News and Opinion

The public has been urged to back The Big Issue after its vendors were again forced to stop selling the magazine because of the latest coronavirus lockdown. Almost 1,400 vendors are affected, are not eligible for furlough and cannot work from home. The Big Issue called on the public to support its 100 Days of Action […]

A tweet by Downing Street seeking questions from the public ahead of Boris Johnson’s press conference has backfired spectacularly. The prime minister’s Twitter account asked if anyone had questions about coronavirus that they would like to ask the government. The request did not go down well. One user asked: “Where is Dido Harding and can she […]

The president’s removal from the social network could create yet another cultural chasm between Democrats and Republicans. “Hello, I’m new to Twitter, what are you guys up to”, says a tweet purporting to be from someone called John Barron – whose avatar resembles Donald Trump with a photoshopped moustache. On Friday, Trump’s Twitter account was […]

Former White House adviser Anthony Scaramucci has said “another insurrection” like the one witnessed on Capitol Hill last Wednesday could occur before Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Scaramucci, who was a former White House communications director to president Trump, said rioters were planning a second protest on January 17. This comes after thousands of […]

A senior Tory MP has criticised Priti Patel’s “inhuman” approach to immigration. In an interview with the Independent, former minister Caroline Nokes accused ministers of “paying lip service” to Wendy Williams’ Lessons Learned report on the Windrush scandal, which occurred while she was in office. The Tory MP for Romsey and Southampton North said ministers […]

The UK will have to “fight its way to the table” as US-president elect Joe Biden seeks to rebuild American relations around the world, according to a study. With MPs set to debate Britain’s future foreign policy in the Commons on Monday afternoon, a new research paper by Robin Niblett, director of the think tank […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will use a speech to lay out how Britain can rise up after the pandemic, using the creation of the NHS after the Second World War as inspiration. He will tell the Britons that they “can build a country worthy of the sacrifices” made during the pandemic in the same […]

England’s chief medical officer professor Chris Whitty has suggested that measures could be needed until “some time in the spring” to stem the spread of the virus. “We’ve got to make this sustainable because we got to be able to maintain this for several more weeks now,” he told BBC Breakfast. “We’re really going to […]

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi has admitted that existing current lockdown restrictions may not be sufficent. Zahawi has raised concerns about people not sticking to the rules in supermarkets or when exercising outside. Pressed on whether the current restrictions are enough, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We don’t want to use tougher measures, the lockdown […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he does not think there is a case for rejoining the EU, or “major renegotiation” of the trading arrangements set out in Boris Johnson’s trade deal. Sir Keir, who was a prominent voice in the campaign for a second referendum and in his leadership election promised to “defend […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY profiles the sculptor and painter, starting on the evening that would change his outlook and output. The epiphany came one cold night in a fleapit newsreel theatre. Alberto Giacometti spent the Second World War in Geneva and had just returned to Paris in the winter of 1945 when he ducked into a cinema […]

The Tennessean city is rightly synonymous with Elvis, but its musical heritage goes far further. If Elvis had not succumbed to the effects of being the most famous person in the world in the summer of 1977, he would be celebrating his 86th birthday this week. He died in the city that was responsible for setting […]

I’m concerned for the future of Brixton Speaks, my only foray, ever, into public visual arts. I did work as a cartoonist for a few years in the mid-1980s, contributing to publications as august as the New Statesman and City Limits, but my quip about the metier once I began writing in earnest, was that […]

As the world’s geopolitical centre of gravity shifts towards Asia, Japan will come to play an increasingly significant role. PAUL KNOTT assesses the state of a pivotal nation. Japan was the future once. A scarcely conceivable space-age nation of neon cityscapes, high speed trains and robot pets, where the leading political force was a party called […]

Britain will one day want to rejoin the EU, but will they have us back? Foreign policy expert NICK HOPKINSON outlines a possible route back to membership. Brexit is our biggest retreat from Europe since Dunkirk. We have distanced ourselves economically, and in many respects politically, from the EU as much as any European country can […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY reports on the quest for the remains of a writer likened to the Bard, and the posthumous activities of other great authors. Imagine if William Shakespeare’s remains were no longer in his grave inside Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. Imagine if they’d been lost, possibly in an act of desecration during a traumatic […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the famous names inspired by water courses. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was one of the greatest composers who ever lived, and his sublime music is much loved and still very frequently played today, 270 years after his death. His sons Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christian, Wilhelm Friedemann and Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach […]

Coronavirus might have put it in the shade but, as Chloe Brimicombe reports, the globe also suffered from an extraordinary catalogue of extreme weather events in 2020. The year 2020 will no doubt go down in history for other reasons, but it is also on target to be one of the warmest on record. And as the climate […]

TIM WALKER looks back at a memorable meeting with the great mime artist. Of all the people in all the world, mine artists must seem like the least promising subjects for an interview. Marcel Marceau was, however, a joy to talk to. And just to behold. It was the summer of 1990 and the scene […]

Britpop, I imagine most of you are old enough to remember, was a loosely applied umbrella tern referring to the movement of varyingly retro British guitar bands which rose to dominate the UK pop charts in the mid 1990s. I was in my mid 20s at the time – pretty much the same age as […]

Forty years ago this month was a fateful meeting that led to one of the history’s greatest hoaxes. RICHARD LUCK reports. Some scoops can be weeks, months or even years in the making. It can take a long, long time for a reporter to finally bring their story into the public domain, for all the […]

Were the Angry Brigade a mere comedic English counterpoint to the doomed romantics of Germany’s Baader Meinhof gang or a far more sinister, if thankfully incompetent, force? Today anger is an emotion associated with right wing populism, of foaming keyboard warriors and the puce-faced men that are – for better or worse – often dubbed ‘gammons’. But […]

A petition launched by touring musicians has amassed almost 230,000 signatures as they attempt to secure a free “cultural work permit” that would allow them free travel through the 27 member states to perform. The group of musicians and tour crew who have mostly been left unable to work due to the coronavirus pandemic say they […]

A seafood exporter has said the government has been “useless” at providing information to help businesses deal with new regulations caused by Brexit. Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, which represents chilled transport and storage companies, said hauliers were encountering issues at Britain’s borders despite the amount of cross border traffic still being quite […]

Percy Pigs could become more expensive because of tariffs caused by Brexit, Marks & Spencer’s chief executive has warned. The famous pink sweets are among more than 2,000 products sold by M&S that are affected by the “rule of origin” regulations set out in Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. The rules dictate whether import taxes, called tariffs, […]

Education secretary Gavin Williamson turned down a BT offer of cheap broadband for children, it has been revealed. The broadband giant offered to supply families basic connections to allow access to online learning with schools closed for months during the Coronavirus pandemic. The firm’s chief executive also revealed they had given free wifi vouchers to the […]

A Brexiteer peer has accused politicians in the House of Lords who tried to block Brexit of “lacking the imagination to see life beyond Brussels”. Claire Fox, a former Brexit Party MEP, said such peers also shared with US president Donald Trump a “refusal to give losers’ consent”, and warned voters may look at “unelected lawmakers […]

James O’Brien has shut down a Trump supporter who called in to push false allegations that Joe Biden was corrupt. A US caller was left eating his words after failing to provide evidence proving Joe Biden was a “corrupt” politician. The call comes after unprecedented scenes in America on Wednesday saw a woman shot dead and […]