News and Opinion

I couldn’t make it to the March For Europe last Saturday; perhaps this dereliction of duty means my Remoaner licence has now been revoked and I must now be demoted to Regrumbler or Rewhiner. But, it just so happens, I think the weekend’s events may have rendered all such terms obsolete. I’ll explain: Some bright […]

In his latest exploration of the wonders of European languages, former QI writer Adam Jacot de Boinod unearths some surprising terms for food and dining. Dokhlaya sobaka, (Russian) a low- quality frankfurter (literally, a dead dog). Hasenbrot, (German) a sandwich that has been taken to work or school and is now rather stale (literally, a […]

‘Trees are sanctuaries,’ wrote the German author and poet Hermann Hesse. ‘Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.’ Hesse’s words are prime example of how Europe has always attached a vivid mystique to its trees. Myths and legends across the continent are based in […]

BONNIE GREER on the conviction that you can have your cake and eat it Like all questions that history deems to have ultimately been about a nation’s identity, its very soul, Brexit has quickly become a measure of more than itself. The pro-EU march on Westminster last weekend turned out Middle England, that bellwether of […]

At 11am on the morning of April 26, 1937, a reconnaissance plane circled over Guernica in the Basque region of Spain. The town’s people were nervous. Guernica’s strategic importance was obvious, if the city fell to Franco’s forces then the Basque coastal region would be next and the Nationalists would soon have north Spain under […]

A legitimisation of radical right-wing ideology is taking place around the world. The world was shocked by the events in Charlottesville, America, and by Donald Trump’s failure to condemn racist violence. But it may be even more surprising to some to learn that the radical right has achieved a mainstream foothold in Scandinavia and that […]

MICHAEL WHITE on the coming post-EU withdrawal bill vote storm and what happens now we get into the detail Never boring, is it? Monday night’s second reading vote on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill may only have been classified as a Category 2 storm which passed through the House of Commons with limited damage to […]

If Theresa May had made her ‘citizens of nowhere’ speech a few years earlier, she would probably have received a letter of stern rebuke marked Kardamyli, Greece. William Stanley Moss, General Kreipe, Patrick Leigh Fermor – Photograph The Estate of William Stanley Moss reproduced by permission Royalties from the sale of these photographs of William […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories So to Bournemouth and Sir Vince Cable’s debut at Liberal Democrat conference as leader. ‘We need to give people power over the decisions which affect their lives,’ he says in the foreword to the conference programme. Some might say giving the public a say got us into this […]

Vodka – The clean, clear spirit is an essential ingredient in many a classic cocktail. And its image as the drink of purists is helped by the efforts of one of its biggest manufacturers. Sweden’s Absolut is the third largest alcoholic spirit brand in the world, and second only to Smirnoff in the vodka rankings. […]

Mancunian musician Mark Reeder arrived in Berlin in 1979 and never looked back. Mark Reeder. Picture: Archant – Credit: Archant In the four decades since he made the city his home he has managed bands, staged clandestine gigs behind the Iron Curtain, released his own records, remixed countless others, starred in films, presented television shows […]

Britain will “soon regret” leaving the EU, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has warned in his annual state of the union speech. He told the European Parliament that although Brexit would be a “sad, tragic” moment the remainder of the union would “move on”, setting out moves for closer economic and defence co-operation. The “wind […]

In 1968 the German rock band Can hid themselves away in the Schloss Nörvenich, a castle which was not that far from their hometown of Cologne and while there they began to experiment, rehearse and record their first LP Monster Movie. The members of Can came from disparate musical backgrounds. Two of them, keyboard player […]

It was almost 35 years ago yet I still can’t believe my dad let me do it. I can’t have been much more than 14 years old. I was desperate to visit my favourite cousins in Dublin and I think my parents had probably jumped at the chance to get rid of me over that […]

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un are playing a very dangerous game of nuclear poker, argues Paul Connew. But does either leader have the cards that could avoid destruction? There’s an obscure 12-year-old promotional video in which Donald Trump pontificates ‘expertly’ on how to win at poker. Later he admitted he wasn’t an expert at all […]

Right, so where are we now then? When last we spoke, Keir Starmer had give us perhaps the first hint that Labour might be starting to back away from at least a ‘Hard’ Brexit, if not (yet) Brexit altogether. Nothing much else (at time of writing) seems to have happened on that front; Labour appear […]

When Muslim feminist SEYRAN ATES opened a liberal mosque in Berlin this summer she was met with a barrage of death threats and fatwas. But she says she is undeterred in her campaign to use enlightenment values to defeat extremism – in all forms I have been beaten up in the street, received death threats […]

Writer, April 17, 1885 – September 7, 1962 In New York in the spring of 1959 Karen Blixen danced on a table with Marilyn Monroe and fellow novelist Carson McCullers. At least, that was according to McCullers’ version of events: while the three certainly met it’s unlikely the frail, sickly Blixen would have been tapping […]

An estimated 50,000 passionate Remainers marched on Parliament yesterday demanding the Government reverse its Brexit strategy. The People’s March For Europe began at Hyde Park, moving noisily through central London before attending a rally in Parliament Square with speeches including former cabinet minister Sir Ed Davey and Conservative peer Baroness Wheatcroft. Many clad in the […]

Tony Blair today made an explosive intervention in the Brexit debate, calling for tough new immigration rules which would allow Britain to stay in the EU. In a policy paper for The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the former Prime Minister has called on the Government to make EU citizens coming to Britain register […]

Al Jazeera may have its flaws, but its persecution is seriously bad news for the world, says PAUL KNOTT As a news-addicted citizen of the world, it was Al Jazeera’s in-depth report on the last Ecuadorean election that finally won me over. The ground-breaking global news channel covers places and viewpoints others do not. Sadly, […]

Few British institutions divide opinion as much as the Last Night of the Proms. But, says PIERS FORD, this complex event is ultimately able to rise above the political tensions The Last Night of the Proms is the musical equivalent of the swallow doing one final lap before it heads for warmer climes: a landmark […]

ETA’s decades of violence have cast a long shadow over Spain and the Basque Country. But, says CAROLINE GRAY, a brilliant and cathartic novel is helping both to move on from the past Western Europe’s last remaining home-grown terrorist organisation finally ceased operations in 2011 when Basque separatist group ETA declared a permanent ceasefire. And […]

1958 was the year when rock and roll gripped the nation, prompting some to ask of a young Cliff Richard ‘Is this boy too sexy for television?’ SOPHIA DEBOICK explores when the teenager truly arrived in Britain Teenage music fans couldn’t be blamed for feeling things were in stasis in 1958. Elvis was in a […]

If you’re looking for a phrase to describe the change in newspaper print circulations this year, it might well be ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’. The latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) demonstrate that only the Metro managed to increase its print circulation year-on-year, with every single other national […]

It’s not just back to school for the nation’s children, this week, but also for politicians and British business. It’s heads down and concentrate for the crucial 15 weeks between now and Christmas. These are critical for most sectors. Retailers face their busiest trading period; media companies expect an uptick in seasonal advertising; construction companies […]

Modern Germany has a very different political and media culture to our own, and some of that was on display in Sunday’s ‘TV-Duell’ between Chancellor Angela Merkel and her SDP challenger Martin Schulz. For a start, lest any German elector was unaware of its importance, the debate was broadcast live across four main channels. The […]

Celts share a fierce pride and independence that has shaped their food and drink, says JOSH BARRIE There is, across westerly lands, where Europe meets the only thing separating it from the misery of Donald Trump – and his dastardly chlorinated chicken – a Celtic stretch. It veers from Scotland southward, through the Isle of […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Peter Whittle ‘Great to speak tonight at @UKIP Norfolk hustings,’ tweeted the favourite to become the Kippers’ next leader, after talking at an event last weekend. ‘This is a party with a strong beating heart.’ And who can doubt it when you see the […]

RICHARD PORRITT on the week’s big stories ‘Shut up and do as you are told or the Commie bastard on the opposition benches will send us all back to the 1970s’ appears to be the Whips’ latest line of attack on Tory Remainers. But why the paranoia? Even rogue Remain Tory Anna Soubry admitted that […]

Britain’s chances of being ready to begin EU trade negotiations by the next round of trade talks in October are “in the neighbourhood of zero”, former European Council president Herman van Rompuy warned today. The stark warning comes days after David Davies admitted Brexit negotiations were proving “tough and at times confrontational” as he told […]

With a protest in Manchester next month and another in London this weekend, the grassroots fight against Brexit is taking to the streets again. Organisers of Saturday’s event KAZ LLEWELLYN and JEREMY DAVIES issue a call to arms We must protest and we must march if we are to reclaim our future. We are not […]