll be a […]

At the age of 13, Chaim Herszman escaped from a Nazi ghetto by killing a guard. CHARLES CLARKE, the former home secretary, says his story – published in a new book – is one that many in Britain still do not fully understand. July 28th this year will be the 70th anniversary of the signing in Geneva of the United Nations […]

A former Brexit Party MEP has died in a diving accident near his home in the Bahamas. Robert Rowland, 54, represented the South East of England at the European Parliament from July 2019 until December 2020. Nigel Farage announced the death of the father-of-four, who was born in Bowdon, Greater Manchester, on the website of […]

Sky has brought the rights to a television drama about Boris Johnson’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his first year as prime minister. This Sceptred Isle is a five-part series focusing on Johnson’s appointment as prime minister, the Covid-19 cases in the UK, through to him falling ill with the virus, and the arrival of his […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a writer who brings home the strange attraction that hotels have for us, and what it is exactly he is missing most about them. I had an e-mail from a friend the other day that felt like it came from another era. She had, she told me, just booked a long weekend in Bucharest […]

Salvador Dalí’s talent for self-publicity was exceeded only by his gifts as an artist, says CHARLIE CONNELLY. On the evening of Wednesday July 1, 1936, Salvador Dalí prepared to address a crowd gathered at the New Burlington Galleries in London’s Mayfair. The three-week International Surrealist Exhibition was in its final days and had already caused quite a […]

PETER TRUDGILL on how similarly-sounding words can come to have such different meanings. A word with two or more different meanings is technically a polyseme. An English example is wood, which can refer to wood as a material as well as to a tree-covered area of land. Neck is also polysemous: it refers to the part of the […]

TIM WALKER remembers a somewhat frosty encounter with Sir Anthony Quayle, who was unwilling to be drawn on his political views. All actors have areas of their lives that are off limits and it was no different with Sir Anthony Quayle. The year was 1986 and the grand old man of the stage was about […]

Manchester’s musical conveyer belt has been responsible for some outstanding acts over the years. SOPHIA DEBOICK tries to join the dots between them. “My childhood is streets upon streets upon streets upon streets.” So Morrissey – once the master of ironic kitchen sink portraits of Mancunian life – opened his memoirs, evoking the endless terraces […]

Ministers are ‘psychologically incapable’ of owning their mistakes and are to blame for the UK’s death toll, James O’Brien has said in a swipe at No 10’s coronavirus record. O’Brien accused ministers of “doing the same thing again and hoping for a different result”. The comment comes as Oxford University research showed the UK has the worst […]

A Piers Morgan impersonator prank-called Donald Trump on Air Force One last year, the Good Morning Britain presenter has revealed. The former president only realised he had been pranked when he called Morgan on his way to vote in Florida last year. The incident allegedly took place in October but only emerged in an interview […]

Boris Johnson faces the “mother of all arguments” next month when he comes under pressure to loosen the lockdown while the NHS remains seriously stretched, a government adviser has predicted. Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), warned that intensive care units will still be strained even as […]

Alastair Campbell’s article asking “What more could Remainers have done” (TNE 226) continues to prompt letters… Do not give up! A single pro-EU unified pressure group (not linked to any political party) is needed, ideally with a charismatic figurehead (but not a divisive politician). We need to attract massive funding (I am sure many in […]

The EU’s top Brexit official has warned Downing Street to be “very careful” in how it handles the diplomatic status of the EU’s ambassador to London. Michel Barnier, who brokered a trade deal with Britain on behalf of the EU, said it would be “wise” for the UK to find a solution to the dispute over its […]

A rethink is already needed over the government’s free trade agreement. It is already becoming obvious, less than a month in, that the current free trade agreement is not sustainable. As one example, Northern Ireland is severely disadvantaged in terms of goods imported from the rest of the UK and a number of hauliers and […]

One reader takes exception to John Bercow’s column on Donald Trump. I must take issue with one statement in the otherwise excellent article by John Bercow on ex-president Trump. Mr Bercow credits the SNP (among others) with recognising Trump as a malign force and calling him out for his bigotry from day one. Fake news, […]

The DUP has strongly rejected suggestions it should have supported Theresa May’s Brexit deal, which would have provided a backstop and avoided the creation of the Northern Ireland protocol which was part of Boris Johnson’s agreement. Lord Dodds told the Belfast Telegraph: “Some people have mistakenly suggested that if Theresa May’s backstop had been accepted, we […]

Some UK retailers are considering abandoning or burning goods returned by EU customers due to the cost and trouble of bringing them back into the country, an industry boss said. The BBC reports the Brexit trade deal has seen many European customers rejecting goods imported from the UK after being presented with unexpected customs charges […]

Downing Street has said there are “no plans” to go ahead with a proposal to pay £500 to everyone who tests positive for coronavirus in order to increase the number of people abiding by quarantine rules. Ministers have considered a proposal to extend payments to anyone who tests positive for Covid-19 in England amid concerns […]

A Twitter crackdown on supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory has seen Nigel Farage lose almost 50,000 followers. Analysis of data by social media analytics website Social Blade shows that the Reform UK leader lost 49,000 followers in a single week after Twitter suspended 70,000 QAnon accounts following the US Capitol riots, Left Foot Forward has revealed. […]

Scottish students could continue participating in the Erasmus exchange programme in spite of Brexit, The Times has revealed. Officials in Holyrood and Brussels have entered into talks over extending the Erasmus scheme to Scottish students, the paper reports, after almost 150 MEPs wrote EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen asking whether Scotland and Wales could rejoin the […]