News and Opinion

Opposition party leaders are meeting in Westminster to discuss how to ensure Boris Johnson cannot push a no-deal Brexit through against the will of parliament. As part of the discussions, Jo Swinson is expected to propose an amendment to the Benn Act which would force the prime minister to seek an extension to Article 50 […]

The chancellor has admitted he doesn’t know the true cost of a no-deal Brexit, but says he knows it will be ‘challenging’ if it happens. https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1178571699299725314 Sajid Javid did not dispute a report in July from the Office of Budget Responsibility that claimed the budget deficit could widen by £30bn from 2020-2021 onwards, but said […]

Protesters have taken to the streets of Manchester as the Conservative conference gets under way. A Boris Blimp is inflated in Manchester as part of the Reject Brexit defend our democracy protest. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA Wire. – Credit: PA A giant Boris Johnson blimp was inflated at Castlefield Bowl ahead of a Reject Brexit – […]

TIM WALKER called the performance a good-looking, good-natured, feelgood production One’s hopes for Big: The Musical were miniscule. The idea of making a show out of the schmaltzy 1988 Tom Hanks film – about a kid whose wish to be ‘big’ is granted – is of course inherently preposterous. What next: a huge water tank […]

Gina Miller, the businesswoman who took one of the cases that led to the Supreme Court ruling the government’s prorogation of parliament was unlawful, said she was subjected to ‘disturbing’ verbal abuse while walking with her daughter. Miller said she was recognised on the street as she took her 12-year-old daughter for an eye test […]

Mormonism is a movement with music in its soul, from its earliest days to the most modern sounds. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The Beach Boys’ 1965 album track ‘Salt Lake City’ paid tribute to the place that, the lyric’s claimed, had “the grooviest kids”. Photo: RB/Redferns – Credit: Redferns In 1847 a former carpenter, Brigham Young, […]

Conservatives have posted an advert for a six-month job assisting MEPs in Brussels, starting the day after the government claims the UK will leave the EU. The paid internship was listed as recently as September 25 by the Conservatives and Reformist Group (ECR) within the European parliament, to which the Tories’ four MEPs belong. The […]

Boris Johnson has he has ‘no interest to declare’ over his links with an American businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri. The prime minister has been referred to the police complaints body to assess whether he should face a criminal investigation over his links with former model Jennifer Arcuri. The Sunday Times has now reported that she confided […]

Boris Johnson has said sorry for any ‘misunderstanding’ surrounding his response to Labour MP Paula Sheriff, but fell short of an apology for the language he used. Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to appear on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire. – Credit: PA The prime minister defended his use of words […]

Boris Johnson has set out plans for 40 new hospitals – but the health secretary has admitted the funding only allows for six. Johnson said ahead of Tory party conference the government was embarking on “the biggest hospital building programme in a generation”. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, he said spending on the […]

Minority staff and presenters at the BBC have been told by the corporation not to join in any form of protest supporting presenter Naga Munchetty, a newspaper reports. The Sunday Times quotes Trevor Phillips, broadcaster and former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, as saying the corporation had instructed staff to not sign […]

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party has withdrawn the whip from one of its MEP’s over ‘a likely conflict of interest’. In a brief statement, the party said that the whip was being removed from West Midlands MEP Andrew England Kerr “with immediate effect”. “This is due to irreconcilable differences regarding a likely conflict of interest,” the […]

Police have probed Nigel Farage over his comments at a recent rally in which he said he wanted to ‘take the knife to the pen pushers in Whitehall’ after Brexit. The Brexit Party leader made the comments about civil servants to several hundred supporters at a rally in Newport, South Wales. He was commenting on […]

Labour is calling on the cabinet secretary to investigate claims Boris Johnson is pursuing a no-deal Brexit to help currency speculators and hedge funds who bankroll the Tories. In a letter to Sir Mark Sedwill, shadow chancellor John McDonnell expressed concern that big Conservative donors who backed Johnson had a financial interest in a no-deal […]

The traditional male leadis now an endangered species on screen, says PAMELA HUTCHINSON. Think of Cary Grant, and the chances are you will imagine him in a crisp tuxedo. You can picture his perfectly square and handsome face, punctured by that one, unignorably cute chin-dimple. His back is straight, but his eyes are twinkling, and […]

It might be set 50 years ago this month, but RICHARD LUCK says Withnail and I has a lot to say about Brexit-bound Britain “Ah, my boys, my boys, we’re at the end of an age. We live in a land of weather forecast and breakfasts that ‘set in’. Shat on by the Tories. Shovelled […]

STEVEN DOWNES says the Labour leader is not living in the real world trying to put an end to private education. I used to hate – really, viscerally hate – independent schools. I’d kick the Jolly Julians on the football field, sledge the Arrogant Archibalds during cricket, and harangue the Prissy Peregrines on the streets. […]

By relinquishing responsibility over Brexit, Labour’s leader has played into the hands of the party’s pro-EU wing, says ZOE WILLIAMS As Jeremy Corbyn took to the stage at the close of the Labour Party conference, its end hastened by the usual circumstances of an active lawbreaker in Downing Street, he found himself explaining what his […]

WILL SELF on what the renaissance of US comedy series Friends tells us about Britain today. I think it behoves me to at least clearly state what I believe ‘culture’ to be, if I wish to style myself ‘Multicultural Man’; and I think it only fair to address you, dear readers, with the intimacy and […]

Labour’s message on Brexit is fooling no-one says MITCH BENN. And so, we pass the autumn equinox and soldier on into the last bit of the year. There are two things which happen around this time of year with a maddening predictability: firstly, Christmas stuff will start to turn up in the shops despite it […]

Britain finds itself in a dark web. MICHAEL WHITE wonders who has become entangled by recent events. If I were the Queen I’d be more worried about what my son, Andrew, may have told me about his dealings with upmarket Manhattan pimp Jeffrey Epstein than about predictable shiftiness from Boris Johnson over his prorogation motives. […]

The final battle of Brexit now looms, and JOHN KAMPFNER says the prime minister will enter it seriously weakened. One of those adages you are taught in leadership colleges is that when the flak is flying at you, you march straight towards it. Boris Johnson, it seems, is doing just that. Is it the result […]

The firm’s fall has provided a number of lessons for the UK ahead of a possible no-deal Brexit, says JAMES BALL. The UK got a preview of what chaos in Europe looks like this week, at least on a comparatively small scale. That came not at the Supreme Court – although that’s caused ructions enough […]

DAN WHITE explains why so many of Britain’s disabled community are fearful of a no-deal Brexit. My daughter Emily is just one of the estimated 14 million disabled people living in the UK. Although she was too young to vote in the EU referendum, many in the community did. Of course, members of that community […]

The South Korean capital is known for its slick and boundlessly exuberant pop. Yet the ebullience belies a complex and dark history. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Seoul is a pop powerhouse. In just a few years, its K-pop industry has gone from a localised East Asian craze to a global force, with comic rapper Psy, of […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on an angry book depicting life on the margins of the UK, which should be classed as one of the most important works of post-Brexit literature “It won’t be long before the statues start moving,” was a familiar refrain in Ireland when the global recession hit in 2008. Miraculous visions always increase during […]

Like Wile E Coyote, Boris Johnson’s special adviser has been the author of his own spectacular downfall says STEVE ANGLESEY At the end of August, Dominic Cummings told the meeting of special advisers (spads) which he chairs each week that the Conservatives planned to rip up precedent and wreck Labour’s conference in Brighton with a […]

The die-hard Republican state is growing frustrated with its leaders, says BONNIE GREER The first time most people in the United States, or probably anywhere else, heard the term ‘the Lower 48’ was around the time that Senator John McCain introduced his running mate, the then governor of Alaska, in the 2008 presidential election. Alaska […]

Like many ALASTAIR CAMPBELL has found anxiety over Brexit impinging on his sleep. He tries to decipher what it all means. There was a time, a few years ago, when I was seeing a psychiatrist regularly, to try to get to the bottom of my on-off relationship with depression. Part of my ‘homework’ was to […]

Now that parliament is back – having returned in such extraordinary circumstances – here is the speech ANDREW ADONIS believes Her Majesty should now deliver My lords and members of the House of Commons, my government is an Etonian revolutionary rabble. My prime minister lied and caused me to suspend parliament like Charles I, not […]

The police complaints body is set to assess whether he should face a criminal investigation over his links with American businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri. The Greater London Authority (GLA) said its monitoring officer had recorded a “conduct matter” against Johnson over allegations Arcuri received favourable treatment because of her friendship with him while he was mayor […]

The Lib Dems and Change UK are continuing to oppose Jeremy Corbyn as caretaker PM despite the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and even Ken Clarke supporting the plan. Nicola Sturgeon said she would support the Labour leader as a candidate for caretaker prime minister, though added she was “open minded” about who takes on the […]