British Politics

Boris Johnson’s administration is said to be “frantically repositioning” itself for Joe Biden to win the US election, former Tory chancellor George Osborne has claimed. Osborne appeared on CNN to claim that the Brexiteers in government will find it “hard to pivot toward a Biden administration”. “There’s no doubt that the Brexit government here will […]

Health secretary Matt Hancock has insisted the leaders of the Test and Trace scheme ‘needs our thanks’ after it was put to him that Baroness Dido Harding should lose her job leading the initiative.  Hancock was asked whether Harding should remain in the job after senior Tory MP Bernard Jenkin called for her to be […]

A shop in Lancaster has become the second business banning Tory MPs after they voted against extending free school meals over the holidays. Ian Bailey, who owns The Runners Centre, has barred local MP David Morris after he voted with 231 Tory MPs to reject a motion to feed hungry children over school holidays. This comes after […]

A business minister has defended Tory peer Baroness Harding’s handling of the government Test and Trace scheme, claiming she is doing a “very difficult job really well” and is working 19-hour shifts every day. Nadhim Zahawi was asked to give his verdict on Harding’s leadership of the key Covid-19 prevention programme after senior Tory MP […]

UKIP is attempting to revive its party by focusing on the London mayoral elections after it installed Neil Hamilton as its new leader. Guido Fawkes reports that the party’s frontrunner with the NEC for the 2021 elections is Dr Peter Gammons. Gammons is said to be a professional “inspirational and motivational speaker” and is reported to […]

Former Tory party chairman James Cleverly has been mocked after tempting to smear Labour by telling people to look at the situation in Wales. The Foreign Office minister saw his name to trend on Twitter as he tried to turn users against Labour by using the example of the Welsh government to prove his own […]

Boris Johnson has been warned by more than 50 Tory MPs that his handling of the coronavirus pandemic could “send the North into reverse”. A group of northern Conservative backbenchers, led by former northern powerhouse minister Jake Berry, has written to the prime minister expressing their concerns. The Northern Research Group (NRG) wants Johnson to […]

Powers enabling ministers to break international law could be stripped from controversial Brexit legislation by peers within days. The UK Internal Market Bill is undergoing detailed line-by-line scrutiny in the House of Lords, and is currently scheduled for four days of consideration at committee stage. The legislation sets out the way that trade within the […]

Readers have their say on politics in Germany, and make comparisons to Britain. The German people believe Angela Merkel will tell them the truth (“Trust helps Germany through its crisis”, TNE #215). The biggest issue with our government is a lack of faith.The trust in Boris Johnson and his uninspiring crew has been systematically undermined […]

Readers have their say on the silence of Baroness Dido Harding, who is overseeing the government’s test and trace scheme. I can’t help wondering why, if Diana ‘Dido’ Harding is that capable, confident and articulate (“Test of her life”, TNE #215), she doesn’t seem to do more media interviews: after all, who better to report […]

Readers have their say on the latest opinion articles from The New European. Re: Alastair Campbell on Piers Morgan. Though I used to find Piers insufferable, I now looking forward to his combative take on all things Covid-19 and the disastrous no-deal Brexit prospect.Last Monday I felt a tad deflated not to see him and […]

A tweet by the Brexit Party aimed at shaming Tory MPs who voted against extending free school lunches has been slammed online. Nigel Farage shared a Brexit Party post on Twitter which showed a plate half empty along with the caption: “The Tories will support ‘eat out to help out’ but they won’t spend a few quid to help a […]

Welsh secretary Simon Hart has accused the media of concocting a scandal surrounding England’s contract tracing system as he dismissed claims it was an “abject” failure on national television. Hart struck a defensive tone with Sky News’ Andrew Boulton who confronted him over dire test and trace figures. “To use Boris Johnson’s words, the government has quite happily […]

Brexiteer Prue Leith has reportedly quit her membership of the Tory Party after the government rejected a motion that would have safeguarded UK food standards. The Great British Bake Off judge has previously expressed concerns about the state of UK standards after Brexit and has called on MPs to not allow countries like America to import inferior food into […]

Tory MPs have become the centre of a new protest shaming them for voting against a Labour motion to extend free school meals until Easter 2021. Dozens of empty plates were left outside the office of Southend West MP Sir David Amess, who was one of 322 Tories to vote against the motion last week by […]

Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have been urged to end their “hostility” towards lawyers who defend asylum seekers in a letter signed by more than 800 legal professionals. The letter, published in the Guardian by former and current lawyers, barristers, and UK justices of the Supreme Court, have called on the government to apologise for attacking the legal profession. The […]

The government has pledged £28 million to private companies to return asylum seekers who arrive in the UK without a visa. The Home Office will enlist transport, housing, medical and legal services firms to ensure illegal migrants are “reintegrated” in their home nation, POLITICO has revealed. According the media outlet, the move is part of a […]

Downing Street has refused to praise cafes, pubs and restaurants offering to provide free meals for vulnerable children over half term. The prime minister’s official spokesperson was given three opportunities to express satisfactions with businesses pitching in to feed the UK’s poorest kids. Instead, they said: “As we have set out before, we are in a different […]

James O’Brien has delivered a scathing assessment of the government’s coronavirus response and claimed the pandemic has exposed just how out of touch with reality leaders have become. The national radio host accused the government of underestimating the impact of Covid-19 is having in communities across the UK. “The contradiction of telling us for months that it was all […]

An adviser to Rishi Sunak and Tory donor is in pole position to be the next chair of the BBC after frontrunners George Osborne and Nicky Morgan ruled themselves out. Richard Sharp, a multi-millionaire former Goldman Sachs investment banker is being tipped as Boris Johnson’s favourite to take over at the national broadcaster, The Times has claimed. […]

A report into allegations of bullying by home secretary Priti Patel may never be released to the public, a top official has suggested. Newly appointed cabinet secretary Simon Case refused to guarantee the findings would be made public, saying that the decision was now in Boris Johnson’s hands. Patel has been the centre of a probe into […]

Former Tory minister Nicky Morgan has been criticised after suggesting the government refused to extend free school meals because one of its MPs had been called a “scum”. Appearing on Question Time, the previous -culture secretary suggested the government voted down a motion to extend the scheme because of Labour’s handling of the debate. This lead […]

So, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in Guy’s Hospital recently, accompanying my brother-in-law who’s terminally ill with cancer to his consultations and treatments. It’s a hospital I know well – having already seen birth and death there, as well as being diagnosed with – and receiving ongoing treatment for – a myeloid […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a new book covering 2,000 years of English history at breakneck speed, right up to a gloomy ending in the present day…but with some cause for cautious optimism. English politicians have always displayed a particular interest in history. Maybe it’s a narcissistic thing, feeling that by stepping up to public office they […]

Reader Mary Philo, from Wandsworth, south London, has submitted the following obituary for her husband, a man she describes as a “scholar, Polymath and committed European”.  Simon Edwards, who has died aged 73, did much to enrich the opportunities to study abroad for students at the University of Roehampton where he taught English Literature for […]

A political commentator has delivered a blistering response to Tory MPs who called on Angela Rayner to apologise after labelling one of them a “scum” in the Commons. Tory backbenchers Chris Clarkson and Shaun Bailey were successful in getting an apology from Labour’s deputy leader after she was caught blurting out the insult during an MPs […]

I read that Dame Julie Walters, having recently turned 70 and survived a brush with cancer, has said that she’s considering retiring from acting, although she might be tempted back to do Mamma Mia 3 if it happens. What’s perhaps interesting about this announcement is the fact that it’s considered newsworthy at all… A woman […]

Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre was the biggest winner in the government’s cultural bail-out scheme in England, with a whopping £999,999 coming its way. This made it the envy of far more acclaimed, but less generously supported venues, such as the Bristol Old Vic, and, in London, the Almeida and the Kiln, where the great Indhu Rubasingham, […]

I work in a hut that stands on a floodplain on the edge of the Broads and I often see marsh harriers from my desk: wings in a shallow dihedral, balanced on the edge of a stall, a bird of prey and a virtuoso of slowness. They’ve been extinct once, almost twice as a British […]

LIZ GERARD on how the Daily Star became the voice of the people – while The Sun speaks for Boris Johnson alone. The Daily Star speaks for the nation. Who would have thought it? Fleet Street’s most downmarket tabloid is the country’s acknowledged expert on giant mutant rats, psycho seagulls and lager lout wasps. It […]

A Tory MP who defied her own party to vote in support of Labour’s free school meals motion has quit her government post. Caroline Ansell, the MP for Eastbourne and Willingdon, was one of five Tories who backed an amendment to provide children with free meals over the holidays. The MP quit her role as parliamentary aide […]

Given the low-level background dread that is life in 2020, picking out any individual source of anxiety can often be all-but impossible – but one obvious exception for many of us is looking towards the impending US presidential election, now less than two weeks away. In the pit of our stomachs, many of us have […]