Opinion

I find it somewhat ageing to admit that I once interviewed an actress who had played the title role in Tess of the d’Urbervilles with the author himself in attendance. I have thus shaken the hand of a lady who had shaken the hand of Thomas Hardy. Dame Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies was celebrating her 99th birthday when I […]

As someone who is passionately pro-European, the Brexit process is painful enough as it is. Now, the government are rubbing salt into the wound. Breaking international law is a new low.The UK has left the EU. All that needed to be done, voters were told,was for Boris Johnson to implement his “oven ready” deal, including […]

Like many of you, the other day I woke up to read headlines screaming “SCIENTISTS DISCOVER LIFE ON VENUS”. Like, I trust and expect, most of you I did not react to this by leaping to my feet and shouting “OMG LIFE ON VENUS” but rather by clicking on the link in question and saying […]

There’s a good chance that you when you leave the house today you’ll put on a face mask that obscures your mouth. Such coverings can affect our ability to communicate and provide a particular challenge to those that need to see lips to understand speech. But what of the eyes that remain uncovered? Shakespeare said […]

There’s a classic showbiz story about comedy double act Mike and Bernie Winters on their debut at the feared Glasgow Empire in the 1960s. Their act opened as it usually did, with a classic bit of misdirection; straight man Mike playing mellow jazz on a clarinet until his wacky brother suddenly thrust his head through […]

Back in 2018, I was working on the anti-Semitism section of a book about Jeremy Corbyn. After several emails and phone calls to the leader of the opposition’s office went unanswered, I sent Corbyn’s head of communications and strategy, Seumas Milne, the notes of my briefing from the Board of Deputies of British Jews about […]

Your correspondents and letters pages rightly focus on the future challenges for Labour and the Liberal Democrats, shell-shocked by the election. “Is Starmer more Major than Blair?”, asks Peter Kerr – but is Starmer more John Smith, perhaps?Recovery is not enough now; inspiring vision is also needed. Harold Wilson, another exemplar, also ran the modernisation vision […]

Let me mention two political figures, one of whom, Douglas Alexander, you will likely have heard of; the other, Brendan Boyle, of whom more later, may be less familiar to a British audience. Douglas Alexander was a Labour MP, first elected in 1997, who fell victim to the SNP surge in 2015. A long-time strategic […]

To read the papers at the moment is to watch the concept of truth decompose in front of your eyes. The debate over the Withdrawal Agreement is the kind of thing which makes you question your sanity. We’re told that the document is intolerable. It’s the result of European “dirty tactics”, according to the Sun’s political […]

Between September and December 12 last year, I and a dedicated group of Lib Dem canvassers knocked on every door of the four Harpenden wards, not once but twice as we pushed to unseat Bim Afolami, our careerist, lacklustre Tory MP. Harpenden and Hitchin voted 61% in favour of remaining in the EU, so many […]

Fires at a reception centre for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos have left thousands of people without shelter. Around 13,000 people – including those from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and west Africa – lived at the Moria Reception and Identification Centre (RIC) in a space intended for just over 3,000. Most will have […]

Scotland’s first minister is on a winning streak. Nicola Sturgeon’s personal approval rating is sky-high. Her party leads by miles in the polls, despite
having been in power for more than 13 years. Her Scottish National Party’s cherished dream and raison d’être – Scotland’s independence – now appears to be the choice of a majority of Scottish voters. […]

The day before the “rule of six” rule came into force, Carl Heneghan, a professor of evidence-based medicine, and Tom Jefferson, a research fellow, both from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, wrote an opinion piece for the Spectator, calling for the rule to be “binned”. The Daily Telegraph repeated Heneghan and Jefferson’s assertion that “life […]

Had we been asked to predict the top political issues of 2020, few of us would’ve picked clinical tests among them – but these are testing times. An understanding of exactly who has Covid-19 is an essential part of working out how the virus can be controlled and how our society, economy and lives can […]

“Regulations….are not to be regarded as unlawful on the grounds of any incompatibility or inconsistency with any relevant domestic or international law”– Clause 45 (2) (a) on state aid in the Internal Market Bill It already seems an age ago, but when I first heard Boris “Moonshot ” Johnson used the phrase “the rule of […]

This week’s Brexit row has a retro feel. Michel Barnier and an impasse in Brussels. Tory rebels led by a former attorney general. ‘Get Brexit done’. For old time’s sake we even had Ed Miliband gesticulating frantically at the despatch box and Nigel Farage popping up to declare ‘this isn’t the Brexit we voted for’. […]

WILL HANMER-LLOYD explains how behavioural science could help swing November’s election – and decide whether Donald Trump returns to office. The upcoming presidential election is seen as one of the most important in generations, in that it not only dictates the future direction of the US for decades, but potentially the very nature of the […]

Boris Johnson’s ‘oven-ready’ has blown up in his face, writes JAMES BALL. Every path in front of him now involves betrayal. Never let this prime minister cook you a meal. A mere 10 months after running a successful election campaign promising an ‘oven-ready’ Brexit deal backed by ‘all 635 Conservative candidates’, Boris Johnson has decided […]

Readers praise EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, who – unlike Boris Johnson – has shown himself to be a man of principle. Very interesting interview with Michel Barnier by Marion van Renterghem. The EU’s chief negotiator comes across as a person of principle and values. I won’t make comparisons with those on the UK side. […]

There will always be a place for the Liberal Democrats politically, argues a reader. One of the great lies told by Brexiters about the EU is that it seeks to squash national identity and subsume it all into a European superstate. Readers of this newspaper know that isn’t true and that Europe values and celebrates […]

Donald Trump’s comments about the military show that he’s only interested in self-service, writes MITCH BENN. As I mentioned here last week, there is an ongoing deluge of tell-all books written by former associates (and indeed family members) of president Trump, detailing his various alleged excesses and misdeeds and timed, one can’t help but suppose, […]

BONNIE GREER says the US must learn from this year’s events – which have affected, moved and impacted the nation. Senator Robert F. Kennedy lies on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel after being shot by a young Jordanian Sirhan Sirhan. The senator died later, June 6, 1968. Busboy Juan Romero is among those aiding […]

For Tim Walker, who stood briefly for the Lib Dems in Canterbury in the last election, Sir Ed Davey’s announcement the party would no longer push for Britain to rejoin the EU was ‘the last straw’ Short of The New European coming out for a no-deal Brexit, or the Pope renouncing Catholicism, it’s hard to […]

Former Lib Dem MEP Caroline Voaden on her new leader’s controversial decision not to endorse a policy to reverse Brexit There is no surprise in the arguments that rage on Twitter between the pro- and anti-Brexit brigades. But slanging matches between those of us who voted Remain are relatively new, and rather depressing. It’s clear […]

Even if Boris Johnson was to resign at the end of the year, it will be six months too late, writes JULIAN SELF. Boris Johnson is nominally the leader of the government (until February, at least, according to his chief advisor’s dad) but it is surely becoming abundantly clear to everybody that he only ever […]

TIM WALKER on Eileen Atkins and how she likes to disappear into a part as she feels stardom can be an encumbrance. Not long before lockdown, I went to a cheering lunch in Chelsea with Sir Ronald Harwood, the playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter. Men always love the sound of their own voices and we are […]

MITCH BENN on how former TV personalities such as Boris Johnson and Donald Trump should be banned from becoming politicians. Okay, how’s this for a semi-serious suggestion: anyone who’s ever presented a TV game show should be barred for life from running for high office. What do you think? I’m sorry if this nips in […]

RICHARD CORBETT on the warped economics of European football which are entrenching its elite sides. So, Bayern Munich are European football champions for the sixth time, after beating Paris St-Germain in last month’s Champions League final. Their triumph means that every time over the last 15 years (with one exception), the tournament has been won […]