Opinion

In the age of the coronavirus, it’s perhaps as well not to dwell too much on six degrees of separation, the idea that all people on average are six – or fewer – social connections away from each other. Still, I was struck by how true this was just over a decade ago when I […]

Mitch Benn says Joe Biden’s altruism beats Donald Trump’s cynicism. I do realise that I’ve been talking about America a lot just recently (and that this paper is called The New European) but I feel I should cast at least a nervous nod across the pond this week as this will be the last column […]

Nathan O’Hagan asks whether the film is toxic in 2020. When it was published in 1996, Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club wasn’t a huge commercial success, despite a largely enthusiastic critical response, but it instantly developed a strong cult following, resonating particularly with disaffected young men who, up until that point, didn’t see their experience […]

The EU has been so successful in its original aim that is now suffering from a dangerous lack of direction, says Simon Anholt. This can be simply addressed Over the years I’ve encountered many parts of the ‘international system’: the United Nations and its family of organisations, the World Trade Organisation, Nato, all kinds of […]

Paul Knott on the resilience and revival of the principal of international justice, the optimistic, liberal idea that refuses to die. Ethnic nationalist regimes acquire power by convincing enough of their citizens to blame ‘other’ groups of people for their country’s problems. Such governments often culminate in murder, mayhem and genocide. The precedents from history […]

The chancellor is borrowing and borrowing to combat the pandemic. Perhaps he should delay paying the bill, writes Bronwen Maddox. The clash between the mayor of Greater Manchester and the chancellor of the Exchequer was the first significant political contest of the age of coronavirus. For the seven long months since the pandemic took hold […]

So what is a role model? Before I give you the definition offered by the Oxford English Dictionary – itself a role model, dare I say, in the world of words – just put the paper down, and have a think about that question… what is a role model? Who, if you have or have […]

What do the beheading of a teacher in France, the suspension of a digital portal in Belarus and tweets about postal ballots in the US elections have in common? They are all different ways in which freedom of expression is being abused. The issue is sometimes seen as ephemeral, but it shouldn’t be. It is […]

As Britain’s future trade talks with the EU 27 edge towards what we hope will be some sort of amicable resolution, at home Boris Johnson grapples over free school meals with a 22-year-old footballer who didn’t win the Eton-and-Oxford Lottery. It made me think of a long-dead trades union activist whom I admired. Moderate but […]

The damning report into anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn gave Sir Keir Starmer enough wiggle-room not to further enflame party tensions by taking immediate action against his predecessor. But Corbyn’s refusal to fully accept the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s findings and his insistence that the extent of racism in the party had been “dramatically overstated […]

Bonnie Greer looks at Sam Elliott’s adverts for Joe Biden, which aim to sway Donald Trump voters away from the president. In the United States, the various voting demographics are labelled in terms that most British citizens, and just about anyone else, might find offensive. So, there are ‘white suburban women with college degrees’, and […]

James Ball looks at how a Donald Trump defeat would effect the USA, and the world. The consensus is in: there is something like an 85% to 90% chance that Democratic candidate Joe Biden will win the presidential election next week and begin the countdown to his inauguration in January 2021. But if people have strong […]

Readers have their say on the furore over the government failure to provide free school meals during the holidays. As many politicians once again demonstrate that they are out of touch with ordinary people by voting against providing free school meals in holidays, is now the time to suggest that all politicians should undertake a […]

The government’s attempts to put sovereignty over cooperation will leave us all worse off from Brexit. As the UK-EU deal or no-deal drama limps on, most attention focuses on the economic consequences of a new trade relationship. But UK health security – in the sense of measures to prevent and mitigate health emergencies such as […]

Readers have their say on politics in Germany, and make comparisons to Britain. The German people believe Angela Merkel will tell them the truth (“Trust helps Germany through its crisis”, TNE #215). The biggest issue with our government is a lack of faith.The trust in Boris Johnson and his uninspiring crew has been systematically undermined […]

Readers have their say on the silence of Baroness Dido Harding, who is overseeing the government’s test and trace scheme. I can’t help wondering why, if Diana ‘Dido’ Harding is that capable, confident and articulate (“Test of her life”, TNE #215), she doesn’t seem to do more media interviews: after all, who better to report […]

Readers have their say on the latest opinion articles from The New European. Re: Alastair Campbell on Piers Morgan. Though I used to find Piers insufferable, I now looking forward to his combative take on all things Covid-19 and the disastrous no-deal Brexit prospect.Last Monday I felt a tad deflated not to see him and […]

So, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in Guy’s Hospital recently, accompanying my brother-in-law who’s terminally ill with cancer to his consultations and treatments. It’s a hospital I know well – having already seen birth and death there, as well as being diagnosed with – and receiving ongoing treatment for – a myeloid […]

The nation-states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are located in Caucasia, the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, no more than 350 miles across at its narrowest point, which is mostly taken up topographically by the Caucasus mountain range. These three countries are widely, but by no means universally, considered to be […]

I miss the days when I’d think nothing of looking at my diary and seeing I had a lunch with someone like Eartha Kitt. The reputation of the West End stage meant that the greatest performers from all over the world were continually converging upon it. I realise now how I took that for granted, […]

An archipelago of 10 islands 350 miles off the coast of Senegal, Cape Verde is a place that was made by slavery. Its islands of jungle, mountains and volcanic landscapes were uninhabited until the Portuguese arrived in 1462, but it then became a key staging post in the transatlantic slave trade, developing a population of […]

We don’t worry enough about giant monster attacks. Granted, we have problems enough, what with pestilence and political tumult, to be fretting over things whose actual existence is, at best, disputed, but if this year has taught us anything, it’s that nothing can be dismissed as impossible. In lieu of more formal contingency planning, the […]

I read that Dame Julie Walters, having recently turned 70 and survived a brush with cancer, has said that she’s considering retiring from acting, although she might be tempted back to do Mamma Mia 3 if it happens. What’s perhaps interesting about this announcement is the fact that it’s considered newsworthy at all… A woman […]

I work in a hut that stands on a floodplain on the edge of the Broads and I often see marsh harriers from my desk: wings in a shallow dihedral, balanced on the edge of a stall, a bird of prey and a virtuoso of slowness. They’ve been extinct once, almost twice as a British […]

LIZ GERARD on how the Daily Star became the voice of the people – while The Sun speaks for Boris Johnson alone. The Daily Star speaks for the nation. Who would have thought it? Fleet Street’s most downmarket tabloid is the country’s acknowledged expert on giant mutant rats, psycho seagulls and lager lout wasps. It […]

Given the low-level background dread that is life in 2020, picking out any individual source of anxiety can often be all-but impossible – but one obvious exception for many of us is looking towards the impending US presidential election, now less than two weeks away. In the pit of our stomachs, many of us have […]

As the election results came in from New Zealand I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate with a small (fewer than six!) group of Kiwis, close friends and former colleagues of victorious Jacinda Ardern. With so much bad news around, it was great to be able to enjoy a stunning Labour victory; a […]

Lockdown is, for almost everybody, a new phenomenon that has created feelings of anxiety about a range of issues, particularly how to deal with the threat of the virus itself. Covid-19 is an invisible threat from which the best protection appears to be to hide – perhaps in the hope that it will go away.  […]

Did you hear the door slam on Britain’s post-Brexit trade negotiations with the EU27 after Boris Johnson declared them broken off last Friday night? No, neither did deaf old me. But nor did BBC One’s News at Ten which opted to lead its bulletin on Whitehall’s parallel standoff with Covid-hit Manchester, also going badly for […]

A quiet town perched on the banks where the Seine and Oise rivers meet, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine is not one of Paris’s notorious banlieues. Around 20 miles northwest of the capital, it is certainly in its orbit but the quiet streets and restrained, low-rise buildings mean it feels more provincial French than Parisian. Pleasant, and rather unremarkable. […]

Once anticipated as a key milestone on the road to an agreement, this month’s European Council and its aftermath have instead led to greater uncertainty about the prospects of a deal. The signs are not encouraging. With EU leaders standing firm, an expression of disappointment by the UK chief negotiator, Lord Frost, on Friday was […]

The latest phase of Brexit stumbles towards a predictably shambolic end. As with earlier episodes the familiar deluded posturing from the British government is part of the stumbling. After the EU summit, a deadline set by Boris Johnson for a trade deal, Number Ten proclaimed with the usual discordant swagger that the EU negotiators need […]