News and Opinion

Even before it has happened, Brexit is reducing Britain’s power in Europe and so our standing in the world. Diplomats and civil servants know it. Business leaders know it. Our Prime Minister knows it, and probably looks so strained and ill because having – unlike her clownish Foreign Secretary – gone into the detail she […]

RICHARD PORRITT with this week’s big stories. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ asked a depressed Number 10 staffer at the news Theresa May was to do an LBC phone-in. She wanted to talk about the government’s newly-announced race audit but the callers wanted to talk about that and much more. One asked about whether she […]

The Chancellor has admitted no Brexit deal could leave planes grounded in March 2019. Addressing the Commons Treasury committee Philip Hammond said crashing out of the European Union could have a devastating impact on the UK with cargo and passenger planes unable to fly. He did say he believed the scenario was unlikely but could […]

It’s not a stretch to say that the economics of digital advertising are to blame for disasters like Brexit and Trump. It sounds simplistic, but the means by which the news and opinion that sway public opinion get disseminated is dictated by which is likely to generate revenue for news publishers. Unfortunately, over the past […]

Boris Johnson is desperate to get into Number 10 – but it seems the Prime Minister has other ideas. How to deal with the rogue foreign secretary is no doubt giving Theresa May some sleepless nights. Does she have the power to sack him? Would kicking him out of the cabinet make him more powerful? […]

We’re living in the Age of Cool Dad, with politicians obsessed with burnishing their pop culture credentials, says SAMIRA AHMED. It was a detail which might have escaped wider attention, were it not for social media. But there was Twitter, to capture photographer Gary He’s observation – accompanied by two pictures of the Canadian Prime […]

Plenty of books create beautiful evocations of the cities in which they are set. But far fewer succeed in elevating their locations from a backdrop into a central character. CHARLIE CONNELLY selects a few. On learning of the death of J.P. Donleavy on September 11 at the age of 91 I eschewed the most appropriate […]

Theresa May has claimed ‘the ball is in their court’ in a statement to the House of Commons updating MPs on the Brexit negotiations. Brussels, however, disagree. The European Commission’s chief spokesman, Margaritis Schinas, confirmed Britain was still some way from progressing the talks which have stalled. ‘There is a clear sequencing to these talks,’ […]

Lawyers have told the Government that Article 50 is not binding and can be scrapped at any time before the March 2019 deadline, it has been claimed. Jessica Simor, of Matrix Chambers which was co-founded by Cherie Blair, has said she believes the document that signalled the withdrawal process from the European Union can be […]

The deluded fantasies of Leavers must have been inspired by the big screen says Have I Got News For You writer NATHANIEL TAPLEY. Here, he brings you the most Brexity films of all time. Back in the distant reaches of history – the late 1990s – entertainment was a very different thing. Before streaming services […]

The deluded fantasies of Leavers must have been inspired by the big screen says Have I Got News For You writer NATHANIEL TAPLEY. Here, he brings you the most Brexity films of all time. Back in the distant reaches of history – the late 1990s – entertainment was a very different thing. Before streaming services […]

France might be home of its most famous race, but Italy is the country with cycling in its DNA. To find out why, Patrick Sawer makes a tearful pilgrimage to its shrine to the sport. Italian cyclist Gino Bartali on the shoulders of spectators after winning the Giro dItalia in 1946. Photo: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images […]

Trieste, the city which has survived centuries of seductive illusions. Palazzo DellePoste-Facciata. – Credit: Archant The elusive concept of Mitteleuropa hovers with one foot in an extinct political reality and the other in the imagination of its beholder. Look for it on a map at any time in human history, and you will be disappointed. […]

As ambitions go, Lee Humphries’ is an unusual, if lofty, one – to ascend the highest points of 100 different countries. As he crests the halfway mark in his quest, he explains all to Julian Shea. Lee Humphries at Maglic in Bosnia and Herzegovina. – Credit: Archant In 1923, when climber George Mallory was questioned […]

The real question of the Age is the question of authenticity. Jeremy Corbyn is authentic. Theresa May is not. During the US presidential election, for many, Donald Trump was authentic. For many, Hillary Clinton was not. Boris Johnson is seen as ‘Boris-is-Boris’. Authentic. Philip Hammond is ‘Spreadsheet Phil’, the Remainer, slowing down the Brexit juggernaut. […]

JUSTIN REYNOLDS on the Thomas Mann novel which tried to make sense of the descent of Europe’s most cultured nation into Nazism. The avant-garde composer Adrian Leverkühn was born in 1885 in the Bavarian town of Kaisersaschern. He read theology at Halle and Leipzig before studying music privately with the pianist Wendell Kretzschmar. Leverkühn’s early […]

In the days before Stephen Paddock reignited America’s gun control debate by raining down rapid fire carnage on the Las Vegas strip, a familiar voice was again calling the shots inside Donald Trump’s head. Step forward The Great Manipulator, Steve ‘The Loose Cannon’ Bannon (both nicknames he revels in, incidentally, along with Darth Bannon). Almost […]

As with other such tragedies, the Las Vegas massacre quickly brought out the worst of the internet, says JONATHON READ. As many tried to make sense of what had happened, in those first few hours after the Las Vegas shooting, social media went into overdrive. Caught up in the vortex of information, emotion and reaction […]

Ahead of the return to London of arguably his greatest work, Glengarry Glen Ross, Charlie Connelly considers the craft of polymath and playwright David Mamet. Al Pacino on the set of Glengarry Glen Ross. Photo: New Line Cinema/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images – Credit: Corbis via Getty Images In the mid-1960s Carol Stoll would sit […]

This week’s podcast looks at the calamitous Tory conference in Manchester, an odd few days with UKIP and the Brexiteer of the week. A review of the week’s Brexit news with host Richard Porritt, joined by Steve Angelsey and Geri Scott. Richard, Steve and Geri review the calamitous Tory conference in Manchester, an odd few […]

The initiative aiming to slash away at the art world’s exclusivity and elitism Etienne Clement, The Valentine Variation Series. Picture: Courtesy of The Other Art Fair/Saatchi Art – Credit: Archant In the 1984 film Beverly Hills Cop there is a scene where Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) visits an elite Los Angeles art galley. As he […]

Once the darling of Tory members Boris Johnson is playing a high-risk game, says RICHARD PORRITT. For Theresa May the Conservative Party conference was a round robin apology. At behind-closed-doors meetings, again and again she apologised for the Tories who lost seats or had big majorities almost wiped out in June’s general election. Although she […]

They have a new leader, but do they have a new purpose? RICHARD PORRITT went behind enemy lines at the UKIP conference and found a party on the brink. It’s Friday morning in Torquay. Weekenders are arriving at hotels as the sun struggles to dislodge the cloud. I spot not one black or Asian face. […]

Spain is facing an existential threat, says JASON WALSH, with the country’s fragile compromise – which has held since the end of Franco’s dictatorship – now in tatters. For those watching on television, or following in newspapers or online, there seemed to be only one flag being flown across Catalonia last weekend as the state […]

What does it say about the Conservative government that Boris Johnson, a man whose record for lying, cheating and disgracing himself on the national stage stands alone in our political history, is not only tolerated in government, but actually holds one of the great offices of state? What does it say about Theresa May that […]

As conference season draws to a close, former Tory candidate turned radio talk show host IAIN DALE charts the fortunes of those who have been on manoeuvres – and makes some tentative predictions/ Back in early April, Theresa May was mistress of all she surveyed. Her first eight months had been a success. She was […]

There was a time – in my political journalist life many moons ago – when I couldn’t imagine NOT being at the party conferences. This year, in a third and very different phase of my life, at both Labour and Tory Conferences, I couldn’t wait to get away. There was the period of my life […]

Steve Anglesey rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit. 10. Jacob Rees-Mogg Told a Tory fringe meeting: ‘I think our Prime Minister is a heroine of 10,000 years and I welcome the every waking breath of the Prime Minister, our great leader.’ So […]

RICHARD PORRITT with this week’s big stories. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexit head-banger and anti-abortionist, used a fringe event at the Tory conference to back the current head of the party’s nutter wing Boris Johnson. Speaking at a Bruges Group event he said: ‘There has been too much crying into our soup and saying it is all […]

Gin has undergone a remarkable resurgence in popularity in recent years, with many new brands and flavours emerging. There are some older producers, though, with a heritage even stronger than the gin they create. One English name in the art of distilled juniper berries that can be traced back more than 130 years is Beefeater […]

Theresa May faces a critical period in her premiership. Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference at the Manchester Central Convention Complex in Manchester. – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images The theme of her speech was ‘The British Dream’ but those in the hall and beyond witnessed the Prime Minister […]

There’s good news and bad news for online news publishers: The good is that people are increasingly willing to pay for digital news subscriptions. The bad is that news often takes a back seat to entertainment services like Netflix and Spotify. This comes out of the latest study by Kantar Media on behalf of the […]