United Kingdom

Andy Burnham has been re-elected as the mayor of Greater Manchester. The Labour politician received 67% of the vote with his main opponent, the Conservative’s Laura Evans, receiving just 16.8%. The Greens came third on 4.5%, followed by the Liberal Democrats. Burnham added 4% on his vote share from four years before when he was first elected […]

The breakdown of talks with Norway over fisheries signifies another broken Brexit pledge.

An intriguing new exhibition allows the public to view paintings from the Golden Age of Dutch art while experiencing the smells associated with them.  A painting is a painting is a painting. You look at it. It might mesmerise you; Jackson Pollock. Make you smile ironically; Rene Magritte. Lift your soul to the heavens; Tiepolo or, a Damien […]

Financial scandals are never fatal for PMs, but they do lasting damage There is a familiar sequence. Another allegation about the misconduct of Boris Johnson erupts on the front pages. Those that despair of Johnson’s leadership say to themselves or aloud that “surely this one will get him”. A poll is published a day later […]

If a picture is worth a thousand words – and if you need that picture to assuage the feeling that football is being sold to the devil – study this photograph. The scene is Wembley Stadium last Sunday evening. Moments after the final whistle of this season’s first cup final, Tottenham’s defeated Son Heung-min is […]

Politicians are badly letting down the electorate, and more than ever we need a coherent opposition. UK politics has failed us badly and the people know it. But opposition politicians have swallowed the Brexit pill and say we are in a long game. Labour’s loss in Hartlepool shows that our political landscape needs restorative action […]

The results in Scotland and Wales shows voters turned their backs on Boris Johnson, so why not in England? Why can so many English people not see through Boris Johnson? The Scots and Welsh clearly can – it was as heartening to see the election results north and west of Little England as it was […]

It would be little surprise if Boris Johnson turned out to be the ‘chatty rat’ the leak inquiry has yet to identify. Anyone who knows me also knows that I have something of an addiction to my phone. Nor is this a new thing. As far back as 1997, journalist John Williams, who was with […]

The electorate may still view Boris Johnson favourably, but the prime minister may not get the same reception internationally. Current reporting would suggest that a large proportion of the electorate is not too concerned about Boris Johnson’s competence or character, as long as they believe that the country is being tolerably well run – vaccination […]

Boris Johnson met a 30ft inflatable version of himself during a victorious visit to Hartlepool after his party won a historic by-election. The PM said the £2,000 replica reminded him of Superintendent Ted Hastings from Line Of Duty, while a member of the press asked if he thought it looked like TV host Chris Tarrant. […]

Keir Starmer has said he will do “whatever is necessary” to rebuild trust in Labour following its “bitterly disappointing” defeat in the Hartlepool by-election. After seeing another pillar in its once impregnable “red wall” fall to the Tories, the Labour leader told his party to “stop quarrelling among ourselves” and address the needs of the […]

Liverpool has elected its first black female mayor as Labour held on to the role despite corruption allegations. Joanne Anderson was named as the successor to Joe Anderson, after the former mayor chose not to stand following his arrest as part of a Merseyside Police fraud investigation. After her victory, Anderson, no relation to her predecessor, […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said that he will do “whatever it takes” to rebuild trust in the party following its “bitterly disappointing” by-election defeat in Hartlepool. Starmer has come under fire from all sides after Labour suffered a crushing defeat. In a stunning result, the Conservatives took the seat – which had been […]

Former prime minister David Cameron and financier Lex Greensill are due to appear before MPs next week, amid controversy over lobbying. Greensill will answer questions from the Treasury Committee next Tuesday, and Cameron will follow on Thursday, as part of the Lessons from Greensill Capital inquiry. Links between Greensill, which was founded by the financier, […]

Boris Johnson has described the early election results as “very encouraging” after hopes of a Labour revival were dealt a crushing blow when the Conservatives won the Hartlepool by-election. Speaking to reporters in Coventry, the prime minister said: “I know that the results have been coming in since this morning and there’s clearly a lot […]

TIM WALKER on Michael Gove’s reverse Midas touch. Michael Gove – the man who assured British fishermen that Brexit would make them rich – appears not to have lost his reverse Midas touch. Since joining the board of trustees of Dorneywood, Rishi Sunak’s grace and favour country retreat in Buckinghamshire, the value of its investments has plummeted […]

There is a strong case for Britain to spend more on international aid, based purely on self interest… yet even that cannot convince the government Last month saw an announcement that could be UK’s most positive impact on the world in decades – a new vaccine, not to tackle Covid-19, but malaria. A team from the University […]

Geoff McDonald recently flew into the UK from South Africa. What he found was chaos, and conditions that seemed ripe for super-spreading Though I was born and raised in South Africa, Britain has been my home for more than 20 years. I have raised a family here, come to know the UK as a wonderful and […]

Campaigning in the Hartlepool by-election, Sir Keir Starmer said repeatedly that Labour had a “mountain to climb” if it was to regain power. Now that the votes are in and counted, that task looks every bit as formidable as the party seeks to chart a route back to No 10. It is hard to see […]

Hopes of a Labour revival under Sir Keir Starmer have suffered a blow after the Conservative Party comfortably won the Hartlepool by-election. The Leave-supporting North East constituency went blue for the first time in its 47-year-old history, as Boris Johnson demolished another brick in Labour’s so-called “red wall”. Voters in the town backed Tory candidate […]

The Civil Service has been weakened by Brexit and the growth of court politics. But a rearguard action is underway. Plucked from relative obscurity at the age of 41 to become cabinet secretary, Simon Case could hardly have imagined his present role as head of the Downing Street shovel brigade, clearing up mess largely of […]

Labour has all but conceded defeat in the Hartlepool by-election after a shadow cabinet member admitted the party was “not close to winning this”. Shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon, who led the opposition party’s campaign to hold the North East town, said it looked clear that Labour had not “got over the line”. Such a […]

The prime minister and his fiancee have got it badly wrong over their reported disdain for John Lewis. On contemplating the national orgy of curtain-twitching that’s accompanied Dominic Cummings’s revelations regarding the refurbishment of the prime minister’s flat in Number 11, Downing Street, Oscar Wilde’s valedictory bon mot comes to mind: days before expiring in […]

Agreeing a post-Brexit free trade deal between Britain and the United States will take “some time”, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has warned. Blinken said President Joe Biden’s new trade negotiator, Katherine Tai, would be taking time to review the discussions that had taken place with the Trump administration before progressing with the talks. […]

Britain is facing a post-Brexit “exodus of EU waiters and baristas” with “prospective foreign workers are shunning the UK because of tighter visa rules and higher entry costs post-Brexit.” It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, as reaction to the Line Of Duty finale reminds us of another long-running […]

Boris Johnson has not said whether key social care proposals, as promised when he was elected, will be detailed in next week’s Queen’s Speech. The prime minister said proposals for the long-term reform of the sector and its funding will be brought forward in the “next few months”. Care groups, charities and politicians have been […]

A new exhibition brings together the works of four artists who, in their very different ways, emerged at a time when female roles in British society were about to change forever.  They were among the most innovative and, at times, sought-after artists of their day, a quartet of painters who are celebrated together in an […]

Party leaders are preparing for a frantic last day of campaigning in the run-up to “super Thursday” as they bid to sway undecided voters before a bumper crop of elections. The prime minister is expected to make a final pitch to the electorate in England with time running out before polls open, while Labour leader […]

The European football super league is not dead – and you can bank on that The Super League, which rightly shocked and angered so many, came as no surprise to me. It was always hovering in the wings, waiting to burst on to the stage of world football like a 1,000-lb gorilla. There was no […]

New columnist MEGAN NOLAN on The Bold Type, a pleasing Netflix series which tries just a little too hard to hit the zeitgeist In late February, knowing we were still a substantial chunk of time away from being legally allowed to hang out with people again, I decided I needed just one more sustained volley […]

Thirty years after his death, a new biography of Steve Marriott, of the Small Faces, paints a bleak picture of rock excess. The 30th anniversary of Steve Marriott’s death at the age of 44 – he died in a house fire on April 21 1991 caused by his falling asleep with a lit cigarette – finds the […]

Sir Keir Starmer has written an open letter to the country ahead of this week’s elections, setting out his “burning desire to build a brighter future” for Britain. The Labour leader claimed it is “a changed Labour Party” in the letter ahead of Thursday, which will be his first electoral test since taking over from […]