Opinion

The city of Paris has mislaid two 10-tonne art deco fountains that stood near the Port de la Chapelle metro station. The landmarks were built in 1935 but were moved temporarily in 2014 to clear a new tram route for the 2024 Olympic Games. However, no-one now seems to know where they were put. Local […]

The many chapters in the career of Shirley Williams tell the story of post-war Britain For all her recent reputation as a well-loved grandmother of British politics, Shirley Williams was not unfamiliar with its sharper edges. At a 1959 rally in support of independence for Nyasaland (later Malawi) at the Royal Albert Hall, racist hecklers […]

What does it mean, ‘to be fair’? In this extract from his new book, BEN FENTON explains the concept of ‘fairness’ came to have such a central role in modern society, particularly in the English-speaking world. In 1690, the English philosopher John Locke, a man whose work influenced Rousseau, Voltaire, Tom Paine and Kant, published […]

Not even the Albanian regime’s determination to seal itself off from the rest of the world could stop the sounds of the country’s capital. Music thrives off cross-pollination. How, then, do musicians survive – let alone create – in an isolationist country where only a meagre diet of state-approved culture is on offer? Albania, and […]

Amid the moralising and propaganda, the Soviet Hollywood also produced dark fantasy movies that were a world away from Disney’s saccharine output – and created a troubled relationship with the communist authorities.  In the grand scheme of things, there are worse things about dictatorships than them telling audiences what they were allowed to watch, but […]

Born 200 years ago this month, Charles Baudelaire continues to inspire memes, musicians and even Monty Burns in The Simpsons. CHARLIE CONNELLY explains his remarkable relevance. The most famous image of Charles Baudelaire is a portrait taken in or around 1863 by the Parisian photographer Etienne Carjat. It was part of a series called Galerie Contemporaine, in […]

Northern Ireland is still a peacemaking success story. But 23 years after Good Friday Agreement, the region should be further towards reconciliation and social justice There is no mystery about the grassroots unionist anger that has led to street violence in Northern Ireland in recent weeks. Telling communities to be angry has been the political […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the life of photographer Robert Doisneau, a man who portrayed Paris to the world and captured one of its most famous and romantic images. When a teenage Robert Doisneau first took a camera onto the streets of Paris he was so cripplingly shy that all he came back with were pictures of cobblestones. Gradually he […]

For Ian Lavender, who played Private Pike in Dad’s Army, the magic of the series came from the way it was written to suit the actors’ personalities. By TIM WALKER. There have been 10 prime ministers since the first episode of Dad’s Army was broadcast, but the Guardian has suggested that the show resonates now more than ever because of […]

Concerns about inequality in Britain is much higher than in any other European country, a new study has revealed. The end of lockdowns is in sight but the road out of these restrictions is only the start of a much longer journey to a full recovery from the pandemic. The crisis has ruthlessly exposed how […]

It is essential that lessons are not just identified, but robustly implemented to ensure the UK is more resilient to such events in the future. Where there is much to be positive about regarding the UK’s strong vaccine rollout, a public inquiry into how this pandemic has been handled in the country since the first […]

Leading pollster PETER KELLNER on the ways that public opinion on the issue has changed, and what it means for pro-Europeans. Two big lessons can be learned about public opinion since Britain’s agreement with the EU came into force in January. The first is that there has been a clear rise in support for Brexit. […]

The recent Dutch elections show how European politicians – and their electorates – can no longer separate EU affairs from national concerns. The recent Dutch elections kicked of a series of national parliamentary elections on the European continent: German elections are scheduled for September this year, followed by the French elections in May 2022. Given […]

A year into his leadership, being ‘not-Corbyn’ is not enough. The Labour leader has to be visibly ‘post-Boris’. Here is some advice for the leader of the Labour Party from an unexpected source: “It’s odd, the Keir Starmer thing: he’s articulate, intelligent, good in the Commons, lots of common sense. But, for some reason, he […]

JAMES BALL on how the launch of the former first minister’s new party might play out at the polls. Alex Salmond and the intricacies of the Scottish voting system are not what Nicola Sturgeon wanted to be the focus in the run-up to this May’s Holyrood elections. Until just a few months ago, it felt like the […]

Every single person in a promotional picture on the front of the Daily Mail last year was white – including the carefree model family alongside the headline “William’s fury over too-white BAFTAs” Do you have the faintest idea what the prime minister looks like? No, I haven’t a clue either. If only newspapers would show […]

Sacha Jafri’s The Journey of Humanity – the world’s largest painting on canvas, which sold for $62m – is a prodigal waste of paint. Whatever else we may wish to say about The Journey of Humanity – the world’s largest existent painting on canvas, which sold at auction last week for $62m – one thing’s […]

Our football correspondent hails the departing Manchester City striker, the Premier League’s highest non-British scorer. In the Netherlands, club legends leave with a garland of flowers. At Manchester City, they are stacking up the statues. Three are on commission right now because in successive seasons Vincent Kompany, David Silva and now Sergio Agüero have retired […]

PETER TRUDGILL on death, and recent revival, of Cornish. After the first arrival of the Germanic Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons in the southwestern peninsula of England, British Celts began migrating across the Channel to Brittany to escape Germanic domination, thus reducing the Celtic population base of the area. By about 800 AD, the Saxons had taken […]

Beltrán Alfonso Osorio broke or fractured 107 bones in seven attempts at trying to finish the Grand National at Aintree For whichever jockey wins Saturday’s Grand National, it is likely to be a career-defining moment. One day you’re in the sports pages, the next you’re on the front pages. Yet, one of Aintree’s most celebrated […]

Jacob-Rees Mogg, Boris Johnson and Matt Gaetz are in the firing line as comedian Mitch Benn hands out another set of his weekly awards. MASSIVE BRASS ONES OF THE WEEK …were to be found clanking away beneath the oddly-cut pinstripes of Britain’s Best Christian, Jacob Rees Mogg.  He welcomed the dawn on Easter Sunday by, […]

The European Commission president has floundered over Covid. But is it a sign of deeper problems within the Union? Perhaps it is because they are blond(e)s. That can be the only reason why Ursula von der Leyen has been compared to Boris Johnson. Yes, their fathers had jobs at the European Commission, and they spent […]

PR is easily understood and used by many voters in Europe

Britain - with one of the highest death rates in the world - is not the country that should be pointing accusatory fingers.

Germany’s conservatives face a big decision over Angela Merkel’s replacement Munching your Easter eggs may have drowned the sound of a rather significant clock that started ticking in Germany last Sunday. The conservatives pledged to give themselves between Easter and Pentecost (May 23 this year) to decide on their joint front runner for the general […]

Why have our attitudes to standards slipped?

The apparent indifference of many in the UK to allegations facing the prime minister is not shared elsewhere. Especially in Ireland, which has a recent history of indulging political corruption. 

Malignant nostalgia is covering up the truth about racism in the UK, claims Bonnie Greer. The new voting laws in the US state of Georgia and the newly published report from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities in the UK have one thing in common: They belong to another age. Both came into being […]

He always set out to shock, but is Serge Gainsbourg now just too creepy for modern sensibilities? When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, Francois Mitterrand, then president of France, declared “he was our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire”. Parisians took to the streets for candlelit vigils and recitations of Gainsbourg lyrics. It was an unofficial day of national mourning. For the […]

Amid the furious debate over vaccine passports, we should not lose sight of the simple pleasure of being able to return to the pub. This Easter had the most beautiful soundtrack imaginable: the sound of children playing in the park. I never expected to write such an embarrassing Hallmarks card of a sentence. Until now, […]

The slow comeback of normal life is wonderful, it does tend to feel as hollow as a leftover Easter egg when also coming back rapidly is tension in Belfast and Derry. “It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain,” is how this column starts every week, but how can that […]

Switzerland’s army has launched a drive to attract more female recruits by introducing standard-issue women’s underwear for the first time. At present, female soldiers are issued with the same regulation undergarments used by men. Armasuisse, the Swiss armed forces’ procurement organisation, said that “previous army equipment and uniforms were too little or not at all […]