News and Opinion

More people in Wales favour staying in the EU than crashing out of the bloc in the event of no deal, a new poll has shown. The poll, by YouGov on behalf of Plaid Cymru, shows a clear lead for those who wish to remain in the EU (48%), compared to those who believe we […]

MPs are calling for a rise in their allowances, claiming their workload has risen due to Brexit. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), the expenses watchdog, disclosed that it had received representations from MPs to raise their staffing budget. Under current rules, MPs can claim £150,900 a year for staffing costs, rising to £161,550 in […]

A new poll has found that the Labour Party needs to oppose Brexit to stand a chance of beating the Conservatives in a snap election. A survey by YouGov of nearly 5,000 people has found that if a general election took place before Brexit just 19% would vote Labour if it didn’t take a stance […]

JASON SOLOMONS watches a new Polish romance in which the Iron Curtain plays a defining role – and hails it an instant classic. Among the great, enduring European love stories we must include Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Abelard and Heloise, Romeo and Juliet, Lancelot and Guinevere, Paolo and Francesca, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr […]

How Britain’s best-selling newspaper covered up its own huge finding. By STEVE ANGLESEY If a major opinion poll commissioned by Britain’s best-selling newspaper revealed huge support for the statement ‘Brexit is an historic mistake and only now are people realising it’, you’d imagine it would be pretty big news, right? Well, the first bit happened. […]

Nigel Farage floundered under tough questioning in one of his first interviews since rejoining the political fray. Farage was on ITV’s Good Morning Britain as one of his first television appearances since he declared he was returning to the Brexit campaign trail with relaunched group ‘Leave Means Leave’. The interview began with him being forced […]

The re-launched Leave Means Leave campaign has been mocked after its website listed just two female and one person of colour in its list of 46 backers. The ‘Leave Means Leave’ campaign is increasing activity this autumn in a panic move to shore up support for a hard Brexit, and in response to increased momentum […]

Former BBC journalist Gavin Esler has told People’s Vote campaigners in Edinburgh that Brexit is in trouble because of the ‘most incompetent bunch of politicians’. The People’s Vote rally in Edinburgh. Photograph: People’s Vote/Twitter – Credit: Archant He was speaking as the People’s Vote regional rallies arrived in Scotland. He was joined by The New […]

In a year of blockbuster exhibitions and events, Vienna is celebrating the period when it was the controversial cultural capital of the world. Schiele’s interest in painting youths raised eyebrows and attracted the attention of the law. Picture: Leopold Museum – Credit: Archant Anyone who travelled on the London Underground earlier this year will have […]

Nigel Farage has been accused of ‘running scared’ from a doctor who destroyed his claims about the damage Brexit will have on the NHS. Dr Rachel Clarke responded to the former UKIP leader on social media after he dismissed yet another warning from NHS professionals over a ‘No Deal’ Brexit. Farage accused the British Medical […]

For a world still recovering from the horrors of war, pop culture offered escapism and a glimpse of a brighter future. Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials. Picture: National Archives, courtesy of USHMM photo archives – Credit: Archant Theodor Adorno said ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. Looking at the hits of […]

MITCH BENN assesses whether Boris’ fixation has moved from Churchill to Bannon. Two thoughts on the topic of freedom of speech: 1. Boris Johnson is perfectly within his rights to say whatever he wants about burqas. 2. The rest of us are perfectly within our rights to call Boris Johnson a reckless, shameless attention-craving, trouble-stirring, […]

Alastair Campbell’s take-down of the most important book you’ve never read. ‘Too little attention has been paid to the fact that electoral politics lures disordered, messianic personalities into positions of power. A system that routinely submits control over the largest, most deadly enterprises on earth to the winner of popularity contests between charismatic demagogues is […]

The idea Brexit is failing because it is being betrayed must be strongly resisted, says STEVE RICHARDS. Brexit is failing because it cannot be delivered. Steve Richards says Brexit is failing because it simply cannot be delivered – not because it is being betrayed. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images Political debate, the […]

Boris’ cheap shots are part of a pantomime – allowing him to discover who his real troops are, says BONNIE GREER. Mark Twain once said: ‘The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.’ I thought of that quote as I watched a crowd standing in awe in […]

The embattled prime minister’s biographer looks back over the last year to assess prospects for the futures of May, her party and her country. ‘Nothing has changed; nothing has changed.’ With those words, in May 2017, Theresa May doomed the Conservatives’ majority in the House of Commons and came close to throwing away her premiership […]

London mayor Sadiq Khan is set to instruct crisis planners to prepare for Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal. He said he had been left with “no choice” but to instruct the London resilience forum, which usually works on contingency plans for terrorism attacks and disasters such as the Grenfell Tower fire, […]

MICHAEL WHITE on how distractions are diverting us from the issues central to humanity’s survival and dissipating attention from the real issues. Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist to US President Donald Trump. Picture: Sean Gallup/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images What do Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and Yuval Noah Harari have in […]

Former BBC staffer PATRICK HOWSE says his former employer’s misguided attempts at evenhandedness mean it is failing its greatest test since the Second World War. David Dimbleby. Picture: Contributed – Credit: Archant A distinguished BBC journalist once told me that covering the Bosnian War was like going into a bar and being told by the […]

Jeremy Hunt has been mocked after insisting that Britain would “survive and prosper” after a no-deal Brexit, the day after describing it as a “mistake we would regret for generations”. Mr Hunt had been criticised by Hard Brexiteer MPs after an interview with ITV News yesterday in which he appeared to play up the risks […]

Accountancy giant Deloitte has been handed £2.6m to give Liam Fox’s officials a crash course in how to handle trade disputes. The Department for International Trade is set to pay the external consultants roughly £325,000 a month to prepare officials working at the country’s trade authority. The contract, unearthed by news website Politico, commenced in […]

TIM WALKER on how this seductive production of the comedy classic makes it funnier than ever. Vaudeville Theatre, London, until October 20 There is a great deal of kissing going on in Michael Fentiman’s adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest. Men kiss women, women kiss women and men kiss men. Fehinti Balogun’s dashing Algernon […]

Rachel Johnson discusses the country’s desperation to talk and row about something else. My record of bringing the rain this summer is so far unbeaten. I left London to spend a few days in Scotland, and it rained. Then I came down to London last week and it rained. And now I’m in Somerset and […]

Brussels Brexit negotiators fear they are being spied on by Britain. Officials raised security concerns after the UK allegedly obtained sensitive documents ‘within hours’ of them being discussed. Sabine Weyand, the EU’s deputy chief Brexit negotiator, reportedly told officials at a European Council working party on exit talks that ‘it could not be excluded’ that […]

Brexit could be “hugely damaging” to English football, according to the chairmen of Burnley and Stoke City. Burnley chairman Mike Garlick said uncertainty over a deal with the EU was already making it harder for clubs to sign players. And Stoke chairman Peter Coates said that the Premier League could be hit by freedom-of-movement restrictions. […]

STEVE ANGLESEY looks at the Vote Leave campaigner’s rule-breaking and rounds up the worst Brexiteers of the week. Photos taken during the campaign show Grimes in a Vote Leave T-shirt, beaming behind Michael Gove at a press conference. Picture: PA Wire/PA Images – Credit: Archant The old saying ‘crime doesn’t pay’ can now be updated […]

The first signs of Labour’s erosion under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership might just be appearing, says JAMES BALL The country, the polls suggest, may finally be starting to seriously change its mind on Brexit. For the first months – and then the first year – after the UK voted to leave, polls stubbornly bounced around within […]

TIM WALKER talks to actor and campaigner Sir Patrick Stewart about politics, Star Trek and a very spiky encounter with the Labour leader Ever since he first stood with a placard bearing the name of his local Labour candidate in Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the 1945 general election – at the […]

Brexit can be stopped – and Salvini provides yet another reason why it should be. ‘It is better to live one day as a lion than a thousand years as a sheep,’ was a Mussolini catchphrase. By lion he meant the full works: roar, teeth, hunting, killing, aggressive war. There wasn’t much compassion for the […]

Tim Walker’s diary also focuses on why Sarah Sands won’t be sacked as editor of the Today show and a former colleague recalls Daniel Hannan’s difficulties mastering facts. Sarah Sands remains “stubbornly in place” as editor of the Today programme on Radio 4. Picture: PA – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images Mr Bean shuts down the […]

Just under half of people in Scotland want a referendum on the Brexit deal, according to a new poll. The YouGov poll, commissioned by the People’s Vote campaign calling for a public vote on Brexit negotiations outcome, found 48% of respondents were in favour, with 31% opposed. This is greater than the UK wide-response of […]

The chance of a chaotic no-deal Brexit is now “50-50”, Latvia’s foreign minister said today in a stark warning to Theresa May. Edgars Rink?vi?s said there was a “very considerable risk” of a no-deal scenario but insisted he remained optimistic an agreement with Britain on its withdrawal from the EU could be reached. He said […]