Opinion

The deadline for the post-Brexit trade talks between the EU and the United Kingdom UK looms, and with it concerns about a no-deal. The outcome is being closely monitored in South Africa – and elsewhere – where it will have significant implications. The EU as a regional bloc is South Africa’s largest trade partner, and […]

Nine writers from across the continent tell us what ‘Europe’ means to them… Ana Pessoa, Portuguese authorEurope is about multilingualism and multiculturalism. We might not speak the same language, we might not share the same cultural background. Perhaps we don’t laugh at the same jokes even and we live very different lives. But we share […]

Each year sees more books being published in English about the Nazis, but then, when it comes to post-1945 history, this flood of books about German history suddenly dries up. There are a few English language history books about Germany and the Cold War, but much fewer about the country’s politics in the immediate post-war […]

Winston Peters – leader of the New Zealand First party – has long been described as a populist, both in New Zealand and internationally. At different times during his career he has embraced the label. As he said recently, populism to him “means that you’re talking to the ordinary people and you’re placing their views […]

Dr Sean Conley, in one of his appearances outside the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center – where Donald Trump received his treatment for coronavirus – put his best diplomatic foot forward. What was the president’s mental fitness? We should look at ‘the tweets’ as a gauge, he replied. So I did. “Don’t be afraid […]

There are now fewer than 30 days left until the USA goes to the polls to select its next president: Donald Trump or Joe Biden. That polling day will come just two weeks after Trump should stop self-isolating to protect those around him from catching the deadly illness his White House admitted he’d contracted late […]

The past few months have been rocky for Franco-British cooperation on migration, with Priti Patel denouncing Channel crossings and the dire conditions of migrants living in the streets of Calais and other cities in northern France. A ‘Clandestine Channel Commander’, Dan O’Mahoney, has even been given the job of making the crossing route unviable for […]

China was the gift that kept on giving. What was there not to like about a country that was bringing hundreds of millions out of poverty and into the global consumer market? Certain human rights indiscretions might need to be mentioned, ever so politely, but Western governments, policy makers and business leaders saw China more […]

How did it come to this? We are a moderate nation; most of us stand somewhere around the centre politically. Get on with your life without too much interference from the state, work hard, pay your taxes, be tolerant, do what you can to help those worse off than yourself, create safety nets for the […]

As tighter lockdown looms, what does Donald Trump’s response to his coronavirus infection tell us about leadership in a crisis like this, his own and that of others stricken by illness at a crucial moment? How does it compare with Boris Johnson’s behaviour after he too succumbed as the pandemic took hold last spring? And […]

If your internal bullshit detector has been sleeping on the job lately, it’s time to wake up and smell Therese Coffey. Eyebrows were raised when the work and pensions secretary advised newly unemployed cinema workers that they had “transferrable” skills suitable for work in care homes – because scooping up a 50/50 megabucket of sweet […]

In his brilliant new book Who Enters Politics and Why?, academic James Weinberg provides possibly the most sophisticated analysis of why some people decide to stand for office and others don’t. His research discovers that when it comes to their basic human values, politicians really are “different”. Having spent the summer reading just about every […]

A light wind blew in off the water and combed the open grassland covering the hills rolling along above the lake. We’d visited the ruined monastery at Hayravank, wandering around the main body of the building – an octagonal drum surmounted by a conical dome – then exploring the overgrown outbuildings, poking into the shrubbery […]

The UK Government is pressing ahead with draft legislation to override its commitments to the EU on Northern Ireland, which it admits will break international law. Yet it has – paradoxically – signalled it will only apply that legislation consistently with international law. This mixed messaging may be designed to encourage some its hard-line supporters […]

As the 2020 US presidential election draws near, close to 209,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 7.3 million have tested positive to the virus, including president Donald Trump. The announcement of Trump’s positive diagnosis has led to arguably the most extensive case of collective schadenfreude in human history. Taking pleasure in another person […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the fascinating origins of Fahrenheit and Celsius – and how different things might have been. Many Americans endure a reputation for an apparent lack of regard for the rest of the world. Regardless of whether it is deserved or not, it remains the fact that the USA is the only nation on […]

From his childhood during the Chinese Civil War to his experiences in the Second World War, Mervyn Peake’s influences are hauntingly evident in his work, much of which has just been acquired by the British Library. RICHARD HOLLEDGE reports. Step into the shadows of “time-eaten buttresses, of broke and lofty turrets”. Meet Lord Sepulchrave, trapped […]

Europeans have idealised their continent as a place of accomplishment and civilisation, of excellence and enlightenment. But, in a challenging essay, Surinamese-Dutch writer GLORIA WEKKER argues that there is another side to Europe, of exclusion and denial. One evening in the dead of winter 2015, close to zero degrees and with a cold wind searching […]

France’s is bailing out its wine industry, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. But, says JASON WALSH, long-standing social trends in the country could be even more troubling for the sector. The scene outside Le Ballon Vert in the trendy 11th arrondissement of Paris: forced outdoors by post-coronavirus regulations and unseasonal autumn weather, […]

Analysis of the impact of a no-deal, or weak deal, has focused on the impact on trade. But, says DR MARK AVERY, it will also bring consequences for the environment. Four years after the Brexit vote, and almost nine months through the one-year transition period, we are still unclear as to the impacts of Brexit […]

Northern Ireland will mark 100 years of its existence on May 3, 2021. In the meantime the government of the Republic has launched a radical new policy calling for “A Shared Island”. This new emphasis on sharing points to a United Ireland as an aspiration rather than a policy. In parallel, the United Kingdom has […]

At the height of the last pandemic to hit the UK – the 1987 AIDS crisis – the government released a terrifying ad. At its conclusion it showed a huge tombstone, upon which was engraved the message: “DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE.” The campaign was deliberately engineered to be terrifying (one TV spot featured a volcano), […]

For her new book, DEBORAH MATTINSON has been talking to voters in Red Wall constituencies. Her research underlines how Brexit remains a totemic issue there. Voters in the Red Wall, in common with voters pretty much everywhere, tend not to follow politics very closely. I once ran a focus group live on TV where one […]

Cultural commentator and broadcaster PETER YORK on those with the knives out for the Corporation. There is a war against the BBC. Does that sound over the top? When Paddy Barwise and I were searching for a title for our new book, back in 2018, we feared it might be. A war against the British […]

Did you notice Boris Johnson raising those careworn eyes towards the wider world horizon in the past few days? Not once but twice. First, to promise a generous £340 million UK contribution to the embattled World Health Organisation despite it being Public Enemy No 208 to his comrade-in-expediency, Tax Dodger Trump. Second, to pledge Britain […]

As the UK prepares for a possible second wave of the coronavirus pandemic it appears once again divided. The unity seen during the first lockdown has been lost, explains TIMOTHY OLIVER. The arrival of the coronavirus pandemic transformed the UK political scene in the blink of an eye. At the start of 2020, the national […]

Music photographer KEVIN CUMMINS took many of Britpop’s era-defining images and knew all its key players. So, as his new book about the period is published, why does he feel conflicted about the musical movement that sparked Blur v Oasis and Cool Britannia? In the mid-1990s anything and everything British was cool. Celebrity mockney chefs: […]

The Labour leader’s first conference speech was light on detail, but in an earlier presentation clear contours of his vision could be made out, says FLORENCE SUTCLIFFE-BRAITHWAITE. Earlier this month, Keir Starmer addressed the Trades Union Congress annual conference for the first time as Labour Party leader. Just over a year earlier, as shadow Brexit […]