News and Opinion

It was almost 35 years ago yet I still can’t believe my dad let me do it. I can’t have been much more than 14 years old. I was desperate to visit my favourite cousins in Dublin and I think my parents had probably jumped at the chance to get rid of me over that […]

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un are playing a very dangerous game of nuclear poker, argues Paul Connew. But does either leader have the cards that could avoid destruction? There’s an obscure 12-year-old promotional video in which Donald Trump pontificates ‘expertly’ on how to win at poker. Later he admitted he wasn’t an expert at all […]

Right, so where are we now then? When last we spoke, Keir Starmer had give us perhaps the first hint that Labour might be starting to back away from at least a ‘Hard’ Brexit, if not (yet) Brexit altogether. Nothing much else (at time of writing) seems to have happened on that front; Labour appear […]

When Muslim feminist SEYRAN ATES opened a liberal mosque in Berlin this summer she was met with a barrage of death threats and fatwas. But she says she is undeterred in her campaign to use enlightenment values to defeat extremism – in all forms I have been beaten up in the street, received death threats […]

Writer, April 17, 1885 – September 7, 1962 In New York in the spring of 1959 Karen Blixen danced on a table with Marilyn Monroe and fellow novelist Carson McCullers. At least, that was according to McCullers’ version of events: while the three certainly met it’s unlikely the frail, sickly Blixen would have been tapping […]

An estimated 50,000 passionate Remainers marched on Parliament yesterday demanding the Government reverse its Brexit strategy. The People’s March For Europe began at Hyde Park, moving noisily through central London before attending a rally in Parliament Square with speeches including former cabinet minister Sir Ed Davey and Conservative peer Baroness Wheatcroft. Many clad in the […]

Tony Blair today made an explosive intervention in the Brexit debate, calling for tough new immigration rules which would allow Britain to stay in the EU. In a policy paper for The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the former Prime Minister has called on the Government to make EU citizens coming to Britain register […]

Al Jazeera may have its flaws, but its persecution is seriously bad news for the world, says PAUL KNOTT As a news-addicted citizen of the world, it was Al Jazeera’s in-depth report on the last Ecuadorean election that finally won me over. The ground-breaking global news channel covers places and viewpoints others do not. Sadly, […]

Few British institutions divide opinion as much as the Last Night of the Proms. But, says PIERS FORD, this complex event is ultimately able to rise above the political tensions The Last Night of the Proms is the musical equivalent of the swallow doing one final lap before it heads for warmer climes: a landmark […]

ETA’s decades of violence have cast a long shadow over Spain and the Basque Country. But, says CAROLINE GRAY, a brilliant and cathartic novel is helping both to move on from the past Western Europe’s last remaining home-grown terrorist organisation finally ceased operations in 2011 when Basque separatist group ETA declared a permanent ceasefire. And […]

1958 was the year when rock and roll gripped the nation, prompting some to ask of a young Cliff Richard ‘Is this boy too sexy for television?’ SOPHIA DEBOICK explores when the teenager truly arrived in Britain Teenage music fans couldn’t be blamed for feeling things were in stasis in 1958. Elvis was in a […]

If you’re looking for a phrase to describe the change in newspaper print circulations this year, it might well be ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’. The latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) demonstrate that only the Metro managed to increase its print circulation year-on-year, with every single other national […]

It’s not just back to school for the nation’s children, this week, but also for politicians and British business. It’s heads down and concentrate for the crucial 15 weeks between now and Christmas. These are critical for most sectors. Retailers face their busiest trading period; media companies expect an uptick in seasonal advertising; construction companies […]

Modern Germany has a very different political and media culture to our own, and some of that was on display in Sunday’s ‘TV-Duell’ between Chancellor Angela Merkel and her SDP challenger Martin Schulz. For a start, lest any German elector was unaware of its importance, the debate was broadcast live across four main channels. The […]

Celts share a fierce pride and independence that has shaped their food and drink, says JOSH BARRIE There is, across westerly lands, where Europe meets the only thing separating it from the misery of Donald Trump – and his dastardly chlorinated chicken – a Celtic stretch. It veers from Scotland southward, through the Isle of […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Peter Whittle ‘Great to speak tonight at @UKIP Norfolk hustings,’ tweeted the favourite to become the Kippers’ next leader, after talking at an event last weekend. ‘This is a party with a strong beating heart.’ And who can doubt it when you see the […]

RICHARD PORRITT on the week’s big stories ‘Shut up and do as you are told or the Commie bastard on the opposition benches will send us all back to the 1970s’ appears to be the Whips’ latest line of attack on Tory Remainers. But why the paranoia? Even rogue Remain Tory Anna Soubry admitted that […]

Britain’s chances of being ready to begin EU trade negotiations by the next round of trade talks in October are “in the neighbourhood of zero”, former European Council president Herman van Rompuy warned today. The stark warning comes days after David Davies admitted Brexit negotiations were proving “tough and at times confrontational” as he told […]

With a protest in Manchester next month and another in London this weekend, the grassroots fight against Brexit is taking to the streets again. Organisers of Saturday’s event KAZ LLEWELLYN and JEREMY DAVIES issue a call to arms We must protest and we must march if we are to reclaim our future. We are not […]

Spare a thought for the good people of Staines-upon-Thames. They have revealed recently, in a newspaper profile of the town, that they are restless and impatient for Brexit. Some expected it to come as an early Christmas present, shortly after the referendum, wrapped in a bow and ready for celebration. Others waited for an immediate […]

All those angry, or just anxious, about Brexit have a wonderful opportunity to get this tone deaf government to take notice of them, with a rally in Manchester on October 1. Student CAMERON BROOME explains why young people must take this chance I’ll be honest – until recently, I had been reluctant to back anything […]

Ok, this is intriguing… Keir Starmer has turned up in the Observer declaring what certainly LOOKS like a shift and/or backtrack in Labour’s Brexit strategy, specifically that the UK should remain within the single market and customs union for a ‘transitional period’, whatever that means. Speculation has already begun to percolate through the various social […]

Britain will introduce strict curbs on EU migration immediately after Brexit to force all but the most highly-skilled to leave after two years, a leaked Home Office report has shown. The 82-page document. leaked to The Guardian, suggests free movement will end immediately upon leaving in March 2019, with a “more selective approach” to EU […]

Brexit negotiations were proving “tough and at times confrontational”, David Davis admitted today as he told MPs there was a yawning gap in how the two sides saw the UK’s divorce bill. “There were significant differences” and “very different legal stances” over how much the UK owed, the Brexit Secretary told MPs, leaving open the […]

The dog days of summer are traditionally a time for Fleet Street’s finest to get creative as they try to fill the lull in politics. And that has never been more so than this year, as the Brexit press see the wheels coming off their cherished project. LIZ GERARD reviews how a very silly season […]

Leading Remainer Anna Soubry and Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg are two of the most high-profile figures competing to fill Conservative seats on the Commons’ influential Brexit Select Committee. The pair are among 14 Tory MPs vying for 10 places on the committee, which is responsible for scrutinising the Government’s strategy for leaving the EU. The committee’s […]

In the first part of an exclusive serialisation of his brilliant new book, Britain’s foremost philosopher describes how we stand on the precipice of losing democracy in Britain For many centuries the idea of democracy was regarded with revulsion and fear, and not just by ruling elites who saw it as against their interests. This […]

IAN WALKER looks at the complex legacy of Germany’s first post-war chancellor, a man who helped unify Europe and rebuild West Germany but who left a nation divided not only between East and West but also between the war generation and the baby boomers who came after In April 1933 Konrad Adenauer, the former mayor […]

English has many different names across the globe. Here PETER TRUDGILL explores the origins of the names used to describe the languages of Europe Many people in this country won’t know what the word Saesneg means. It’s the name of a language. The same language also goes by the names of Pelekani, Edegeesi, and Chirungu. […]

Attempts to look on the bright side, economically, are – as ever – undermined by the same doubts and uncertainty surrounding Brexit, says Angela Jameson. A press release lands from a private equity company that wants to talk up the economy. ECI Partners, which invests in small-to-medium-sized growing firms, says that the 350 businesses it […]

Uphill struggles, of one form or another, appear to characterise many of the stories generating interest and comment in newspapers and on websites across Europe. Sisyphean tasks BELGIUM: The series of terror attacks across Europe in recent years has dealt blow after blow to community relations that have taken decades to construct, argued the writer […]

Labour’s Brexit chief has sent a stark warning to the Government saying ‘we are not giving you a blank cheque’ on how Britain leaves the European Union. Sir Keir Starmer warned Theresa May she faces a parliamentary battle in the first Commons vote on Brexit legislation if issues raised by Labour are ignored. The Shadow […]