Opinion

Despite beating Jeremy Corbyn at the last election, Boris Johnson appears to be making the same mistakes in his leadership techniques. Up to now Johnson had a triple strength political honeymoon, generated by huge electoral success, ‘getting Brexit done’ (part one, anyway), and widespread deep sympathy after his Covid-19 brush with death. His government’s risible […]

Readers have their say on the government’s response to the coronavirus, and how Dominic Cummings has only made things worse. So, our new not-quite-yet world-beating NHS Test and Trace system is, uh, on the way to being up-and-running and it might take a few weeks to get it fully in place. Of course, it was […]

BONNIE GREER says George Floyd’s death is an old and horrible story – and one that we will continue to hear from America. My teen years were full of burning cities, and one burning prison. Attica. We called them ‘urban uprisings’. Before the 1960s, they were called ‘race riots’. My first produced play, 1919, was […]

JAMES BALL says many global companies will cut UK operations and implement mass layoffs if Brexit is forced through at an idiotic pace. Remember Brexit? It happened roughly a century and a half ago, on January 31 of this year. The UK left the EU and is no longer a member state. A bitterly divisive […]

To protect black lives we must abolish or radically reform the police, says a former press secretary to Boris Johnson Disappointingly, much of the commentary about the protests in the US condemns looting and violence and fails to examine the root causes. In western societies, the police force has historically perpetrated violence against black communities, […]

Former Conservative adviser BARNABY TOWNS on the fight that leaves an important democratic principle and civil rights issue at stake. Just over one year ago this month, over one million people were denied their fundamental right to vote. Britain’s last set of European elections, held on May 23rd, 2019, may not seem of particular importance […]

JULIAN SELF pens an open letter to the Conservative Party following the Dominic Cummings scandal. Dear Conservative and Unionist Party, Have your say Send your letters for publication to The New European by emailing letters@theneweuropean.co.uk and pick up an edition each Thursday for more comment and analysis. Find your nearest stockist here or subscribe to […]

This episode has exposed ministers’ lethal mix of dreadful values as people, and their utter uselessness, says ALASTAIR CAMPBELL. Protesters outside Downing Street, London, as the row over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aide Dominic Cummings’ Durham trip continues. PA Photo. Picture date: Wednesday May 27, 2020. See PA story HEALTH Coronavirus. Photo credit should […]

The #DeniedMyVote judicial review continues in the Courts. JOHN HALFORD, lead solicitor on the case, explains why all those committed to democracy should consider backing it. May 2019 had a very different feel to it than this May does. The news was filled not with the latest COVID-19 mortality statistics and Dominic Cummings’ creative childcare […]

Readers give their views on Keir Starmer’s leadership so far, and dare to dream about the next general election. James Ball’s insightful article on Keir Starmer (‘Opposition rediscovers its mission’, TNE #195) echoed my view that, under the unique set of circumstances, Keir couldn’t have done a better job thus far. The arithmetic does indeed […]

While Labour might be getting its act together again, readers believe the Dominic Cummings saga proves that it’s Boris Johnson who is most likely to bring down his own leadership. Brief moments in politics can have deep resonances. When Ann Widdecombe and her UKIP colleagues turned their backs during a performance of the European anthem […]

TIM WALKER recounts meeting Dame Vera Lynn, the singer of we’ll meet again. When it was said how wonderfully the Queen had uttered the words ‘we’ll meet again’ in her recent address to the nation, one woman would have had every reason to take umbrage. Dame Vera Lynn made them her own in innumerable concerts […]

MITCH BENN on the Durham dash that has everybody talking. So anyway, one day I woke up and thought do you know, I’m feeling a bit wobbly; in fact I’m not sure my sense of balance is everything it should be. Rather than take any chances, I decided to test just how good my sense […]

BONNIE GREER on how masks are becoming another signifier in the culture wars. I knew that the severe part of the lockdown was over when I felt a rumble in my apartment and the sound of the pavement outside being split open. Construction was back, and with it construction workers, practically singing like the birds […]

Britain’s comparison between the coronavirus and a ‘war’ are in stark contrast to the German approach – where they have been more successful at tackling Covid-19. Many political leaders around the world have reached for the imagery of conflict to describe the coronavirus pandemic. In France, President Emmanuel Macron said his nation was at war […]

Boris Johnson may come to regret his decision to allow his senior aide to contradict lockdown guidance, especially with the potential for a second coronavirus spike. Fear has a bad reputation. Nobody wants to live in a society of fear; it’s an emotion to be avoided. As such, the role of the modern state is […]

TIM WALKER reflects on an interview with American actor and political activist Charlton Heston. Charlton Heston was appearing on the London stage in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. He was a big guy in a wig whose views on everything from gun control to gay rights had made him politically incorrect before the term had even […]

MITCH BENN reflects on last weekend’s coronavirus lockdown protests in Hyde Park. For someone who’s ostensibly got nothing to do at the moment I seem to be weirdly busy. If anything I’ve been over-committing myself; I’ve actually had to back out of a couple of projects for which I’d volunteered in a burst of enthusiasm […]

Labour has refound its mission as ministers get used to the new normal, argues JAMES BALL. Sunday mornings cannot be fun for anyone in professional politics, particularly if you’re affiliation is with the Labour Party – what for others is a leisurely scan of the paper over breakfast is for you a nerve-wracking assessment of […]

BONNIE GREER on Donald Trump’s reckless plan to get re-elected this autumn. Like the plot of a Dario Fo play or a scenario from a Mel Brooks movie, the notorious germophobe Donald Trump has met his biggest opponent yet: a killer virus. ‘I can’t get sick! I can’t get sick!’ he is known to cry […]

MICHAEL WHITE on the week an indecisive Johnson tried, and failed, to please everyone. I don’t know what it’s like where you are. But the traffic on the motorway near us has been getting louder all week and it was the cold snap, not the government’s new ‘Stay Alert’ slogan, that kept our park from […]

Dora Bryan was a brilliant and unpretentious British actress. But TIM WALKER says it was life’s miseries which made her a comedy genius. Dora Bryan, visiting Norfolk in 2005. Photo: Bill Darnell – Credit: Archant � 2005 Dora Bryan was cheerful, unpretentious and as British as fish and chips. She ran a rambling hotel on […]

Nigel Farage is no journalist, writes STEVE ANGLESEY, but a has-been whose migrant ‘invasion’ narrative is pure fiction. Confusion and ridicule may have greeted Boris Johnson’s botched easing of the lockdown, but for one man the new rules are manna from heaven. After a bumpy moment with the cops over whether he was an essential […]

In an epic and excoriating essay, editor-at-large ALASTAIR CAMPBELL chronicles the events and decisions of four traumatic months in UK history. Mourners at the funeral of army veteran Eric Stonestreet, who died of Covid-19. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images I am starting to write this at the end of a warm, […]

Readers react to Boris Johnson’s easing of the lockdown. South Korea is experiencing a new spike in cases after easing lockdown restrictions. Germany’s R-rate has increased after reducing its own measures two weeks ago. So, although we have over four times the number of new infections as Germany and France, and although countries with much […]

The virus is no great leveller, says JAMES BALL. Instead, it is deepening our social divide. Such sentiments are admirable – but their basis is false. Nothing about coronavirus is serving to equalise our society. Instead, in ways big and small, inevitable and unavoidable, accidental and the result of deliberate choices, it is entrenching existing […]

Covid-19 is having a greater impact on ethnic minority communities, says BONNIE GREER. The government must investigate why. One of the more embarrassing things that one of my uncles would do at Sunday supper was to tell everyone around the table how I was as a toddler and little
kid. It seems that I was a […]

Don’t just clap in support of our carers. On International Nurses Day campaigner NINA DE AYALA PARKER calls for you to take action to campaign for them too. Happy international Nurses Day! Underpaying NHS nurses should be ancient history. The undervaluing of nurses has lifted, with the nation’s clap – now so too should the […]

To extend or not to extend. That is the question which soon will have to be settled. The coronavirus crisis goes on and on to its indefinite horizon. But very soon, barely a month, away Boris Johnson will have to take a big decision. Does he tell the business world, and the wider political community, […]

A new study reveals that, despite Boris Johnson making fewer appearance in front of cameras, people want to see less of the prime minister and more of the experts. Since the UK government introduced late afternoon press conferences in March, these have tended to dominate the news cycle. But our research with news audiences suggests […]

Neil Ferguson already had Covid-19 so was unlikely to be infectious. So did he really do wrong in flouting the rules? If anyone is an expert on when it might be OK to breach lockdown regulations, it’s one of the country’s leading epidemiologists. But after breaking the rules, Neil Ferguson felt the need to step […]

Readers have mixed views on the media coverage of Boris Johnson’s handling of the coronavirus. The way much the UK media – not including TNE – has rolled over for Boris and his government has astounded and depressed me. The lack of critical distance, even from the hitherto sensible, is dumbfounding. There seems a desire […]