Opinion

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 […]

Boris Johnson failed to provide a coherent plan for Brexit – is it any surprise he is floundering over the lifting of the coronavirus lockdown? So we are promised a comprehensive plan from the Johnson stable setting out how and when we might eventually come out of lockdown. If memory serves me right, we were […]

TIM WALKER on a man who never lost that childlike need to please and to make people happy. I first met Donald Sinden in the mid-1980s when I showed up too early at his home in Golders Green in north London. He came to the door in his dressing gown and slippers and his hair […]

Britain’s future with Europe remains unclear, but one thing is certain, it needs to request an extension to the Brexit transition period. BARNABY TOWNS explains that unity is strength. Europe Day is celebrated by the European Union on May 9th, commemorating the 1950 Schuman Declaration, signed by France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux nations 70 […]

Unlike other Boris Johnson efforts, The Perils of the Pushy Parents is not racist or sexist – it’s just ‘rubbish’. Two earnest and connected hopes for young Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson: One, that on December 13, 2024, his dad suddenly has a lot more time on his hands with which he can spend reading to […]

Only a few months ago, the BBC was in the government’s crosshairs. Now, says MATTHEW D’ANCONA, it has a new lease of life. Dominic Cummings is believed to be the senior source who, in February, told The Sunday Times that the government would press ahead with plans to axe the BBC licence fee. Picture: Getty […]

Former Liberal Democrat MEP LUISA PORRITT writes that young people’s determination for a shared European future makes Brexit unsustainable. Luisa Porritt in the European Parliament chamber. Picture: Harry Taylor/Archant. – Credit: Archant For those living in one of the European Union’s 27 member states, today is a celebration. It marks 70 years since the Schuman […]

BONNIE GREER uses television to examine and investigate what it means to be ‘English’. David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. Picture: ITV – Credit: Archant Among the consequences of living in lockdown are the things that you suddenly see. That you suddenly know. For example, I have come to realise that I have been a Londoner […]

Coronavirus has escalated Donald Trump’s breaking down of everything that holds Amercia together, writes JAMES BALL. Can it survive another four years of this? It is impossible not to wonder, when you read about or watch a documentary on certain periods of history, whether the people of the time knew what was coming. Given how […]

While our TV news is still fairly responsible, according to MITCH BENN, our newspapers are even worse for bias and recklessness than their American counterparts. There’s a sort of numbness setting in now, isn’t there? A hollow, aching, weary resignation punctuated by periods of gnawing dread (and perhaps searing grief) when the virus’s crosshairs hover […]

At a time when the public is clapping for the NHS the government is entering post-Brexit talks with the US which could put in danger the future of our health service. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and the US trade representative Robert Lighthizer (on screen) as they formally begin the UK-US trade talks. Photograph: Andrew […]

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed a host of global dangers, says ANDREW ADONIS. Now we need a strong, united Europe more than ever. Boris Johnsons intention to crash out of the European Union looks worse with each passing week of the coronavirus pandemic, says Andrew Adonis. Picture: PA – Credit: PA Saturday is Europe Day. […]

A watershed moment is approaching for Britain, says Francis Beckett. Alas, it looks certain to lead us the wrong way. The end of this virus emergency, whenever it comes, will be a political watershed. As Britain’s most trusted historian, professor Lord Peter Hennessy, has said: ‘Those who write the history of Britain post-1945 will divide […]