Opinion

The Civil Service has been weakened by Brexit and the growth of court politics. But a rearguard action is underway. Plucked from relative obscurity at the age of 41 to become cabinet secretary, Simon Case could hardly have imagined his present role as head of the Downing Street shovel brigade, clearing up mess largely of […]

The prime minister and his fiancee have got it badly wrong over their reported disdain for John Lewis. On contemplating the national orgy of curtain-twitching that’s accompanied Dominic Cummings’s revelations regarding the refurbishment of the prime minister’s flat in Number 11, Downing Street, Oscar Wilde’s valedictory bon mot comes to mind: days before expiring in […]

Italy’s Robinson Crusoe says he is “really pissed off” being forced off the idyllic island he has spent 30 years living on alone. Mauro Morandi, now 81, landed on the pink sand atoll of Budelli in 1989 while attempting to sail to Polynesia with friends. He has remained ever since, even after his sole companion […]

As Northern Ireland passes a low-key landmark, Irish author and journalist MATT COOPER sees signs that the 100-year-old country is moving away from the tribal scars of its past, even if that complicates its future One hundred years on from the political partition of the island of Ireland and a Northern Irish identity seemingly is taking hold at last among […]

Britain is facing a post-Brexit “exodus of EU waiters and baristas” with “prospective foreign workers are shunning the UK because of tighter visa rules and higher entry costs post-Brexit.” It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, as reaction to the Line Of Duty finale reminds us of another long-running […]

Amid the turmoil in the DUP is a deeper question for unionists… should they retrench into hard-line ‘Ulster Says No’ politics or seek a recalibration? Wet flags flapping against telegraph poles under dark skies amid tentative post-lockdown re-openings of retail sectors on a stormy Bank Holiday Monday in Northern Ireland seemed an appropriate backdrop to yet […]

The European football super league is not dead – and you can bank on that The Super League, which rightly shocked and angered so many, came as no surprise to me. It was always hovering in the wings, waiting to burst on to the stage of world football like a 1,000-lb gorilla. There was no […]

Thirty years after his death, a new biography of Steve Marriott, of the Small Faces, paints a bleak picture of rock excess. The 30th anniversary of Steve Marriott’s death at the age of 44 – he died in a house fire on April 21 1991 caused by his falling asleep with a lit cigarette – finds the […]

The new royal yacht named after Prince Philip is a waste of £200 million, says MITCH BENN. “SERIOUSLY GUYS, READ THE ROOM” MOMENT OF THE WEEK  This week brought the news our beleaguered nation has been waiting to hear. Yes, we are still fighting our way out from underneath the virus; yes, our economy is […]

Mexican Coke is now on sale in the UK, but will it ever replace the real thing, with its iconic glass Coca-Cola bottles? My uncle used to buttonhole the sommeliers in expensive restaurants and ask for “a bottle of American Beaujolais”. A so-called ‘Mad Man’ – or Madison Avenue advertising copywriter – he knew the […]

Best known as Grouty in Porridge, Peter Vaughan was an actor who seemed to get better with age The Seven Ages of Man speech in Shakespeare’s As You Like It amounts to a career trajectory for all serious actors. The best and luckiest manage to grow old with their audiences, going from playing “the whining schoolboy, with […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on Dalida, the French superstar singer who endured a catalogue of personal catastrophes They made an unlikely couple arriving at the Sanremo Music Festival in January 1967, the young protest singer some called the Italian Bob Dylan and the elegant, older chanteuse from Paris with a glittering decade of mainstream chart success behind […]

Tanit Koch on how the ruling German elite do not have the same upbringing as politicians in the UK If I had to choose just one word to praise the EU, it would be this: Erasmus. These academic exchanges are a beautifully efficient way to achieve cross-border friendship and mutual understanding. Because, yes, foreign languages […]

In both war and peace, a love of reading made Napoleon history’s biggest bibliophile.  When you’re an enthusiastically expansionist autocrat and visionary military leader building an empire that will cover almost an entire continent your work doesn’t, it’s fair to say, leave much time for hobbies. Julius Caesar produced no macramé of note; Alexander the […]

A new book shows how Christians are turning away from the Labour Party. Does it impact their chances? Labour, Harold Wilson once said, owes more to Methodism than Marx. Its founder, Keir Hardie – after whom its present leader is named – was a lay preacher. Its early leaders were devout men; Ramsay Macdonald, its first […]

Set in a Britain with zero-Covid and corruption is punished, is this why we love Line of Duty? SUDDEN EPIPHANY OF THE WEEK On Sunday night I was (like, apparently, 80% of the population of the United Kingdom) watching Line of Duty on BBC 1, when I had a sudden realisation: Line of Duty takes […]

For a man with a celebrated line of fragrances, it’s no surprise that Pierre Cardin comes out of a new documentary smelling of roses. “We kept digging for dirt,” concedes one of the film’s directors, Todd Hughes. “But we kept striking gold.” So, adorned by celebs including Dionne Warwick, Naomi Campbell and Sharon Stone, House […]

Britain seems beset by allegations of nefarious political deeds. But Germany is home to a blockbuster scandal that puts others in the shade Readers of a certain age will recall a show called Jeux sans Frontieres, or its English derivative, It’s a Knockout! Competitors in ridiculous costumes would jump over obstacles in the name of […]

The eyes of European leaders are on Denmark as it becomes the continent’s first country to fully embrace Covid passports For 27-year-old Nikoline Maria Flørnæss Brandenborg her most recent visit to a Copenhagen bar was a little different from the previous one, five months earlier. The music at Frederiksberg Ølbar was as loud as before lockdown and the […]

For those dreading a return to the pitched battles of IndyRef1, the Scottish Labour leader may offer the best hope There are two schools of thought in Scotland about the conduct of the 2014 independence referendum. One is that it was a festival of democracy, a carnival of marches, song, poetry and political awakening. The […]

There's reason for opponents of this Tory government to feel optimistic about Boris Johnson's changing fortunes

After a slow start, millions of people across EU countries are now receiving their vaccine – with almost a quarter of people across the bloc having had at least one dose of a Covid-19 shot. That relatively good news – though vaccine progress still lags far behind that of the UK – is marred by […]

New research shows how the Conservatives are hoovering up Christian support The past six years have seen the old rules of British politics torn up. Identities such as ‘Tory’, ‘Labour’, ‘working class’ or ‘middle class’ have been replaced by ‘Remainer’ or ‘Brexiteer’ and voters are deserting their traditional parties. The Conservatives, once the party of choice for middle-class professionals, […]

It’s the worst of both worlds – the UK was slow to protect its citizens and now is slow to help others. No-one knows what’s really going on in India. We don’t know the infection rate. We don’t know the death rate. We don’t know what’s going on with the variant. The information that comes […]

Among the many complex issues that Scottish independence would throw up would be where to draw a line between English and Scottish waters. Should Scotland vote for independence at some point in the coming years, the issue of where its land border with England should lie will be among the simplest of subjects to resolve. The matter […]

Napoleon’s role in shaping the continent we know today makes him a subject of fascination across Europe. So, on the bicentenary of the emperor’s death, why does he not occupy a central place in the French psyche?  A Frenchman must necessarily be arrogant.  For he can be nothing other than the heir of Napoleon Bonaparte. His commitment to […]

Boris Johnson created an administration in his own image, and it is doing irreparable damage to our country Shortly before he stepped down after a decade as prime minister, Tony Blair hosted a dinner at Chequers for advisers who had been with him more or less since he became Labour leader. In every one of […]

The scandals surrounding Boris Johnson hide the disaster that Brexit has created It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain as companies continue to pay dearly for two basic yet common business mistakes – not putting a Cabinet minister’s sister on the board or having Boris Johnson’s mobile phone number. […]