News and Opinion

A newspaper has been accused of mis-reporting a poll on the public attitudes towards the coronavirus lockdown in a bid to support the government agenda. The latest edition of the Telegraph reports on polling by Opinium, just as Boris Johnson returns to Downing Street, to claim that the public are becoming ‘increasingly supportive’ of a […]

Radio presenter James O’Brien has torn apart Boris Johnson’s claims that the UK response to the coronavirus has been a ‘success’. Johnson used a speech outside Downing Street as he returned to work to praise the success of his government’s response to coronavirus. He said: ‘There will be many people looking now at our apparent […]

A pro-Brexit Tory MP has claimed the UK does not need a fisheries agreement with the EU after Brexit, telling the bloc to ‘get real’. The MP for Banff and Buchan, David Duguid, thinks that because other global free trade agreements (FTAs) are not dependent on fishing rights that Boris Johnson’s governent should not bother […]

WILL SELF fears lifting the lockdown will only lead to further waves of the coronavirus. Afterlife comedy The Good Place. Picture: Contributed – Credit: Archant Some years ago I was commissioned to write an introduction for a new edition of Russell Hoban’s masterpiece Riddley Walker, which depicts a post-apocalyptic England in which culture has mutated […]

The environment secretary George Eustice is encouraging furloughed workers to consider picking fruit and vegetables during the coronavirus outbreak due to a shortage of migrant workers. Although the international food chain is continuing to ‘work well’, the environment secretary said he expects there to be a need to recruit staff in the UK to harvest […]

The leader of the Liberal Democrats has called on the UK government to replicate schemes in EU countries including France, Poland and Denmark by preventing the bailing out of companies based in tax havens. Ed Davey, acting leader of the party, appearing on Sophy Ridge on Sunday said that ‘the government support that they are […]

More than a third of doctors in areas at high-risk from coronavirus are still unable to access personal protection equipment (PPE), a survey has found. This has prompted doctors to admit they may have to choose between saving their own lives or those of their patients. According to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), medical […]

A German foreign minister has revealed how his country has done better than other western countries in tackling the coronavirus crisis. Speaking to Andrew Marr, Andreas Michaelis said ‘widespread testing’ and ‘early lockdown’ were among the reasons why Germany has 66 deaths per million people, while the UK has 282 per million. He told the […]

A senior shadow cabinet minister has urged the government to ramp up testing ahead of lifting lockdown restrictions. Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has called for mass testing for coronavirus to be made ‘widely available’ to meet the ‘huge demand’ noticed across the country. Speaking during The Andrew Marr Show on […]

Boris Johnson is set to return to Downing Street on Monday after recovering from coronairus. The prime minister was said to be ‘raring to go’ after spending the past two weeks recuperating at his official country residence Chequers. It followed a week in St Thomas’ Hospital – including three nights in intensive care after his […]

A Labour shadow mental health minister and frontline doctor has spoken out about the effects of the government’s delayed response to the coronavirus crisis. Speaking live on Sky News during Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, MP for Tooting, gave a first-hand account of shifts in the Nightingale Hospital in London, as part of […]

The mayor of Manchester has shared his ideas about how the country should be stepping back into normality following the coronavirus pandemic. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, said during Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News: ‘We need to start thinking about building a better economy, building back better. ‘One of the other ideas […]

The president of the United States said his press appearances amid the coronavirus crisis are ‘not worth the time and effort’, prompting his administration to make changes to his public presence. The statement comes as more than 2.7 million people have been infected across the world, and the death toll is now at more than […]

The Liberal Democrat acting leader criticised foreign secretary Dominic Raab for refusing a public inquiry into the government’s handling of coronavirus. Speaking to Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Sir Ed Davey stressed the importance of a public inquiry into how the government handled the coronavirus crisis, something which Raab rejected while replacing Boris Johnson […]

The medical director of NHS England has declined to comment on whether or not Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings made contributions to a meeting of scientists advising the government on the coronavirus outbreak. Downing Street dismissed claims its scientific advice could be politicised following the disclosure that Cummings has attended meetings of the Scientific […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY explores the life of French wax artist Marie Tussaud. The 19th century was a few months old when the call came, summoning Madame Tussaud to the Tuileries Palace. Her client was a busy man, she was told, so she should arrive at 6am. Ushered inside from the pink light of dawn Tussaud was […]

PETER TRUDGILL on some of the ways Welsh and English have stayed apart. The name of the village of Betws-y-Coed in North Wales means ‘prayer-house (in) the trees’. Coed, ‘trees’, is the plural of coeden, ‘tree’. This is an intriguing grammatical fact. In the languages of the world generally, plural forms of nouns are normally […]

Home secretary Priti Patel’s announcement that the level of shoplifting has fallen compared to the year before has baffled viewers of the latest government press briefing. https://twitter.com/SeanoSays/status/1254064614599426048 In her second appearance in front of cameras at Downing Street since the coronavirus outbreak hit, the home secretary said there had been a fall in overall crime […]

As a concept, surrealism’s roots run deep in Britain, even if as an artform it never took hold to the same extent as elsewhere. Yet RICHARD HOLLEDGE reminds us that the country still has a healthy heritage of the absurd. Conroy Maddox, Onanistic Typewriter I, 1940, Photo credit: The Murray Family Collection (UK & USA). […]

STEVE ANGLESEY takes a look at all of the Brexiteers making the headlines for the wrong reasons. DAVID STARKEY He might be a popular historian but Starkey is not so good when it comes to current events, telling journalist Christopher ‘Chopper’ Hope’s podcast that during the 2016 referendum, ‘Apart from the Telegraph, everyone in the […]

A Tory Brexiteer MP has called on the UK government to be more like EU countries in its approach to coronavirus relief schemes for businesses. Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski has called on Boris Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak to replicate schemes in France, Denmark and Poland, which have all prevented companies based outside their country […]

Ambazonia would be the first new country in a decade, and a potentially rich one. But, as YOLETTA NYANGE reports, the battle for independence from Cameroon is far from over. A elderly resident of Muama village, located in SW Cameroon, pours some homemade palm oil into a container in her backyard. Picture: Giles Clarke/UNOCHA via […]

A leaked list of those that sit on Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)’s group advising the government on coronavirus has revealed that both Dominic Cummings and a data scientist from the Vote Leave campaign are in attendance. The Guardian reports that both Boris Johnson’s chief political adviser and Ben Warner, a data scientist who […]

RICHARD LUCK looks back on a little-known chapter from history, when a chance discovery in a Belgian backwater produced one of science’s greatest ever finds. The world’s first prehistoric sculptures, built in 1854, were designed by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the guidance of Professor Richard Owen, who invented the word dinosaur. Picture: SSPL/Getty Images – […]

The government’s coronavirus testing website was overwhelmed as it opened to new bookings on Friday, with home testing kits running out in the first two minutes of the site going live. Up to 10 million key workers and their households in England are now eligible for coronavirus tests if they have symptoms as the government […]

France has blocked companies with offshore tax havens from accessing up to €110 billion (£96 billion) in government coronavirus bailouts. France’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire has moved in line with European counterparts in Denmark and Poland, who recently introduced legislation prohibiting tax-avoidant firms from accessing vital coronavirus bailout funds. He told radio station France […]

The EU’s revelation that Boris Johnson’s government has failed to provide all legal text setting out its position for negotiating a post-Brexit future has been slammed by politicians. The EU’s chief negotiator said Michel Barnier warned the ‘clock was ticking’ and said Britain cannot both slow down trade talks on key areas while refusing to […]

Brexit talks this week have been labelled ‘disappointing’ by the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier as it emerged Boris Johnson’s team failed to submit draft proposals. Barnier told reporters that Brexit trade talks this week had been ‘disappointing’ and that the UK had failed to submit a draft proposal on fisheries. The UK has only […]

Under ‘no circumstance’ should disinfectants be injected or consumed, the company which makes Dettol has warned, following comments made by US president Donald Trump. The US president is facing a backlash after suggesting it would be ‘interesting to check’ whether a disinfectant injection could help combat coronavirus. During his latest press conference, Trump said researchers […]

BILL BORROWS talks to one of the creators of Babylon Berlin, the hit TV series set in Weimar Germany, about the show’s success and the era’s troubling parallels with today. Babylon Berlin. Picture: Archant – Credit: Archant There’s a moment in the first season of Babylon Berlin when detective chief inspector Bruno Wolter, played with […]

Sir Keir Starmer has appointed Doreen Lawrence as race relations adviser to the Labour Party. The campaigner and mother of Stephen Lawrence, who was stabbed to death in a racist attack 27 years ago this week, has been with leading a review into the impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities. […]

Political historian GLEN O’HARA surveys the challenging electoral landscape facing the new Labour leader and identifies the three theatres of operations in which he must engage. Sir Keir Starmer. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images No-one cares about party politics at the moment. The coronavirus emergency looms over everything. Most voters are worried […]