News and Opinion

Uphill struggles, of one form or another, appear to characterise many of the stories generating interest and comment in newspapers and on websites across Europe. Sisyphean tasks BELGIUM: The series of terror attacks across Europe in recent years has dealt blow after blow to community relations that have taken decades to construct, argued the writer […]

Labour’s Brexit chief has sent a stark warning to the Government saying ‘we are not giving you a blank cheque’ on how Britain leaves the European Union. Sir Keir Starmer warned Theresa May she faces a parliamentary battle in the first Commons vote on Brexit legislation if issues raised by Labour are ignored. The Shadow […]

The Government is desperately attempting to halt a rebellion which could derail the repeal bill. Theresa May has claimed rebels risk putting Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10 if they back Labour’s attempts to influence the bill – officially called the European Union Withdrawal Bill. The bill faces the first round of parliamentary scrutiny on Thursday […]

Boris Johnson has long been loathed by Remainers. Now, even the Tory grassroots are turning on him. Jane Merrick reports on the Foreign Secretary’s waning star. This summer, the United States wasn’t the only country to witness a total eclipse.. In the UK, another golden figure was blocked out – and this time it could […]

There is a rare chance of peace in Syria. But, Hamish De Bretton-Gordon writes, Brexit is getting in the way of the UK and the EU playing the role we should. A member of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Photo: DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images – Credit: AFP/Getty Images There was a time when you turned on […]

Our culture correspondent on an author reaping the rewards of authentic language, gripping life stories and taking inspiration from a murderous poodle. Funny how times change. Once upon a time you might have known that a book was going to do well because it had good reviews in all the literary pages of all the […]

The special relationship is alive and kicking. White Anglo-American establishments are always there for each other when times get rough, like that bridge over troubled waters. The statue of 19th century politician Cecil Rhodes on the front of Oriel College, Oxford. Photo: PA – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images In 1776, the new nation declared itself […]

Steve Anglesey picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week. 10. PAUL NUTTALL The only man to win the Grand National as jockey, trainer AND horse opened an article for the Daily Telegraph with the words, ‘It has been just over two months since I stood down as leader of UKIP after the general election. […]

This week’s podcast looks at what Labour’s Leavers really think of the party’s policy shift, the songs which sum up Brexit and a scary look at Britain’s foodie future once we’ve left the EU. A review of the week’s Brexit news with host Steve Anglesey and broadcaster Neil Perry. Plus the podcast contains all the […]

Long before the internet was invented, the troll held our imaginations and encompassed our fears. Here is one tale: A poor miller, in an attempt to make himself look big, lies to the king by telling him that his rather boring daughter can spin straw into gold. The king loves the idea and shuts her […]

Japanese businesses expect ‘clarity’ over Brexit, a top diplomat said as Theresa May jetted off to the Far East. Minister for public diplomacy at the Japanese embassy Shinichi Iida said his government would prefer Britain to stay in the European Union and will be ‘paying close attention’ to negotiations. He added that Japan has a […]

En même temps… I am guessing many of you know, without resorting to Google Translate, that it means ‘at the same time’. In France, however, it has taken on a political as well as a literal significance, because of Emmanual Macron’s heavy use of the phrase during his audacious bid for the Elysée Palace. It […]

Labour’s new Brexit policy is a step in the right direction – but doesn’t go far enough, say the party’s MPs Heidi Alexander and Alison McGovern. Have you ever had that excited but exasperated feeling when your team’s so close to scoring yet can’t quite manage to get the ball in the back of the […]

As I think I’ve mentioned before, my wife Clara (who is in the process of becoming my ex-wife although we remain best of friends – a neat trick if you can pull it off and thus far we seem to be doing OK) grew up in Berlin both before and after the reunification of Germany. […]

Philosopher, February 3, 1909 – August 24, 1943 When Emmanuel Macron cited Simone Weil in a speech to the French Congress last month most people, including the official government transcriber, assumed he was referring to the feminist lawyer and government minister Simone Veil who had died a few days earlier. Instead Macron, a keen student […]

It’s our continent, but not as you know it. DAVID HURST pays a visit to one of the most unusual spots in the EU. It is Europe at its most extreme. At the height of the day, temperatures here can reach 50°C, touching more than 40°C in the shade, before falling to -5°C at night. […]

One of the ironic elements of the Brexit debacle is that we have a trio of politicians tasked with working together to make it happen, who clearly do not get along with each other. Boris Johnson (Foreign Secretary), David Davis (Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union) and Liam Fox (Secretary of State for […]

It was the year the music business finally got to grips with new technology, Tony Blair quit and Amy Winehouse’s troubles became painfully clear. SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back at a pivotal 12 months Prince gave his Planet Earth album away free. Photo: ABACA USA/PA. – Credit: ABACA USA/PA Images The first decade of the 21st […]

From Lord Beaverbrook to Charles de Gaulle, and Dylan Thomas to Aleister Crowley, Soho’s French House has long attracted an eclectic clientele. MATT BARKER asks whether this most legendary of pubs can cope with its own myth Credit: Archant We Brits have a lot to thank the French for. They’ve influenced the way we eat […]

Hardeep Singh Kohli confesses to a porcine passion and shares his own recipe for a classic Parma ham dish Gammon. Pork. Ham. For me the holiest of trinities. Each has its own application, each offers joy unbounded, each leaves me serenely satisfied and wanting only of the next nexus with the glorious meat of the […]

The wind has no respect for borders, politics or humans. Here literary correspondent CHARLIE CONNELLY tracks one author’s trek across Europe in search of gales, breezes and hurricanes The Castle of Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Photo: Albert Nieboer. – Credit: DPA/PA Images Robert FitzRoy, destined to be remembered as Charles Darwin’s captain on the Beagle rather than […]

Lucian Freud was more than just one Britain’s finest ever artists. Here ADRIAN BURNHAM explores an artist that pursued his subjects like quarry A previously unseen work by British artist Lucien Freud at Tate Britain, London. The painting, entitled ‘Self Portrait, Reflection’, is a study of Freud himself. Photo: PA. – Credit: �2002 Credit:Topham / […]

Dukla Prague were one of
football’s giants of the Eastern Bloc. But, as NEIL FREDRIK JENSEN explains, the club’s cult status abroad is in contrast with how the former state side is regarded closer to home Politicians, indie bands and football hipsters love them. Their small band of supporters in Prague are among the game’s most […]

John Nicholson casts his eye over six more comedy acts performing at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival Matt Abbott – Two Little Ducks – Underbelly – Belly Laugh ***** Performing poetry to a small audience is, I would imagine, a thankless task, but Matt did a great job regardless, throwing himself into every verse with […]

Mike Hind goes on the trail of the army of ‘propaganda bots’ manipulating political debate online, to see how we can fight back Brexit and Trump may look like unmitigated disasters right now, but there is a silver lining. That’s because both disasters lifted the lid on two alarming issues: the explosion of online propaganda […]

Brexit talks are due to resume in Brussels today, with the EU calling for progress on citizens’ rights, the Irish border and the divorce bill before talks on a future trade deal can begin. Brexit Secretary David Davis has called for talks on trade to run concurrently with other issues, demanding that the EU show […]

There is an “urgent need” for a new political leader to make the case for Britain to ditch Brexit and remain in the EU, Lord Heseltine said today. The former Deputy Prime Minister appeared to call for an Emmanuel Macron-type figure to emerge to unite pro-EU voices in what he described as “a period of […]

Labour has performed a dramatic Brexit policy shift announcing the UK should stay in the single market and customs union during any transitional period after the March 2019 deadline. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer announced a Labour government would abide by ‘the same basic terms’ of Britain’s current EU membership during the transition, which […]

Clacton is where baby boomers go to retire. Anthony Clavane went to meet them on the seafront to ask them why, in Vince Cable’s words, ‘they shafted the young’ by voting for Brexit. It is midday and, taking refuge from yet another shower on the Essex sunshine coast, hundreds of holidaymakers have poured on to […]

Robert Elms lived in Barcelona in the 1980s as it emerged from Franco’s long shadow. Here, in a love letter to the Catalan capital in the wake of Europe’s latest terrorist atrocity, he tells the story of a unique city. For me Barcelona is the greatest European city of them all. It isn’t the greatest […]

MP Clive Lewis has told The New European podcast he believes a Hard Brexit will now be avoided due to Labour’s strong general election performance. He said the cliff-edge Brexit will now be stopped and the grassroots must ‘organise’ to halt Brexit altogether. The former front bencher – who quit over Jeremy Corbyn’s three-line whip […]

Labour cannot halt Brexit, says Abi Wilkinson, instead it is down to a grassroots movement to swing opinion and then the politicians will follow. Here are several things I believe are true. First of all, that Brexit is going to be an unmitigated disaster with few – if any – silver linings. Secondly, that the […]