News and Opinion

The events of the summer have exposed how ill-suited the prime minister is for the task that lies ahead, says JAMES BALL. Among the flurry of questions given as part of the cognitive tests used to determine whether or not someone has dementia is one that usually should be straightforward to answer: who is the […]

A tweet by the Home Office suggesting that ‘activist lawyers’ and EU laws were ‘disrupting’ the deportation of refugees from the UK has provoked huge public backlash. Legal experts, politicians, and members of the public shared their outrage on Twitter over a message by department detailing how it was working to remove asylum with no […]

The Liberal Democrats will announce a new leader Thursday morning following several months of campaigning. Sir Ed Davey and Layla Moran are both vying to become the party’s new leader after Jo Swinson dramatically lost her East Dunbartonshire seat in last December’s election. Voting closed on Wednesday at 1pm and the winner of the contest […]

Newly declared Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey has vowed to rebuild the party to ‘national relevance’ following three ‘disappointing’ general elections. Speaking shortly after his victory over contender Layla Moran MP, Sir Ed said it was time the party leadership ‘wake up and smell the coffee’. He said the Liberal Democrats had ‘lost touch’ […]

The top civil servant at the Department for Education Jonathan Slater will leave his post at the start of September after the exams fiasco. Slater is the second senior civil servant to quit in less than 24 hours and follows the resignation of other top Whitehall officials including cabinet secretary, Mark Sedwill, and the Foreign […]

A Labour MP has branded Brexiteers ‘sh*tbag racist w*nkers’ during a late night tweet on the BBC’s decision to play a wordless version of Rule Britannia at this year’s Last Night of the Proms. Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark Neil Coyle has hit out at Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg and prime minister Boris […]

A national radio presenter has implied Downing Street is taking coronavirus policy cues off Nicola Sturgeon following a recent move that made face coverings in schools across parts of England compulsory. talkRADIO host Julia Harltey-Brewer insinuated that Scotland’s first minister had more impact on England’s public health policy than Downing Street’s own scientific advisors. The […]

Labour has called the decision to appoint a former Australian Conservative prime minister a the head of a post-Brexit trade body ‘downright humiliating’. Shadow international trade secretary Emily Thornberry has described the government’s plans to appoint former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to lead Britain’s recently relaunched Board of Trade ‘downright humiliating’. The Sun and […]

Gavin Williamson has been accused of deliberately ‘talking down the time’ to avoid questions on the government’s latest U-turns on face coverings during a live interview on national TV. The minister for education appeared on BBC Breakfast on Wednesday to answer questions on the government’s latest update on advice concerning face coverings in schools across […]

Several Tory backbenchers have vented their frustration with Boris Johnson’s decision to introduce face coverings in schools across England, calling it ‘utterly wrong’ while branding the ordeal an ‘utter sh*tshow’. A group of Tory MPs have been fuming over the prime minister’s latest U-turn on face coverings in schools across England. The government has now […]

Ofqual boss Sally Collier has resigned in the wake of the A-Levels and GCSE results U-turn in England. She will be replaced by her predecessor Dame Glenys Stacey, the exams regulator said. In a statement on Tuesday Ofqual said Collier had decided ‘that the next stage of the awarding process would be better overseen by […]

Boris Johnson has hinted his government might u-turn on rules regarding the wearing of face masks in schools across England. Johnson said his government would change the advice on face coverings in schools ‘if we need to’. Currently, pupils across England are not expected to wear masks when they return to school next week. A […]

A group of MPs have urged Boris Johnson to meet with the families of those who lost loved ones to coronavirus in person. The cross-party group said Johnson should allocate more funding towards research on the long-term effects of the virus and meet with ‘long Covid’ sufferers. MPs on the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on […]

Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier has accused Britain of submitting an ‘unrealistic’ draft Brexit deal. A draft blueprint put forward by Britain’s Brexit negotiators has been rejected by EU officials who said it was ‘unrealistic’ and not a basis for future talks, The Sun has reported. It said EU diplomats were told Britain’s plan only […]

Downing Street has dismissed claims Boris Johnson would step down in six months because of ill-health as ‘utter nonsense’. Senior officials in No 10 slammed a story in The Times which claimed Sir Humphry Wakefield, Dominic Cummings’ father-in-law, told a reporter that Johnson was still struggling with the effects of coronavirus. In a report titled […]

The Tory Party used a campaign of ‘overt disinformation’ with ‘impunity’ during the 2019 general election, a study has revealed. Researchers from King’s College London warned the campaign may have undermined public trust in government messaging during the coronavirus pandemic. Research found that the Tories had used a campaign of ‘overt disinformation’ with a ‘new […]

Boris Johnson is facing calls from 40 Tory backbenchers to dump the 14-day quarantine in favour of a coronavirus testing regime at UK airports. In total, 80 MPs – 40 of which come from the prime minister’s own party – have written to Boris Johnson calling on him to follow Germany’s lead and introduce airport […]

Several sites across Hull have been identified to hold Britain’s fifth Brexit ‘lorry park’ to deal with congestion caused by the UK’s exit from the EU. According to Hull Live, an area 17 acres large on Humberside is being allocated out by ministers as an ‘inland port’ and would receive funding from the £500 million […]

Labour has accused the government of being ‘asleep at the wheel’ over plans to get pupils back to school in September. Children across England are expected to return to classrooms next week for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak in March. This will be the government’s second attempt to get pupils back to school […]

Staunch Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith (IDS) has said he does not ‘see the point’ in Brexit forecasts on the day a government report warned the UK faced food, fuel and power shortages if a no-deal Brexit and second coronavirus wave coincided. IDS downplayed a recent Cabinet Office report that the UK could face huge economic […]

The Tory minister behind the A-Levels fiasco and several Brexiteer MPs are in the running for an MP of the Year Award, causing widespread outrage on social media. Education minister Gavin Williamson could be the next MP of the Year despite begin leading the A-Levels debacle which saw almost 40% of student results downgraded a […]

A government dossier leaked to the press has revealed that the military may be called in to airdrop food and patrol parts of the UK if it is hit by a no-deal Brexit and a second coronavirus wave at the same time. The military may be drafted in to airdrop food to the Channel Islands […]

Covid-19 will never disappear, a former chief scientific adviser has warned, with the public requiring regular vaccinations to avoid catching it in the future. Professor Sir Mark Walport, who is a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said that, like flu, repeat inoculations will be required. He told BBC Radio 4’s […]

Boris Johnson has reportedly ended his holiday in Scotland early after reports he angered the landowner of the field he pitched a tent on. Johnson and his fiancée Carrie Symonds were reported to be staying in a remote three-bedroom house on the ‘north-west coast’ with dog Dilyn and son Wilfred. Social media users were sceptical […]

Historical attempts to curb Romanian culture have only aided creativity, says SOPHIA DEBOICK. José Ferrer in crisis. Picture: Submitted – Credit: Archant For a short while, Romania looked like it might become a beacon of creative freedom in the communist east. When Ceausescu became general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965 he adopted […]

Despite growing calls for education secretary Gavin Williamson to be sacked over the A-Levels fiasco, Boris Johnson is refusing to reshuffle his cabinet until he has got Brexit done. Tory MPs on the backbenches have been calling for Johnson to use the end of the recess to ‘reset’ his government and demote some of his […]

James O’Brien has likened the UK’s Brexit demands to ‘asking to use the jacuzzi after we’ve stopped paying for the gym’. O’Brien was wading into the news that another round of UK-EU trade talks had ended in deadlock. Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier warned that the negotiations, which ended on Friday, risked ‘going backwards’ and […]

The French president’s casting of himself as the man to rebuild Lebanon underlines his self-confidence and ease with his country’s colonial past. JASON WALSH reports. The dizzying complexity of France’s web of foreign entanglements was on full display during Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Beirut, just two days after the explosion which had devastated a […]

Robert Kennedy Jr has emerged as a leading light in the anti-vaxx and 5G movements, as the pandemic helps conspiracy theories shift from the fringe to the mainstream. ALEXI MOSTROUS reports. In 2014, Robert F Kennedy Jr had a problem. No-one was listening to him. Despite being the nephew of the 35th president and part […]

A minister responsible for overseeing the UK’s quarantine rules he said he has no idea how many people arriving from abroad had been fined for flouting the advice. Transport minister Grant Shapps said border force authorities had not yet reported the figure to him. Appearing on BBC Breakfast, Shapps faced a number of questions over […]

Brexiteers in the UK government have accused the EU of making post-Brexit negotiations ‘unnecessarily difficult’ despite claiming previously it would be one of the easiest in history. The latest round of talks took place in Brussels, with officials trying to agree a deal before the transition period ends on December 31. After a breakfast meeting […]

A Syrian refugee has criticised the government for trying to distract the public with stories about migrants, in a message beamed on to the White Cliffs of Dover by campaigners Led By Donkeys. The landmark was lit up with a giant video of NHS cleaner Hassan Akkad, a Syrian refugee who crossed to Britain several […]