News and Opinion

Opposition parties have said that Boris Johnson’s senior aide Dominic Cummings must go after his position became ‘completely untenable’ following a report from Durham Police. SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford told Boris Johnson in a cross-party meeting he should remove his aide from post, saying his position is ‘completely untenable’. ‘I told the prime minister […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the gradual spread of a language, the echoes of which are still heard in English today. Four and a half thousand years ago there was no such language as English. There would be no such language for another 3,000 years. But a language did exist which eventually became English, though you would […]

Cabinet minister Michael Gove has said the government will consider slapping tariffs on EU goods as a form of ‘economic rational’ to stop a trade deficit with the bloc after Brexit. Gove and chief Brexit negotiator David Frost told a Lords EU committee that the UK would put tariffs on EU products entering the country. […]

TIM WALKER recounts meeting Dame Vera Lynn, the singer of we’ll meet again. When it was said how wonderfully the Queen had uttered the words ‘we’ll meet again’ in her recent address to the nation, one woman would have had every reason to take umbrage. Dame Vera Lynn made them her own in innumerable concerts […]

MITCH BENN on the Durham dash that has everybody talking. So anyway, one day I woke up and thought do you know, I’m feeling a bit wobbly; in fact I’m not sure my sense of balance is everything it should be. Rather than take any chances, I decided to test just how good my sense […]

Xi Jinping is a man in a hurry. He is 66 next month and wants as his legacy to leave China as a rising power, ready to overtake the United States as the dominant economic and, soon, military force on earth. Other rising powers – Britain in the 19th century, the United States in 
the […]

The broadcaster and traitor – captured 75 years ago – exerted a mesmerising influence over his willing audience, says RICHARD LUCK. William Joyce aka Lord Haw-Haw, Nazi radio propagandist. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images) – Credit: Corbis via Getty Images ‘Germany calling, Germany calling’ – even today, those words can send a shiver […]

Britain’s rail industry will not return from lockdown in the same shape in which it went in. Researchers MARCUS MAYERS and DAVID BAMFORD say the changes forced on it could provide opportunities. Quietly, outside of the public gaze, a revolution has started on Britain’s railways. On March 23, Covid-19 destroyed the railway industry as it […]

Hungary is becoming Europe’s rogue state, says PAUL KNOTT. With the coronavirus accelerating the process, it is past time for the EU to act decisively on the issue It sounds wrong for a self-proclaimed defender of Christian values to take money away from the city of Göd. But Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is too […]

A Brexiteer has said that he would not appear on the BBC’s Newsnight with Emily Maitlis because he said she was guilty of intimidating behaviour which ‘would not be tolerated in any normal workplace’. Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski said he believed the presenter was ‘confrontational to point of intimidation’. His comments were made after Newsnight […]

MICHAEL WHITE on a revealing scandal and an even more alarming backdrop. Lynch mobs are always repellent, even when they’re keen to lynch the blameworthy Brexit mastermind. So I was not too upset last weekend to be accused of ‘backing Cummings’ after mildly suggesting to angry Twitteratti that it might be best to wait until […]

Footage has re-emerged of Matt Hancock ‘sighing’ when he was questioned for his views on Boris Johnson. The video, which shows The New European’s editor-at-large with Hancock, was posted by on Twitter with the comment: ‘They say a week is a long time in politics. Look at the difference a year and a half can […]

The resignation of Dominic Cummings could mean that Brexit comes back into play, says ANDREW ADONIS. The poignant bit of Dominic Cummings’s Rose Garden press conference was when he said he needed to drive 250 miles into the middle of nowhere in order to escape the public anger. The Special One is reaping what he […]

JASON WALSH reports on how countries across Europe are taking their first tentative – and tense – steps out of the shadow of coronavirus. EU politics appears to be working again. After a chaotic start, with countries fighting over vital supplies of protective equipment, somehow French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel hammered […]

However the scandal ends, the harm already done by the great disrupter is irreversible, says JAMES BALL. If the Conservative Party had ever been given time to decide whether Dominic Cummings should be essential to their success, they would surely have rejected him. He has never been ‘one of us’, has never shared their style, […]

A deal between the European Union and the British government is unlikely to be struck until the autumn, the BBC’s Europe editor has claimed. In a case of déjà vu for politics, there may only be a breakthrough in the Brexit process later this year, much like when compromise was reached with the Withdrawal Agreement […]

Who is on the BBC Question Time panel tonight? Here’s your full guide Tonight’s Question Time comes virtually from Glasgow, with audience members submitting questions from the Dear Green Place via video. But who’s on the panel? Here’s your complete guide… Helen Whately Who? Junior health minister Former deputy chair of the Conservative Party, Whately […]

A petition calling for Dominic Cummings’ departure after it emerged he violated lockdown guidelines has gathered almost a million signatures. Cummings is accused of flouting lockdown rules when he had travelled 270 miles to Durham from London to seek childcare support while he and his wife were ill with coronavirus. Despite a growing number of […]

Health secretary Matt Hancock has been criticised for laughing at questions about the government’s track and trace scheme on live television. Hancock appeared on Sky News with Kay Burley when he laughed at accusations the government had rushed its rollout of the track and trace scheme to deflect attention from Dominic Cummings. Hancock, who started […]

The woman behind the ‘clap for carers’ scheme has said she will no longer take part – saying this week’s event should be the last. Millions of people across the UK have lined their thresholds, gathered – while socially distancing – on pavements, and stood in their gardens at 8pm every Thursday to demonstrate their […]

Contact tracing could be undermined if the government continues to keep Dominic Cummings in his post, the shadow health secretary has said. Jonathan Ashworth voiced support for NHS Test and Trace launched in England as ‘the only way we can safely ease out of this lockdown’. But he added that health secretary Matt Hancock’s support […]

Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis has said it was her decision not to appear on the show on Wednesday night after she was reprimanded for her Dominic Cummings monologue. Maitlis said she has been ‘overwhelmed’ by support from viewers as a petition in support of the presenter hit 50,000 signatures in under 12 hours. The 49-year-old […]

STEVE ANGLESEY on the reoccurring problems facing Boris Johnson that once troubled John Major. ‘Weak and hopeless’. ‘Ineffective’. ‘A government that can do no right’. They might sound like recent assessments, as Covid calamity turns into Domnishambles, but these critiques of a stuttering Conservative regime blown way off course soon after an election victory are […]

Brexiteer MP Christopher Chope has responded to a constituent’s letter about Dominic Cummings by defending the adviser and then embarking on a rant about migrants. https://twitter.com/bchadwickfrance/status/1265293143550955521 Chope wrote to Benjamin Chadwick, who had sent him a letter concerning Cummings’ actions, commending the senior aide’s ‘work ethic’ while slamming government social distancing guidelines and migrants. In […]

Those working in Whitehall can see Covid and a chaotic Brexit are about to combine with devastating consequences, says THE SECRET CIVIL SERVANT. The Perfect Storm has been one of my go-to movies during lockdown. In a key scene hundreds of miles away from the socio-economic tragedy about to unfold, a harried and bespectacled meteorologist […]

BONNIE GREER on how masks are becoming another signifier in the culture wars. I knew that the severe part of the lockdown was over when I felt a rumble in my apartment and the sound of the pavement outside being split open. Construction was back, and with it construction workers, practically singing like the birds […]

Dominic Cummings may have committed ‘a minor breach’ of lockdown rules when he drove to Barnard Castle but will face no further action, Durham police have said. The force issued a statement on the prime minister’s top aide’s decision to travel to the county days after lockdown had been imposed, saying it did not consider […]

The regional director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Europe has made a barbed reference to Dominic Cummings in calling for leaders, advisers and the public to ‘build trust’. Dr Hans Kluge said a symbiotic relationship between ‘leadership and citizenship’ was needed, saying it was ‘very important’ for the former to ‘build trust’ with […]

A petition has been launched opposing the BBC’s decision to reprimand Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis for her monologue about Dominic Cummings’ rule-breaking. Maitlis is not expected to appear on Wednesday’s programme after introducing the last show saying the prime minister’s chief adviser had ‘broken the rules’ and ‘the country can see that, and it’s shocked […]

Emily Maitlis has been replaced as presenter of Newsnight on Wednesday evening after bosses reprimanded the host for a monologue about Dominic Cummings breaking lockdown rules. Presenter Emily Maitlis opened the latest show by saying the prime minister’s chief adviser had ‘broken the rules’ and ‘the country can see that, and it’s shocked the government […]

A Labour MP has challenged Boris Johnson to release evidence surrounding Dominic Cummings’ whereabouts during his lockdown-breaking trip to Durham after the prime minister admitted to having it. Labour MP Meg Hillier called on the prime minister to release the evidence he admits seeing that proves some claims against Cummings’ trip to Durham during lockdown […]

Prime minister Boris Johnson has told a Commons scrutiny committee that an inquiry into Dominic Cummings breaking lockdown rules would not be ‘a very good use of official time’. In Johnson first appearance in front of the liaison committee since becoming prime minister last July he was asked why he had not launched an inquiry […]