News and Opinion

There can only be ‘one winner’ but will it be MC Jez Jez? Five things we learned yesterday 1. Theresa May thinks she is the ‘only person’ who could win the election. The Prime Minister has tried to avoid appearing complacent over the outcome of the election during her presidential-style campaign but she had to […]

Election news, updates and analysis on May 11. .

‘We can’t just destroy a beautiful country’ says Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson Branson has said a hard Brexit would be a disaster for the UK and could warrant a second referendum. ‘The people voted for the Government to come out of Europe based on £350million more going into the NHS and a whole lot […]

A win for the Tories team could be bad news for foxes as the PM pledges a free vote to overturn hunting ban. Theresa May has outraged animal lovers with a pledge to hold a free vote on overturning the ban on fox hunting. The Prime Minister said she was in favour of the outlawed […]

Is May running a Trump-style campaign? Five things we learned yesterday 1. Theresa May has denied that she is running a presidential-style campaign amid claims she is ashamed of the ‘nasty’ party. The Conservative brand has played second fiddle to ‘Theresa May’s team’ at events so far. But the Prime Minister insisted: ‘If you look […]

Election news, reaction and analysis on May 10. .

Portugal might just help the British left plot a path to recovery – or at least help block Brexit As across much of Europe, Portugal’s centre left had seemed to be facing decline. For four years, the country had been run by a centre right coalition led by the rather counter intuitively-named Partido Social Democrata […]

Election news, updates and reaction on May 9. .

A day to remember what Europe has achieved On May 9, 1950 Robert Schuman made a speech as French Foreign Minister which initiated the development of the institutions which became the European Union. His objective was to begin the process of integrating the economic and political interests of member states of a new European Coal […]

The EU was not conceived to regulate the curvature of a banana. It was conceived to regulate our propensity to kill each other. Our continent has a startlingly violent history. Since 1600, the founder members of the European Union have been more or less consistently in a permanent cycle of war, recovery from war, then […]

As a young airman, Harry Leslie Smith saw first hand the need for co-operation in Europe, a lesson he thinks later generations have lost Seventy-two years ago, I witnessed the birth of a new Europe when the blossoms of spring erupted with a melancholic beauty, along the roads that led from Holland to Germany, during […]

Having set up his own movement to challenge for the French presidency, Emmanuel Macron faces a tough challenge. But there are signs he may just have hit on a way out of the current mess, and discovered an antidote to the populist virus sweeping Europe This article originally appeared in The New European on January […]

Disgusted by Brexit, one artist explains why she chose custard creams to convey her anti-Brexit message Biscuits – Credit: Archant The protest biscuits came out of the morning of the Brexit result. We’d been showing a biscuit artwork I made at the Grrrr! art pop shop in Kentish Town which was a custard cream, under […]

GE2017 news, reaction and analysis on May 8. .

The populist right has been dealt a heavy blow after Marine Le Pen was defeated in the French election. Emmanuel Macron looks set to become France’s next president after exit polls gave him a strong lead over Le Pen. Polling agencies project the 39-year-old political novice has won 65% of the vote, with Le Pen […]

This former Labour MP admits he would vote against his party, if it aided the anti-Brexit cause. In politics there is a permanent and healthy tension between pure political tribal loyalty and a sense of a wider national interest. Labour did not pause for a second in 1940 before entering into an alliance with trade […]

Czech government set to resign over finance ministers business dealings SWEDEN A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has resubmitted a request for a Stockholm court to drop a detention order relating to a possible sex crime in Sweden seven years ago.Per E Samuelsson claims Assange wants to travel to Ecuador to seek political asylum […]

Election news, reaction and analysis on May 7. .

Election updates, news and analysis on May 6. .

The internet has long been a political battleground, but one corner of the web is home to a particularly dirty kind of warfare. 4Chan – Credit: Archant Social media is the new battleground for politics the world over. Ever since Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential victory was dubbed the first ‘Facebook election’, likes and shares have […]

Disagreements, defectors, election speak: Our (Brexiteer) diarist Iain Dale records a new election week I do wonder whether the right-wing polemicist Christopher Booker has undergone a brain transplant. For more years than I can remember he has written a column in the Sunday Telegraph pointing out the corruption and absurdities endemic in the Brussels beast. […]

What better way to confront culinary fatigue than with a rhubarb recipe? Some years ago I went through strange phase in my cooking. I had enjoyed the steepest of learning curves, exposed to some of the most inventive and thought-provoking food which in turn influenced my own culinary output. Then, all of a sudden, I […]

Why May, Corbyn and Junker are the villains who will ensure we all lose. As Princess Diana almost said, it looks as if there are going to be three people in Britain’s June 8 election debate. One is Theresa May, of course, Jeremy Corbyn too whenever he decides to drop into the conversation, plus a […]

We pick out the most wrong and unstable Leavers of this week in Brexit 10. Nigel Farage Brexit’s man-frog met the elephant in the room as Farage told listeners to his radio show that during the EU referendum he knew Boris Johnson’s notorious £350m figure that ‘we give the EU every week’ was untrue but […]

Contrast her demeanour on the days she took office and this past week. Two speeches on the doorstep of number ten. One, a florid exposition of her vision for a new Britain at peace with itself and working towards healing the deficiencies of domestic government that had left so many by the wayside. Then came […]

Not only is Rue du Brexit ugly, but it returns to its starting point and leads nowhere – except to Europe. A perfect metaphor for Brexitshambles. The rendezvous was fixed for Rue du Brexit, Beaucaire. The idea absolutely delighted me. The Provence town’s young, National Front mayor Julien Sanchez had had the courtesy of accepting […]

All the news, reaction and analysis on May 5. .

Seeing through the parallel universe of slogans, soundbites and slavish supporters It was, said one of Robert Peston’s team, ‘the closest she will get to a TV debate, having you there glowering at her’. The ‘she’ in question was Theresa May, and as Peston interviewed her, I was sitting in what they insist on calling […]

On the panel tonight Paul Nuttall, David Davis and Rebecca Long-Bailey. .

This is an election like no other. Labour candidates saying there is no way their leader can win; the Tories insisting he can Spitting Image – where are you when we need you most? How tragic that the young generation we need to engage in our politics do not, as I discovered in a school […]

Election updates, news and reaction on May 4. .

Halloumi, edam, camembert? Which is your favourite European cheese? 1) Afuega’l Pitu, Spain Its name is derived from the local Asturian dialect and means ‘choking cake’, because its unusual texture can make it stick to the palate 2) Almnäs Tegel, Sweden Its distinctive ‘slab’ shape is an homage to the bricks used to build the […]