News and Opinion

Jeremy Hunt has been mocked after insisting that Britain would “survive and prosper” after a no-deal Brexit, the day after describing it as a “mistake we would regret for generations”. Mr Hunt had been criticised by Hard Brexiteer MPs after an interview with ITV News yesterday in which he appeared to play up the risks […]

Accountancy giant Deloitte has been handed £2.6m to give Liam Fox’s officials a crash course in how to handle trade disputes. The Department for International Trade is set to pay the external consultants roughly £325,000 a month to prepare officials working at the country’s trade authority. The contract, unearthed by news website Politico, commenced in […]

TIM WALKER on how this seductive production of the comedy classic makes it funnier than ever. Vaudeville Theatre, London, until October 20 There is a great deal of kissing going on in Michael Fentiman’s adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest. Men kiss women, women kiss women and men kiss men. Fehinti Balogun’s dashing Algernon […]

Rachel Johnson discusses the country’s desperation to talk and row about something else. My record of bringing the rain this summer is so far unbeaten. I left London to spend a few days in Scotland, and it rained. Then I came down to London last week and it rained. And now I’m in Somerset and […]

Brussels Brexit negotiators fear they are being spied on by Britain. Officials raised security concerns after the UK allegedly obtained sensitive documents ‘within hours’ of them being discussed. Sabine Weyand, the EU’s deputy chief Brexit negotiator, reportedly told officials at a European Council working party on exit talks that ‘it could not be excluded’ that […]

Brexit could be “hugely damaging” to English football, according to the chairmen of Burnley and Stoke City. Burnley chairman Mike Garlick said uncertainty over a deal with the EU was already making it harder for clubs to sign players. And Stoke chairman Peter Coates said that the Premier League could be hit by freedom-of-movement restrictions. […]

STEVE ANGLESEY looks at the Vote Leave campaigner’s rule-breaking and rounds up the worst Brexiteers of the week. Photos taken during the campaign show Grimes in a Vote Leave T-shirt, beaming behind Michael Gove at a press conference. Picture: PA Wire/PA Images – Credit: Archant The old saying ‘crime doesn’t pay’ can now be updated […]

The first signs of Labour’s erosion under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership might just be appearing, says JAMES BALL The country, the polls suggest, may finally be starting to seriously change its mind on Brexit. For the first months – and then the first year – after the UK voted to leave, polls stubbornly bounced around within […]

TIM WALKER talks to actor and campaigner Sir Patrick Stewart about politics, Star Trek and a very spiky encounter with the Labour leader Ever since he first stood with a placard bearing the name of his local Labour candidate in Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the 1945 general election – at the […]

Brexit can be stopped – and Salvini provides yet another reason why it should be. ‘It is better to live one day as a lion than a thousand years as a sheep,’ was a Mussolini catchphrase. By lion he meant the full works: roar, teeth, hunting, killing, aggressive war. There wasn’t much compassion for the […]

Tim Walker’s diary also focuses on why Sarah Sands won’t be sacked as editor of the Today show and a former colleague recalls Daniel Hannan’s difficulties mastering facts. Sarah Sands remains “stubbornly in place” as editor of the Today programme on Radio 4. Picture: PA – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images Mr Bean shuts down the […]

Just under half of people in Scotland want a referendum on the Brexit deal, according to a new poll. The YouGov poll, commissioned by the People’s Vote campaign calling for a public vote on Brexit negotiations outcome, found 48% of respondents were in favour, with 31% opposed. This is greater than the UK wide-response of […]

The chance of a chaotic no-deal Brexit is now “50-50”, Latvia’s foreign minister said today in a stark warning to Theresa May. Edgars Rink?vi?s said there was a “very considerable risk” of a no-deal scenario but insisted he remained optimistic an agreement with Britain on its withdrawal from the EU could be reached. He said […]

The amount of European funding allocated to British universities has fallen as Brexit approaches. Figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy analysing support from the EU’s Horizon 2020 research programme show that the proportion of funds allocated to British universities had dropped to 24.22% by the end of May – down from […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg and his European Research Group are to directly challenge Theresa May with their own blueprint setting out plans for a Hard Brexit. The Times reports today that the group of around 60 to 80 Hard Brexit-supporting Tory MPs have begun work on what is effectively a riposte to the prime minister’s Chequers plan, […]

TIM WALKER gives five stars to King Lear at London’s Duke of York’s theatre King Lear Duke of York’s, London, until Nov 3 ***** (Five stars) Two kings, neither in full possession of their faculties, are currently holding dominion in the West End, and across the Thames, at the National Theatre. One is sublime, and […]

Fancy an award-winning Belgian White or a German Weisse? Tough – Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin has announced he is looking at getting rid of all EU products The Brexiteer has said his firm was reviewing its “whole range” of products from the EU to see if they could be replaced by alternatives from Britain or […]

After Nick Cohen’s recent stunning essay criticising the BBC’s coverage, the Corporation’s former communications chief ED WILLIAMS leads the case for defence. Politics in Europe and America is now ferromagnetic. The iron filings of policy are being drawn to extreme poles of left and right. In America and across Europe, strange bedfellows are governing in […]

The English Renaissance took music into new directions and saw that emergence of a tune which still echoes down the ages. Sophia Deboick reports. Elizabeth I had been on the throne for more than 20 years as the 1580s dawned, and was presiding over a peaceful England. But these years were the calm before the […]

From Brexit to climate change, there are still too many refusing to acknowledge that our current trajectory is headed for disaster. Young activist LIBBY CHERRY explains why urgent action needs to be taken. Climate change is not a new concern. Yet only now has it become plastered across the front pages of newspapers, due less […]

Some of the country’s leading disability activists, including Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, have published an open letter calling for the public to have the final say on Brexit. The campaigners say they are convinced that the ‘chaotic, uncertain, and discordant’ Brexit process is going to lead to a ‘reduced quality of life’ for disabled people in […]

Keep calm and carry on is the old British motto but comedian, musician and writer MITCH BENN explains it’s not going to work this time round. Sorry to begin on such a downer note, but I’ve been thinking about it and there’s one thing that nobody’s saying, and it is the one thing that people […]

The clamour for Boris Johnson to say sorry continues to grow. But, MIC WRIGHT asks, ‘what is the point of the political apology?’ Sorry, but this is going to be a thing about apologies. Even worse, it’s going to be a thing about politicians and apologies. I can only apologise again. According to research commissioned […]

Southern soul may have lost its lustre in the States but it has found a home in northern Italy. GARTH CARTWRIGHT reports. Poretta is transfromed with the largest soul festival in the world. – Credit: Archant In the mountains south west of Bologna sits a sleepy town called Porretta Terme. Most of the time it […]

More than 100 Leave constituencies across the UK now back Remain, a major new study has revealed. The analysis is the first to take an in-depth look at the changing attitudes on Brexit at a constituency level in the UK. It has found a monumental shift in public opinion against Brexit. The study – commissioned […]

The ‘centre of gravity’ on Brexit is shifting towards a People’s Vote, the Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable has told campaigners in Bristol. People’s Vote campaigners in Bristol. Photograph: Britain for Europe/Twitter. – Credit: Archant Sir Vince was speaking alongside Femi Oluwole, Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, Labour MP Stephen Doughty and Green MEP Molly […]

In the past, the Edinburgh Fringe has been a hotbed of some of the most satirical and illuminating political comedy. So what does 2018 have to offer? Writer and novelist John Nicholson reports. When many of our most important politicians are such ridiculous, ludicrous, grotesque parodies, not just of politicians but of actual human beings, […]

I voted out in the referendum, but rapidly recovered my senses when Brexit fell prey to the far-right agenda. This stairway to heaven has become a dark passage inhabited by the dark art of data manipulation, and questions about the people behind anti-EU backers. To me it is now crystal clear that the whole Brexit […]

Deborah Meaden has not featured heavily in the Brexit debate so far, but in recent weeks she has become more vocal in her criticisms. The star of the BBC’s Dragon’s Den programme is one of the country’s leading entrepreneurs, having worked and invested in business since leaving college at the age of 19. In the […]

Veteran BBC journalist GAVIN ESLER delivers an excoriating blast against broadcasters, Leavers and the lies that have left the country a more divided, poorer place. President Donald J. Trump. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images) – Credit: The Washington Post/Getty Images When the facts change, rational people change their minds. It’s normal. […]

I noted with interest Tory trade secretary, Liam Fox, warning that a no-deal Brexit was now more likely than the UK getting an agreement with the EU. Quite bizarrely, this appears to be the same Liam Fox who little more than a year ago said that a post-Brexit free trade with the EU should be […]

As the new season kicks-off JAMES BROWN looks at an unexpectedly exotic managerial appointment which offers a ray of hope for his club. Not since Kevin Keegan went to lower league Fulham or European Cup-winner Rafa Benitez dropped into the Championship to get Newcastle United promoted has the world of non-Premier League football been lit […]