News and Opinion

The comedian, musician and writer on how American Halloween supplanted the ‘British’ Halloween of old Just one of the many exciting side-benefits of my rapidly advancing years, along with the receding hairline and similarly receding eyesight, is a marked acceleration in just how rapidly the aforementioned years appear to be advancing. I don’t know about […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back on a year which saw the first stirrings of a new sound and a new character – the teenager If rock and roll was but a twinkle in Bill Haley’s eye as the 1950s dawned, 1952 saw it born, even if it would take time to mature. This was the year […]

Steve Anglesey, Matt Withers and Geri Scott discuss the week in Brexit, including David Davis’ dismal week and Chris Heaton Harris and Paul Dacre’s joint assault on universities In addition, the team talk the worst Brexiteers of the week, the sad death of a TNE institution, Jared O’Mara, what Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May smell […]

Neither carries a blackjack or a Tommy gun. But Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein are modern-day thugs, says Pulitzer Prize-winning writer ALBERT SCARDINO Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein were cut from the same roll of toilet paper. Both are pigs, both are thugs, both are American men of a certain age, a certain position of […]

Could Catalonia go it alone, and could Spain afford to let it? MIREIA JOFRE-BONET and ALBERT BANAL-ESTANOL analyse the economic consequences of Catalan independence The prospect of Catalonia seceding from Spain has never looked closer. Following a messy referendum vote on the matter (which the Spanish government refused to recognise but sent police in to […]

Twenty-five years on, is pioneering Euro soap Eldorado due a cultural re-appraisal? Not a chance, says ANDREW WOODS. In fact, we can add Brexit to this show’s rotten legacy You couldn’t lay all the responsibility of Britain voting to leave the EU on BBC1’s 1992 ‘Euro soap’ Eldorado. But it certainly didn’t help. A prime-time […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Henry Bolton Fresh from declaring that he could strange a badger with his bare hands, UKIP’s new leader has admitted that since the party is skint and his position is unpaid, he’ll probably have to sell his home to get by. No worries, Henry […]

Our editor-at-large writes the speech he fantasizes Jeremy Corbyn delivering to a rally of his faithful Momentum followers Last week I wrote a speech for Theresa May, which concluded with an announcement that she had decided Brexit was impossible to deliver. Sadly, she didn’t listen, and so onwards she leads us towards the cliff-edge. This […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories Thanks to concerned readers in academia, The New European was among several media outlets to receive a copy of Chris Heaton-Harris’ sinister letter to universities this week. Did this dunderhead Tory really think he could fire off veiled threats to vice-chancellors up and down the country in an […]

America’s culture wars have raged for years, says BONNIE GREER. But Eminem’s intervention is a significant one US art and culture are at war with the US President. This is nothing new. The play MacBird! opened on Broadway not long after Lyndon Baines Johnson assumed the presidency. A huge hit, the play, based on Macbeth […]

The department for exiting the EU has executed a screeching u-turn on whether MPs will get a vote on a final deal before the UK departs the union. Just hours after Brexit secretary David Davis MPs told MPs they may not get to vote on the terms of departure until the UK has already left, […]

MPs may not get to vote on the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU until it has already left, Brexit secretary David Davis warned today. He told the House of Commons’ Brexit Select Committee that the negotiations could drag on to the “59th minute of the 11th hour” and would be “very exciting […]

The Conservative MP who wrote to universities asking for the names of lecturers teaching courses on Brexit and the content of their lessons was doing research for a book, a minister has claimed. Chris Heaton-Harris, a government whip and member of the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Conservative MPs, wrote to vice-chancellors earlier this month […]

Unnoticed by most of the population, the UK has developed a cruel and unjust immigration system, which is ensnaring growing numbers of Europeans. CELIA CLARKE on a scheme which should shame us all It was an email from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) office in Vilnius that confirmed what our legal advisers had been […]

An influential committee of MPs has written to Facebook asking for any evidence it had of Russia using it to meddle in the Brexit referendum. Members of the House of Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee have called on the social media giant to hand over evidence of paid-for activity by accounts linked to […]

Come the motoring revolution, the UK will need as little as 5% of the number of cars currently on the road, calculate MARCUS MAYERS and DAVID BAMFORD. The days of car ownership are numbered The traditional model for car ownership is bust. The gleaming steed on your drive may be a powerful status symbol, but […]

A Conservative MP and leading Brexiteer has written to universities across the UK asking for the names of lecturers teaching courses on Brexit and the content of their lessons. Chris Heaton-Harris, a government whip and member of the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Conservative MPs, wrote to vice-chancellors earlier this month asking for the names […]

The outcome of the Brexit negotiations are “up to the UK”, European Council president Donald Tusk said today. In an update to the European Parliament following last week’s EU summit he said the UK would be responsible for whether there would be a “good deal, no deal or no Brexit”. The former Polish prime minister […]

Former – and perhaps future – No. 11 occupants are using uncertainty over Hammond to push their own agenda, says MICHAEL WHITE Under crushing pressure from many sides Philip Hammond made two mistakes in recent days, three if you include dining with George (‘dead woman walking’) Osborne in a public restaurant. In a Sky interview […]

It’s the living, not the dead who should decide this country’s future, says Have I Got News For You writer NATHANIEL TAPLEY The Walking Dead is back on this week. A country in the grip of the undead, whose mindless consumption has caused the end of civilisation as we know it and thrown the world […]

Jeremy Corbyn has called the Prime Minister’s Brexit update ‘Groundhog Day’ and warned her biggest battle is with the ‘warring’ Tory factions rather than the EU. The Labour leader said the Prime Minister is ‘too weak’ to stop the infighting which is increasing the prospect of ‘crashing out’ with no deal. Corbyn’s criticism came as […]

Few footballing powers have fallen as far as the Dutch. NEIL FREDRIK JENSEN asks if there is any way out of the downward spiral For all the pessimism surrounding English football and the gaping void that exists between its current state and its golden era of global domination in 1966, there are some positives. The […]

The killing of an investigative journalist reveals another side to Malta, says BRAD BLITZ. But her investigations spread beyond the island’s shores – and so do implications of her murder The final words written on her blog by Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia this week were heartbreakingly prophetic. ‘There are crooks everywhere you look now,’ […]

The government is desperate to win back support among the young. It could do worse than start by focusing on schools, says FREDDIE WHITTAKER, where Brexit is adding to already acute problems The Conservative Party is on a mission. A mission to persuade the young people of Britain that they should back them, and not […]

US editor PAUL CONNEW on what the Weinstein revelations could mean for Donald Trump’s beleaguered administration One voice has been deafeningly silent in the global war of words surrounding disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Step forward, Donald Trump. It’s a topic on which the normally hyper-active presidential Twitter fingers have been curiously paralysed. The legitimate […]

Our editor-at-large on his new party piece: the speech the PM should have made to her party conference Whether talking to a business, a charity, a conference, school or college, I involve the audience in a show of hands exercise, which I will now ask you all to join. I am heading well into the […]

The ‘missing billions’ are a red herring, says ANGELA JAMESON. There are bigger things to worry about My friend is miserable. We are trying to arrange dinner at a venue that can be accessed from all parts of the city. Our favourite gastro pub, it turns out, has shut down because of difficulties trading and […]

The Leave trajectory has run into the sand, says JANE MERRICK. Now it is not just a ‘no deal’ that is on the cards, it’s a ‘no Brexit’ The morning after the referendum, after the initial shock of the result had subsided, the mood of Leave campaigners could not have been more confident or optimistic. […]

The comedian, musician and writer on the disgraced Hollywood mogul Hmm. Kind of nervous about bringing up The Whole Harvey Weinstein thing as it strikes me as a soundbite minefield; however carefully I measure these 1,000 or so words there’s bound to be at least one sentence I come out with which, if angrily brandished […]

Theresa May’s refusal to tell a radio phone-in show how she would vote in a new Brexit referendum was a new low for the Maybot. Her interrogator IAIN DALE recalls the moment he put the question to her, and his surprise at her failure to answer it ‘I know how I would vote in a […]

RICHARD PORRITT on the week’s big talking points The chlorinated chickens have come home to roost for the Brexiteers this week. First lobby group TheCityUK says Britain stands to lose as much as £10bn in lost investments if a transitional deal is not worked out. Then the Resolution Foundation warned millions of families face shelling […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Gerard Batten ‘English is not taught in our schools and hasn’t been for decades,’ claimed the UKIP MEP on Twitter, surprising hundreds of English teachers across the nation and enraging thousands of pupils […]