Opinion

Brexit wasn't the first time leaders tried to stoke up tensions in the name of 'freedom' 

Few politicians have fallen quite as far and quite as fast as Nicolas Sarkozy. Nicolas Sarkozy marked his finest political hour in characteristically brash style. The night of his election victory over Socialist rival Ségolène Royal on May 6, 2007, he spent celebrating at a private bash at the exclusive Le Fouquet’s restaurant on the Champs-Elysées. It was a select gathering […]

What impact will the SNP’s extraordinary internecine battle have on the prospects for Scottish independence? He wouldn’t… would he? Would Alex Salmond, smarting and furious at what he sees as a top-level plot not only to damage his reputation but to have him thrown in jail, really try to bring down his successor, and risk […]

An immigration crisis is facing Britain now that Brexit reality is hitting

Emmanuel Macron is finding that overseas engagements can be difficult to disentangle from. Crowds of Malians gather on the streets of Bamako as the smell of burning polyester wafts through the air. Another French flag has been set alight. Elsewhere, a tricolour adorned with a skull and crossbones is held high, flanked by signs that […]

The vendetta between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the press cannot end well for anyone. That’s it then. They’ve gone for good. Driven out by the press. There have been plenty of instances where newspapers have been accused of hounding celebrities and royals and every time the same defences are wheeled out: “They want the publicity […]

European leaders have made catastrophic errors over vaccines, for which their citizens are paying a price. But the shambles has not undermined the basic principles on which the EU is built. The roll-out of the Covid vaccine should be a moment for universal celebration, but something disturbing is happening. It’s being wrapped in a Brexit narrative […]

BONNIE GREER on the death of the first conflict entrepreneur. There was Marconi. And then there was Rush Limbaugh. Marconi, of course, is the father of radio and arguably of all broadcasting. Before him, the general public largely read what was called the ‘news’ and made their assessment from that. Print was the only reliable medium. Then came […]

Long sceptical about whether such a phenomenon existed, CHARLE CONNELLY starts to wonder if there might be something in it after all. I sat down to write this piece about writer’s block at eight o’clock this morning. It’s now 11.20am and I’m only just putting words onto the blank document that’s been sitting here open and […]

It has few fans, but the Northern Ireland protocol is going nowhere. The focus must be on dialogue  – not rhetoric – to make it work, says Irish politician Neale Richmond. For many of us, there is no such thing as a good Brexit, particularly those of us in Ireland, proportionately more impacted than any other EU member state, […]

WILL SELF on what to do when confronted by racism. “You know,” said Annette, a woman from Cote d’Ivoire with whom I’ve struck up an acquaintance while queuing for the post office, “some people say Hitler had the right idea.” I shook my head, as if to dispel this meshegas, while nevertheless continuing the conversation: “What makes you […]

Despite attempts to bridge it since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the chasm between Eastern and Western Europe remains wide. The pandemic has pushed the two regions even further apart. No-one better embodies the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe from Communism than Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright, dissident and first democratically-elected president of the modern era. […]

A surprise general election could suit the Tories - and Boris Johnson will have the power to do it.

Readers have their say on the damage Brexit is causing Britain.

The French president is a politician like no other: neither from the left, nor the right; bold and decisive, yet the antithesis of a populist. And if he can win re-election next year he will shape not just the future of France, but of Europe. By ALASTAIR CAMPBELL  The first time I met Emmanuel Macron, he […]

Had enough of lockdown winter and are longing for the spring? RICHARD LUCK selects 10 films that reflect the optimism of the changing seasons. Movies – is there anything they can’t do? I mean, most of us have already had a gutful of winter and yet, with the season not officially over until the end […]

JAMES BALL on the mounting national debt, and what should be done about it. Think, for a moment, about your home. This should not be a difficult task for most of us, given we’ve all been spending a lot more time than usual stuck there. There’s probably a bed, a kitchen, hopefully a TV – […]

MITCH BENN with his weekly look back at some of the highlights and lowlights of recent days… BLAME-DODGE OF THE WEEK So at last we know whose fault the spectacular and ongoing implosion of Brexit is. And it’s a bit of a jaw-dropper.  So who is to blame? The prime minister? The previous prime minister(s)? […]

Steve Anglesey brings you your weekly check on how Project Fear is becoming Project Reality. It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where the government accused the EU of being selfish over shellfish. Environment secretary George Eustice started the tussles by claiming Brussels was flexing its muscles on mussels, […]

Barcelona pioneered a fusion of finance and football. Others are now playing the same game while the Catalan club itself is embroiled in a crisis. The jailing, even for one night, of the former president of Futbol Club Barcelona is not the first, and will not be the last, time it has happened in this club’s […]

Jackie Chan is too often dismissed as a mere action star and overlooked for his largely forgettable Hollywood films. But a re-release of one of his finest early works gives an opportunity to appreciate his amazing artistry.  You don’t hear too much about Jackie Chan these days. Indeed, it’s possible that name will mean nothing to […]

CHRISTINE JARDINE calls for the government to clean up the mess left behind by Brexit and its failed Covid support schemes. This week will be a pivotal moment for our economy and for all our futures. When the chancellor gets to his feet to deliver the budget, millions of people who have seen their lives, […]

JASON SOLOMONS on a new Netflix documentary which places the footballer’s rise amid his country’s oppressive regime. Talk about finding a new angle. I’ve seen that Carlos Alberto goal, the fourth for Brazil in the 1970 World Cup Final against Italy, over a hundred times. Maybe we all have – but never from Alberto’s point of […]

ED WEST on the fantasy of the ‘free-born Englishman’. Guffawing and thigh-slapping his way through the 1938 version of Robin Hood, Errol Flynn stops at one point to tell the audience he is fighting as a “free-born Englishman” and fighting for a “free England”. This obviously wasn’t really about attitudes in 12th century England and no one […]

Labour will only make headway once it is able to move the debate onto its favoured territory, rather than allowing the Tories to set the agenda. By ZOE WILLIAMS Funny thing about the prime minister’s roadmap: he mentions golf and beauticians; touches schools, universities and colleges; makes a huge number of fine distinctions between the […]

As he is knocked off his bike for a third time, WILL SELF wonders what effect the pandemic has had on the reaction of passersby. The first time it happened, it was some young Trustafarian driving his dad’s Jag, and I lost my rag completely: ranting how he should learn to look in his bloody wing […]

Peter Trudgill on the dubious master of multilingualism. There are many things to be said about Ján Ludvik Hoch, many of them very bad, even though he was a war hero. But this column is interested in his linguistic prowess: he was a remarkable polyglot. Better known as Robert Maxwell, Hoch did not learn English […]

The case of Manchester United’s talented young winger Amad Diallo highlights awkward questions for football about the way it procures young players from abroad, says ROB HUGHES. Bill Shankly, the sage of Liverpool FC, once corrected a misconception of mine. “Listen son, coaches do not make good players,” he said in that familiar rasping Scottish pitch. […]

TIM WALKER on the director John Schlesinger, a man with just the right sense of perspective. John Schlesinger resided in one of those vast Christmas cake mansions in Kensington that signal to all the world its owner has achieved his wildest dreams. He couldn’t exactly claim to be a self-made man – dad had been a […]

MITCH BENN starts his weekly look back at some of the highlights and lowlights of recent days… UNFATHOMABLE STRATEGY OF THE WEEK The trouble with an inscrutable and mysterious strategy is that to the untrained eye, it’s indistinguishable from an entirely non-existent one. What is Sir Keir Starmer’s plan as leader of the opposition? Does it […]

Yoko Ono was always a disruptor, a transgressor, an interloper. And we should all be thankful for that. Looking back now, I never thought that John Lennon would grow to be old. But I always knew that Yoko Ono would make it. The Beatles had been manufactured to give off a care-free air, a boyishness that […]

A new book by Peter Oborne chronicles Boris Johnson’s history of deceit and how his time in Downing Street has poisoned British political culture.  In an interview with the American television network CBS earlier this month Boris Johnson sought to reassure president Joe Biden that he would do nothing to harm the Good Friday agreement. Johnson tried […]