Opinion

TIM WALKER on an actor proud to have been called a luvvie. It was the word “luvvies” that introduced me to Peter Bowles. I’d used it in the way journalists generally do as a light-hearted, if lazy and cliched, way of describing actors and it had provoked a debate in the letters column of The Stage, […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the life of tightrope walker Karl Wallenda, a man tailed by tragedy. A pretty good crowd for a Tuesday, Karl Wallenda thought. Some 7,000 people had filled the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit that night in January 1962 to see the Great Wallendas and the show was going well as it reached its […]

In these exclusive extracts from his diaries, ALASTAIR CAMPBELL recalls meeting David Cameron’s director of communications Craig Oliver. He felt Ed Miliband was outperforming his man.  Friday, May 18 Met Craig Oliver (Cameron’s communications director). Jeremy Heywood [cabinet secretary] still hadn’t replied to my complaint re. Cameron [Campbell had accused the PM of seeking to deflect criticism over Coulson […]

Much of the country is back in lockdown but the traumas of the pandemic look to have improved attitudes to the EU and blunted the appeal of populists. “It is our darkest hour: but we will make it.” In March 2020, the (now former) prime minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte, echoed the words of Winston […]

The notion of ‘Global Britain’ goes hand in hand with good, proficient multi-linguistic skills.

In these exclusive extracts from his diaries, ALASTAIR CAMPBELL explains why he demanded an apology from Toby Young following his evidence to the Leveson inquiry.

While Indyref2 still looks the most likely end of the UK as we know it, and the SNP makes headlines, another constituent part’s fate is in the balance. Compare the British government’s approach to Scotland and Northern Ireland as it attempts to address the chaotic consequences of Brexit. The post-Brexit mood in both Scotland and […]

TANIT KOCH on just how close the Green Party are to power in Germany… and how they could throw it all away. Remember the many Britons who got hold of an EU passport after the 2016 referendum via the odd Irish granny? You may be among them. If you could now make that work vice versa, there’s a huge […]

The life of Black Panthers leader Hampton is the subject of a new movie starring Daniel Kaluuya. Bonnie Greer remembers the Hampton she knew briefly You never really go back to your youth. You move on, things happen to you. But your youth is still there, on the edges, and as you get older it moves […]

Readers have their say on Douglas Alexander's recent column in The New European

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a place where music has articulated the angst of a colonised community, as well as addressed its more modern taboos. Greenland is a place where colonial history is lived every day. The world’s largest island, lying mostly within the Arctic Circle, it was settled by Norsemen as early as the year 1,000 […]

Ahead of a crucial vote on Europe at the Lib Dem’s spring conference, LAYLA MORAN outlines the party’s position on Brexit. I don’t think many Liberal Democrat members will easily forget the crushing disappointment we felt when we saw the results of the referendum. I am sure many of you, like me, shed a tear […]

In these exclusive extracts from his diaries, ALASTAIR CAMPBELL talks about the response to his evidence at the Leveson inquiry. Wednesday, December 14 I was thinking a lot about losing friendships, and it wasn’t sensible. Neil and Glenys [Kinnock] after the “We’ve got our party back” comment [following the 2010 Labour leadership contest]. Maybe I just needed to forget […]

As the pride of the British fleet prepares to sail to the South China Seas, MARK MARDELL offers a timely analysis of what ‘Global Britain’ might actually mean. There’s little that says ‘Global Britain’ so well as traveling halfway around the world to deliver the message “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!” The Royal […]

The outpouring of women’s testimony prompted by the murder of Sarah Everard must create change, or the fury will become just a fact of life.  Occasionally, an event in the world will bring such a keen sorrow that to let it pass without demanding change would feel like an act of desecration. Sarah Everard’s murder was one […]

Miranda Sawyer reveals the best listens from politics, sports, true crime and more

The UK could have saved the European Union from vaccine disaster.

Journalist JESS BRAMMAR was dubbed part of the “Woke Wing of Fleet Street” after she criticised the way much of the press shrugged off Harry and Meghan’s accusations of racism. Here she explains why the issue needs addressing, not evading. People expected the Meghan and Harry interview to have global ramifications but no one could have […]

In these exclusive extracts from his diaries, ALASTAIR CAMPBELL takes us back to the autumn of 2011: David Cameron leads a coalition government with Nick Clegg as his deputy; Boris Johnson is the celebrity mayor of London; Barack Obama is in the White House; and Britain is in the EU. While the London Olympics are on the horizon, politics is dominated by […]

Conspiracy theories abound, but what does explain the EU’s seemingly baffling attitude to the AstraZeneca jab? The precautionary principle has longstanding European roots and modern international credibility. It is a scientific idea that grew out of an older German concept. Properly applied, it is difficult to argue against it. An international academic conference in 1998 defined […]

Priti Patel’s clampdown on demonstrators is part of a chilling pattern of government moves to silence dissent Priti Patel is clamping down on the right to protest. She won’t admit it, of course. When she presented her new police, crime, sentencing and courts bill to the Commons this week, she insisted it had no impact […]

A Porsche 911 convertible which the footballer was caught driving through a red light at 111mph just after buying fetched a huge price at auction A Porsche 911 convertible which Diego Maradona was famously caught driving through a red light at 180km/h (111mph) just 30 minutes after buying has sold for €483,000 (£414,000) at auction in Paris. […]

Brexit minister David Frost gets it wrong about the causes of January’s huge drops in trade with the EU It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where our first month of post-transition trading as a fully independent nation played out like a particularly tragic episode of Danny Dyer’s pachinko-styled BBC […]

Which minister’s mate charged the government £2.6million for the new No.10 Downing Street press briefing room, asks Mitch Benn as he hands out political awards to Boris Johnson and Priti Patel Hello and welcome to this, the first of my columns to be 100% compliant with the terms of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts […]

Should modern football – particularly the gegenpresse fußball coached by Jürgen Klopp – carry a health warning? Liverpool, the runaway English champions less than a year ago, look a broken team, physically and mentally. Their defence is cursed by injuries, their attack appears a wearied parody of what it was last spring.  But more recently, […]

The great statesman adored the Côte d’Azur, where he indulged his passion for painting. Artist PAUL RAFFERTY, who has explored the area in search of the locations he painted, explains the profound connection between the man and the region. August 1948, Aix-en-Provence, late afternoon, the baking heat now just about bearable. A convoy of artist, driver, valet, bodyguards and a […]

ROB HUGHES on the very different goalscoring talents of Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland and whether Premier League transfers lie ahead for them. No-one knows how Covid will drain the finances of football, but everyone rates two talents that Europe’s richest and most powerful clubs will scramble to buy. They are, of course, goalscorers. Kylian Mbappé was […]

NINA DE AYALA PARKER on the pandemic of gender violence that led to the death of Sarah Everard. The reaction to the murder of Sarah Everard marks a watershed moment in the fight to end sexual harassment and femicide in the UK. Why? Because, the focus is no longer on women, but on men. It […]

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale has been Europe’s most successful consumer organisation. But as it turns 50, can it defeat the twin threat of Covid and craft beer? Four Englishmen walk into a pub. They’re complaining. And for readers of distant pedigree raised on lazy, outdated gags of dubious cultural provenance, the pub really […]

The scandal of modern language education in the UK is going to cost the country dear Universities have been in the headlines, quite rightly, as students and their parents worry about being charged full tuition fees for nearly a year of online learning, while paid-for rental accommodation sits empty after tenants were told by the […]

WILL SELF on discovering his DNA background and finding out he is not as closely related to Ivan Lendl as he had always assumed. One sunny afternoon in the late 1980s I was idling my way down Sloane Street from Knightsbridge towards Chelsea when a plumber’s van screeched to a halt on the far side […]

A new four-part HBO documentary assembles a compelling and gruesome case against Woody Allen. JASON SOLOMONS, who has written a book on the director and a long-time fan, describes how watching the series has changed his attitude towards his hero forever. Starting in the pit of my stomach and rising to the bottom of my throat, […]