Opinion

Just who the hell are the British? After five years of Brexit, 18 months of a pandemic and a year of Black Lives Matter, the country – and the world – still doesn’t know My life in the United Kingdom started in 1972 at the age of eight with a black eye. My brother, who is two years older, and […]

Readers add to the list of best European shows to stream I was very pleased you recommended some very top favourites of mine in your “Best 40 European shows to stream”. Some other excellent series are: I Know Who You Are (Spanish); Vanished by the Lake, Killer by the Lake, Fear by the Lake (French); […]

Pledges from wealthier nations to help vaccinate other countries are no more than token gestures It had all been going so well. The UK’s four-stage reopening – at a slower and more cautious pace than previous liftings of restrictions – had successfully completed its first three stages, and had done so without too much in […]

The champions of Brexit have gone particularly quiet since the UK left the EU - but are Remainers guilty of doing the same too?

The week's weirdest news from Europe includes a drug mix-up in Poland, a trigger-happy pensioner in Germany and a violent squirrel in Turkey

When Brexit redefined the UK’s place in the world, migrants were left out in the cold. But, disabled migrants fell through the cracks entirely.  “Can you spell your last name?” they ask. I’m used to it by now. In France, it’s an easy question: I just answer “Castres, like the city.” But there’s no Castres […]

The medical protocols that helped saved Denmark’s Christian Eriksen are partly down to the work of one man, football doctor Michel d’Hooghe It was a Swedish writer, Erik Niva, who observed last Saturday: “Denmark lost but life won”. He reported on the collapse, the apparent death, and then the resuscitation that saved the Danish playmaker […]

Boris Johnson’s faults and failings are blindingly obvious, but the media don’t seem interested in that story It was a great question. “When the history books are written, will Boris Johnson still get away with it?” It was asked by a woman in the Q and A when I spoke at the Wimbledon Book Festival, […]

A reader points out how Brexit red tape is impacting Amazon order This is the amazing journey of a tiny cheap item of a pair of Creative Earbuds ordered from Amazon UK costing just £6.99 and the time this small package took as it travelled from Rome, Italy to Oxford UK. I have ordered these […]

Andrew Neil has launched a new channel, GB News. Now, comedian Mitch Benn is starting his own network for middle-aged, straight, balding white men… MB NEWS IS HERE! Hello, good evening/morning/afternoon and welcome to the exciting launch of my very own news channel, MB NEWS! Yes, like 52% of the GREAT BRITISH PUBLIC (give or […]

He infuriated Hitler, won over Churchill and de Gaulle and inspired one of the central characters in Casablanca. So why do we know so little about pan-European visionary Count Coudenhove-Kalergi? The story of uniting Europe goes back a long way before 1950 and the Schuman Declaration. But there is a piece of that history after the […]

Farmers in Kent and Fife say their soft fruit crops may go unpicked because of a lack of seasonal workers from the EU post-Brexit It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain – not only in Cornwall, where a just-married couple’s party was ruined when the guests complained about the […]

A marketing invention of the publishing industry or a genuine opportunity to broaden horizons? CHARLIE CONNELLY on the phenomenon of beach books Now that the sun’s been out for longer than 20 minutes it won’t be long before we’re bombarded with recommendations for this year’s holiday reading. As ever these will take two forms: a […]

WILL SELF on a painstakingly assembled scale model of a long-gone Teesside neighbourhood Top hats and cloth caps off for Steve Waller, who has spent the past nine years working fulltime on a scale model of the historic St Hilda’s neighbourhood of Middlesbrough. Waller, 61, began working on the model after he slipped a disc […]

The country’s complex relationship between church and state has further complicated an ongoing scandal When Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and advisor to Pope Francis, offered his resignation last week, you could almost hear the cymbals clash. Both Marx’s motive and the public manner of his step were a complete novelty. Usually, when prominent German clergy […]

As Angela Merkel departs the scene, her party faces an insurgent effort to move it much further to the right and to reverse her centrist approach. Will it succeed? Two years ago German politician Walter Lübcke was assassinated with a close range shot to his head, as he stood on his front porch. Lübcke, a member of […]

Victory for France in the Euros would give Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante the kind of trophy cabinet that even Messi and Ronaldo would envy Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are on opposite sides of the world preparing to lead their countries in tournaments that represent their last chance to win major honours. No-one of sound mind […]

The story of two places, and two women, linked by fate and separated by a body of water. Calais has always had a special place in British culture. We owned it from 1347 until 1558 after all, even if now it’s mainly known for booze cruises, Channel swims and the first trip abroad for so […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the language of the Isle of Man, and its rearguard action against the linguistic homogenisation of the British Isles If you have ever been to Ellan Vannin – the Isle of Man – you will know that from the shores of that beautiful island it is possible to see Ireland, Scotland, England and, […]

Lupin, Call My Agent and Money Heist are among the familiar names in our list of the best Europan TV series to stream, but there are hidden gems too

Almost five years on from the fateful vote, historian JAMES HAWES explains why the decision to leave the EU was the result of a Tory civil war – triggered by John Major’s 1992 victory – for eternal control of southern England Karl Marx believed that history was all about a succession of class struggles. He was, […]

The Sun's days could be numbered, writes LIZ GERARD.

Twenty five years after a massive IRA bomb destroyed the centre of Manchester, LUKE BAINBRIDGE reports on how the city was reborn from the rubble Dennis Walker was the first black player to play for Manchester United, back in 1963. After retiring from football, the fluent Farsi and Arabic speaker became operations manager at the Arndale […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY looks back at one of the most improbable games of football’s long history, when a team of Durham miners took on a side of Eton schoolboys In the aftermath of the tawdry European Super League saga I found myself rummaging online for reassurance that football was once the game of the people. On […]

Few people have seen their reputations enhanced by Brexit. But one who has is the artist Cold War Steve, who has chronicled the UK’s exit from the EU in all its misery. Here, New European cover artist CHRIS BARKER gives his own appreciation

Comedian Mitch Benn looks at Donald Trump’s seemingly backwards trousers, Tim Martin’s demand for more EU migrants and Michael Gove’s trip to Portugal “LEOPARDS EATING PEOPLE’S FACES” MOMENT OF THE WEEKTim Martin, arch-Brexiteer, boss of the Wetherspoons McPub empire and Worzel Gummidge’s Angry Head, has been bemoaning the fact that the staff he told to […]

As part of our special edition looking at five years since the EU referendum, Alastair Campbell looks at the silence of the Leavers Weatherspoon’s boss Tim Martin inevitably attracted heaps of scorn when recently bemoaning staff shortages for his pubs, and demanding the government allow more EU migrants to fill the gap. But at least he […]

A list of the chancellor's latest meetings show he has been busier than the rest of the cabinet, and is not necessarily sticking to his own brief

Writer and historian MISHA GLENNY on attempts to revive an alliance of democracies to withstand the threats of the modern age Joe Biden is running out of time. In just 17 months, he faces mid-term elections when the Democrats are almost certain to lose their wafer-thin congressional majority. In that period, he hopes to steer […]

Troubled tennis player Naomi Osaka sparked outrage on the circuit by pulling out of French Open press conferences and then the tournament itself – but she will be vindicated In August 202, at the height of the protests against the public police murder of George Floyd, Naomi Osaka said: “Before I am an athlete, I […]

An acute shortage of workers facing many sectors is being spun as a consequence of Covid, not Brexit. Don’t believe it… The weather is warmer, the days are longer, the sun is (sometimes) shining, and pubs are – for the moment at least – one again open and serving. Just one fly in the ointment: there’s a […]

The Benin Bronzes have a special status in the debate over cultural artefacts taken during the colonial era. Author Barnaby Phillips explains why, and why the British Museum’s approach to the debate is unsustainable At the end of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee summer, in September 1897, the British Museum hosted an unusual exhibition. It was something of a […]