Opinion

Despite attempts to bridge it since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the chasm between Eastern and Western Europe remains wide. The pandemic has pushed the two regions even further apart. No-one better embodies the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe from Communism than Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright, dissident and first democratically-elected president of the modern era. […]

A surprise general election could suit the Tories - and Boris Johnson will have the power to do it.

Readers have their say on the damage Brexit is causing Britain.

The French president is a politician like no other: neither from the left, nor the right; bold and decisive, yet the antithesis of a populist. And if he can win re-election next year he will shape not just the future of France, but of Europe. By ALASTAIR CAMPBELL  The first time I met Emmanuel Macron, he […]

Had enough of lockdown winter and are longing for the spring? RICHARD LUCK selects 10 films that reflect the optimism of the changing seasons. Movies – is there anything they can’t do? I mean, most of us have already had a gutful of winter and yet, with the season not officially over until the end […]

JAMES BALL on the mounting national debt, and what should be done about it. Think, for a moment, about your home. This should not be a difficult task for most of us, given we’ve all been spending a lot more time than usual stuck there. There’s probably a bed, a kitchen, hopefully a TV – […]

MITCH BENN with his weekly look back at some of the highlights and lowlights of recent days… BLAME-DODGE OF THE WEEK So at last we know whose fault the spectacular and ongoing implosion of Brexit is. And it’s a bit of a jaw-dropper.  So who is to blame? The prime minister? The previous prime minister(s)? […]

Steve Anglesey brings you your weekly check on how Project Fear is becoming Project Reality. It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where the government accused the EU of being selfish over shellfish. Environment secretary George Eustice started the tussles by claiming Brussels was flexing its muscles on mussels, […]

Barcelona pioneered a fusion of finance and football. Others are now playing the same game while the Catalan club itself is embroiled in a crisis. The jailing, even for one night, of the former president of Futbol Club Barcelona is not the first, and will not be the last, time it has happened in this club’s […]

Jackie Chan is too often dismissed as a mere action star and overlooked for his largely forgettable Hollywood films. But a re-release of one of his finest early works gives an opportunity to appreciate his amazing artistry.  You don’t hear too much about Jackie Chan these days. Indeed, it’s possible that name will mean nothing to […]

CHRISTINE JARDINE calls for the government to clean up the mess left behind by Brexit and its failed Covid support schemes. This week will be a pivotal moment for our economy and for all our futures. When the chancellor gets to his feet to deliver the budget, millions of people who have seen their lives, […]

JASON SOLOMONS on a new Netflix documentary which places the footballer’s rise amid his country’s oppressive regime. Talk about finding a new angle. I’ve seen that Carlos Alberto goal, the fourth for Brazil in the 1970 World Cup Final against Italy, over a hundred times. Maybe we all have – but never from Alberto’s point of […]

ED WEST on the fantasy of the ‘free-born Englishman’. Guffawing and thigh-slapping his way through the 1938 version of Robin Hood, Errol Flynn stops at one point to tell the audience he is fighting as a “free-born Englishman” and fighting for a “free England”. This obviously wasn’t really about attitudes in 12th century England and no one […]

Labour will only make headway once it is able to move the debate onto its favoured territory, rather than allowing the Tories to set the agenda. By ZOE WILLIAMS Funny thing about the prime minister’s roadmap: he mentions golf and beauticians; touches schools, universities and colleges; makes a huge number of fine distinctions between the […]

As he is knocked off his bike for a third time, WILL SELF wonders what effect the pandemic has had on the reaction of passersby. The first time it happened, it was some young Trustafarian driving his dad’s Jag, and I lost my rag completely: ranting how he should learn to look in his bloody wing […]

Peter Trudgill on the dubious master of multilingualism. There are many things to be said about Ján Ludvik Hoch, many of them very bad, even though he was a war hero. But this column is interested in his linguistic prowess: he was a remarkable polyglot. Better known as Robert Maxwell, Hoch did not learn English […]

The case of Manchester United’s talented young winger Amad Diallo highlights awkward questions for football about the way it procures young players from abroad, says ROB HUGHES. Bill Shankly, the sage of Liverpool FC, once corrected a misconception of mine. “Listen son, coaches do not make good players,” he said in that familiar rasping Scottish pitch. […]

TIM WALKER on the director John Schlesinger, a man with just the right sense of perspective. John Schlesinger resided in one of those vast Christmas cake mansions in Kensington that signal to all the world its owner has achieved his wildest dreams. He couldn’t exactly claim to be a self-made man – dad had been a […]

MITCH BENN starts his weekly look back at some of the highlights and lowlights of recent days… UNFATHOMABLE STRATEGY OF THE WEEK The trouble with an inscrutable and mysterious strategy is that to the untrained eye, it’s indistinguishable from an entirely non-existent one. What is Sir Keir Starmer’s plan as leader of the opposition? Does it […]

Yoko Ono was always a disruptor, a transgressor, an interloper. And we should all be thankful for that. Looking back now, I never thought that John Lennon would grow to be old. But I always knew that Yoko Ono would make it. The Beatles had been manufactured to give off a care-free air, a boyishness that […]

A new book by Peter Oborne chronicles Boris Johnson’s history of deceit and how his time in Downing Street has poisoned British political culture.  In an interview with the American television network CBS earlier this month Boris Johnson sought to reassure president Joe Biden that he would do nothing to harm the Good Friday agreement. Johnson tried […]

Warm words about climate action are one thing. But Brexit means it's likely all we will get is hot air. 

What would one mean, and how do we achieve it?

Pro-Europeans thought it was wrong to leave the EU - but they still want to see the UK succeed. 

It is beneficial for Labour to take up the fight for proportional representation.

Brexit latest… Your weekly check on how Project Fear is becoming Project Reality. It has been another gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, as a senior minister accused the EU of seeking “petty revenge” – and then hinted that the government might ban imports of European mineral water and seed potatoes. The grandstanding […]

The news you might have missed from around Europe, selected by Steve Anglesey. A group of hapless would-be thieves were arrested in Nancy, north-east France, after a disastrous attempt to rob a friend’s stash of several thousand euros. Two men, one armed with a hunting rifle, aborted their first raid when a woman they did […]

A brilliant new novel shows how the city’s traumatic past still has a powerful hold on Europe, three decades on. A few years ago I emerged from the mouth of a tunnel onto scrubby ground next to a house just outside Sarajevo airport. The sunshine after the darkness had me screwing up my eyes, my big […]

Calls for Matt Hancock to resign following the recent court ruling against him over PPE contracts simply underline the problem with bringing such cases.  This week, a lot of people are confused – and very reasonably so. A court has ruled that health secretary Matt Hancock broke the law over Covid-19 related contracts. The ruling seems to […]

Our leaders are avoiding proper scrutiny due to the changes in the way politicians communicate during the pandemic. The social impact of COVID is self-evident. It has touched the everyday aspects of each of our lives, from simple tasks such as shopping, to meeting family members on Zoom, to (not) socialising with friends. Each of […]

Wales’ elections in May could be delayed – but when they eventually happen they will help make history. The scene was set for May 6 2021 to be a historic day for democracy in Wales. It would be the first time that 16 and 17 year olds would be able to vote in an election. […]

Following the announcement that the Pompidou Centre is to close from 2023 until 2027, BENJAMIN IVRY explores the history of the controversial building and its complex place at the heart of French culture and identity. Often referred to in French as Beaubourg, after the area in central Paris where it is located, the Pompidou Centre – with […]