Opinion

Readers have their say on Andrew Adonis’ essay on whether a federal UK is possible. Can I answer Andrew Adonis’ question “What Chance a Federal UK?” (TNE #220). Yes, there’s every chance, if only we could stop being so shy of the ‘F’ word and address it head on. I hope the TNE will continue […]

BONNIE GREER on America’s problem with socialism – and the challenges facing The Democratic Party. When I am asked whether the US has ever been more divided than it is now, I used to reply that the republic, after all, had a Civil War. But now, even that catastrophe may stand alongside what may be called […]

Readers respond to suggestions Brexit is no longer the defining issue in politics it once was. Sir John Curtice tells us that 87% of Remain voters (“Has Brexit gone off the boil?“, TNE #220) would vote the same way again as they did in 2016. That tells me that 13% haven’t been following the news for the […]

Hands up, TNE readers, if you thought Johnson would sack Patel. No takers? Hands up if you knew he wouldn’t but thought he should. Full house, I suspect. Repeat the process with the Brexit questions. Hands up if you think: we’ll be better off economically and our influence in the world will increase; we’ll be […]

When (if?) we finally have a public inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic I think we will find that the combination of ‘Boosterism’ (entering lockdown late, coming out early, eat out to help out etc.) and ‘Chumocracy’ (purchase of PPE, Test and Trace etc.) has not served the country well, with both a […]

ANDREW ADONIS ranks the (sometimes surprising) names who changed British history for better or worse. My top 20 shapers of modern Britain includes those who made things much worse – the top spot goes to the politician who made things worst of all, although he wasn’t a bad man – as well as those who […]

It’s clear Boris Johnson’s brazen approach will cost us all warns Michael White. The mighty Oxford English Dictionary has just celebrated the extraordinary nature of 2020 by issuing an unprecedented number of ‘words of the year’ – starting obviously with coronavirus and lockdown. Me, I was less ambitious in looking for words of the week. […]

Boris Johnson’s response to the Priti Patel bullying scandal has laid bare the weaknesses in the way Westminster is run, says JAMES BALL. As a country, those of us in the UK may have to accept we are somewhat slow on the uptake. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than when it comes to our […]

MITCH BENN on the delights and the dangers of indulging in nostalgia. One of the few industries to derive any sort of benefit from this flaming bin fire of a year has been podcasting: with swathes of the global population being confined indoors for much of the last few months (and with leisure options having […]

Germany is often praised for a political system built on compromise, coalitions and consensus. But what happens when that model meets hard-ball-playing European authoritarians abroad and conspiracy-theorists at home? A few days ago in Berlin, police turned their water cannons on a crowd of protesters outside Germany’s parliament buildings. An estimated 7,000 locals were gathered […]

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL on the dilemma facing the Labour Party, if the government secures a Brexit deal with the EU. Greetings from the depression front line. There is a lot if it around. Mine, and, judging by my inbox and random encounters on rare sorties out of the house, plenty of other people’s too. Being out […]

Far from being a crypto-republican enterprise, hiding in pay-per-view, The Crown is at worst neutral when it comes to the validity of the monarchy, says WILL SELF. Much fulmination on airwaves and in print has accompanied the arrival of the latest season of Netflix’s staggeringly successful series, The Crown. In a way, this is merely […]

Labour will have to live with its decision on how it votes over a Brexit deal for years to come, says DENIS MacSHANE. Forty nine years ago, 69 brave Labour MPs broke with the party’s conventional wisdom, defied the official whip, and voted to take Britain into Europe. Amongst them was a future party leader, John Smith. The […]

In last week’s New European, Andrew Adonis outlined his vision for a federal Britain. Here, DENNIS KENNEDY responds to some of the arguments raised. Andrew Adonis’s widespread exploration of the history and possible future of the United Kingdom (“What Chance a Federal UK?” TNE #220) made an intriguing and at times puzzling read, particularly for students of […]

TIM WALKER looks at the life of Sir Cliff Richard… One of the frustrations of being Sir Cliff Richard is that newspapers only normally dispatch showbusiness journalists to talk to him. That’s limiting for him, and limiting, too, for the public in terms of their understanding of him. So it delighted the veteran entertainer when, […]

RICHARD LUCK counts down his 20 favourite movies about politics of all time. Which one gets your vote? 20) The Ides of March (2011)George Clooney not only adapted, produced and directed The Ides of March, he also plays the anchor role of governor Mike Morris, a presidential candidate who’s almost too good to be true. […]

The Prince of Wales’ sombre trip to Germany suggests the royals might represent a continuing link to the continent, says former Europe minister DENIS MACSHANE. In one of our more interesting royal forays into European politics, Prince Charles was in Berlin recently to be the star guest at the Bundestag for Germany’s national day of […]

With the very fabric of the country threatening to tear apart, ANDREW ADONIS outlines his bold vision to reconstitute, and revive the United Kingdom. Everyone knows that Attlee’s 1945 Labour government founded the NHS and the welfare state. It is less famous for founding Europe’s greatest federation, yet seven decades later this federal state is […]

Not knowing other languages is one thing. Not knowing about them is quite another, says PETER TRUDGILL. I once happened to be visiting the linguistics department of a well-known university in the American Midwest when a phone call came in from the local police station. An officer enquired: “Do you have anyone there who can speak […]

Rather than a reset can’t we just rewind by four years back to June 2016? With the departures of Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain there has been much discussion of this being an opportunity for the PM to ‘reset’. Personally I would prefer a ‘rewind’, specifically to that point in June 2016, before we broke […]

He might have gone, but Dominic Cummings has left a poisonous legacy which will cause untold harm to the UK, says JAMES BALL. Pity poor Dominic Cummings, who entered Number 10 last year believing he could transform a nation, and exited last week having accomplished little more than a series of blundering encounters with the media […]

What the world craves now is some slightly more ‘precedented’ politics, says MITCH BENN. I don’t know about you, but I could really use some boredom right now. It’s pretty exhausting living in ‘unprecedented’ times, isn’t it? Every day something else unprecedented befalls us, whether it’s an unprecedented pandemic, an unprecedented level of chaos in the response […]

WILL SELF on a neighbourhood mystery that has been troubling him. What links Alice Walker, Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda and James Joyce? They’re all ranged along Shakespeare and opposite Evelyn Grace. But who is or was Evelyn Grace? I don’t know – I phoned her eponymous Academy and the receptionist said: “Isn’t that something you’d research on […]

The theatrical resignation of the PM’s chief adviser takes ALASTAIR CAMPBELL back to a piece of advice given to him by Princess Diana in the 1990s. Let’s start with a couple of people who are good at their job, and then move on to the government. Emma Corrin is an actress. Peter Morgan is a writer, […]

Joe Biden is renowned for his experience in foreign policy – yet he has a far from unblemished record. BONNIE GREER reports on what the world can expect Anne Hidalgo, the first woman elected mayor of Paris always manages to catch the moment.  She came to London to congratulate Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim elected mayor […]

Liz Gerard’s question ‘Should we feel sorry for the PM?’ deserves a response. There is nothing about Boris Johnson and his premiership that can be commended. The Vote Leave regime that he leads is the architect of the hapless state of affairs in which we find ourselves and we haven’t even lived Brexit yet. He […]

The protections offered by the European Convention on Human Rights were hard fought. They now need our defending, says ROGER CASALE. It was seventy years ago this month – on November 4, 1950 – that the European Convention on Human Rights was signed in Rome. The ECHR was a remarkable achievement. Like it’s better known cousin, […]

DAVID BLUNKETT and MATTHEW FLINDERS warn that Dominic Cummings’ technocracy model for government lacks emotional and political understanding. They call for Boris Johnson to ditch it. If crises bring with them new opportunities to think afresh, then the combined impact of Brexit and COVID has been to focus attention on the capacity and structure of the […]

Greta Scacchi reveals her thoughts about Hollywood and how she retained her self-respect at all times. You could be forgiven for thinking that before the Me Too movement began to get traction three years ago, men in Hollywood had behaved impeccably towards women. That of course is arrant nonsense and Greta Scacchi was one of […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the lost links that gave us surnames like Nelson, Hobson, Hodgson and Dodgson. There are not too many men about nowadays who are called Peter, but those of us who do still bear this name are quite liable to get called Pete, especially by family and friends.  In the same way, women […]

William Hogarth exposed the chaos, hypocrisy, corruption and pollution of the world around him. A new exhibition showcases his work and that of contemporary artists performing similar tasks in their own society. The first image to greet the visitor to the exhibition, Hogarth: London Voices , London Lives is a photograph of a block of […]

Geoffrey Howe – the story behind the greatest Commons speech ever made. The most memorable thing about Sir Geoffrey Howe was how unmemorable he was. Margaret Thatcher’s most decorated cabinet colleague – he was her chancellor, foreign secretary and deputy prime minister – had many qualities but charisma wasn’t one of them. Hence Denis Healey’s […]