New European

It is, perhaps, only natural that the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence – the moment that marks the birth of what became the United States of America – is prompting reflection on the history of the special relationship between the USA and the UK.  The problem is that reflection is not something that comes naturally to Matt Walsh, the far right Daily Wire contributor and documentary film-maker behind What Is a Woman? and Am I a Racist? Recently, he gave his verd

When Donald Trump visits Mount Rushmore on Friday to kick off the weekend of America’s 250th birthday, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he will start chiselling his own likeness into the rock alongside four of America’s great presidents.  It’s not like his ego will stop him. This is a man who has slapped his name on a renowned arts centre and a peace institute – despite questionable cultural tastes and a penchant for launching military strikes. And his face has already made it on

One thing Keir Starmer hoped he could do in government was give the country a break from the culture wars engulfing politics. One way that “change” would be felt would be in politics treading “a little more lightly” on our lives. The “exhausting” search for new enemies would be over.  Yet Starmer presided over an ever more febrile mood. There were six days of rioting before his government was a month old, and further outbreaks of racist rioting in Northern Ireland. Shock events like this can be

Will the Conservatives agree to a pact with Reform ahead of the next general election? Absolutely not, insisted Kemi Badenoch, saying after Reform’s poor showing in this month’s parliamentary byelections: “The results have left the idea of the Conservatives doing a deal with Reform stone-dead.” But that has not stopped a number of her MPs working behind the scenes on some sort of agreement with Nigel Farage’s mob. At the weekend, the Sunday Telegraph reported that a growing chorus of Conservati

“REVEALED: The secret meeting between Max Mosley, his father Oswald, two infamous Nazis – and Himmler’s daughter,” reported the Daily Mail at the weekend, reporting the news that Oxford University had “sparked outrage” by accepting millions in donations from a family trust controlled by the late Max Mosley, the son of British fascist leader Oswald. “As they polish their bons mots over the vintage port at High Table, those Oxford luminaries who begged for donations from the Mosley family might c

‘My husband watched child sex abuse… it nearly killed him but he’s no paedo’, was the harrowing post published on X by The Sun at the weekend above a picture of a middle-aged couple sitting on a bench outdoors. Over on TikTok, the paper was promoting the same story, this time with slightly more details: “Crouched over his computer for hours on end watching hours of sickening child abuse images and extreme violence, Paul Gullon-Scott had become a shadow of his former self and was on the brink of

Zia Yusuf is already a laughing stock for his insistence on being billed as the ‘shadow home secretary’ despite not even being an MP – but it sounds like he might not be one any time soon either. The Reform man let slip on Question Time last week that the fact he had never stood for election for his party wasn’t necessarily his choice – suggesting that, despite his seniority, he’d never persuaded Nigel Farage to allow him to run. Mocked by Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake for in

How did a completely invented story about Andy Burnham dishing out public funds to an electric vehicle company run by his wife become the most viral political post in the UK? The story is a depressing tale of just how politics works in the social media age. It begins with a kernel of truth: in 2021, Marie-France van Heel was working for a marketing company whose clients included an EV company which won a contract from Transport for Greater Manchester. Yet unlike claims in the stories now being

Sally Hayden was just starting out as a journalist when she first met Zula Karuhimbi in Rwanda. Only, that was not how Zula first introduced herself. When, in 2014, Hayden went to her tiny home in the Musamo village in Southern Rwanda, Karuhimbi was curled up on a straw mat outside, sleeping while embracing a small child. When she woke, she jumped to attention and greeted Hayden with how she had become known: “I’m the Zula who hid the Tutsis” During the devastating 1994 genocide, more than

“I’m not from London, you know!”: this legendary line from Withnail and I (1987), spoken by Paul McGann’s character as he pleads with the farmer’s mother in Cumbria for some food, is the political slogan of the moment. There is much that is not yet clear about Andy Burnham’s plans and his true capacity to save Labour from electoral perdition. But we definitely know that the Aintree-born, Everton-supporting, former mayor of Greater Manchester, and newly elected MP for Makerfield is not from Lond

PICK OF THE WEEK Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America (HBO Max) If you are depressed by the prospect of Donald Trump’s “Freedom 250” celebrations on July 4, this will lift your spirits. Two years since Curb Your Enthusiasm ended after 12 seasons, Larry David returns with a glorious seven-part sketch series that satirises great moments in American history. His partner in crime is none other than Barack Obama – like his wife Michelle, an executive producer

To AC or not to AC? That is the question whose answer can increasingly mean the difference between life and death in France, which has been, in recent days, the hottest place in the world. Here, we have been ground zero for the climate crisis, as temperatures surged into the mid and even late-40s in some parts of the country.  It has been the worst heatwave in French history, but still the country is arguing over the intrinsic merits of cooling systems. France has always resisted air conditioni

Does Robert Jenrick – who joined Reform UK after never accepting the result of the 2024 Conservative leadership election – already have his eye on replacing Nigel Farage at the top of his new tribe? Farage has faced some rare media scrutiny over the past week, with even normally friendly outlets asking awkward questions about his decision to accept what he calls “an unconditional gift” of £5 million from Christopher Harborne, a Thai-based cryptocurrency billionaire who also goes by the name of

Another day, another local Reform figure speaking his brains… this time a parliamentary candidate moaning about why his local recycling centre should dare to be closed on one of the hottest days in recent years when “most of the people who work down here are African” and “like the hot weather”. Tim Wheeler runs Reform’s branch in Hillingdon, West London, and stood as the party’s candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip at the last general election, coming third. This week he set off to his l

Donald Trump wants to build a new road across the wilds of Alaska. If he gets his way, a 210-mile route called the Ambler Road will cut through a remote National Park in America’s far north-west. It will traverse hundreds of streams and cross a route that for generations has been used for migration by one of North America’s largest caribou herds.  The aim is to open up mining areas that are rich with copper, silver, gold, and lead. There are also deposits of cobalt, gallium and palladium, which

In 2025, Pakistan imported more Chinese solar panels than any other country on earth. No subsidy programme drove it. There was no national rooftop scheme. No feed-in tariff. People just did it. This is what makes this so remarkable: we are used to energy transitions that happen because governments engineer them, with incentives and mandates and targets. Pakistan’s solar boom is the opposite. It is probably the fastest deployment of distributed solar anywhere in the world, and it happened largel

The previous crew have screwed up and poisoned the well. It’s time to turn Britain round. That means taking on vested interests like the junior doctors, reforming the benefits system and sticking to tough fiscal rules. Two years later, and he’s one of the most loathed people in the country. It’s over, and he didn’t achieve more than a fraction of what he wanted.  No, not Keir Starmer, but Jeremy Hunt, whose new book Can We Be Rich Again? – if it sounds familiar, it’s because his Can We Be G

PRO: Air conditioning can actually lower room temperatures in a matter of minutes. Fans, by contrast, merely make it feel cooler through the clever trick of moving hot air around.  CON: Air conditioning might temporarily delude you about quite how much trouble this planet is actually in. PRO: Air conditioning doesn’t just cool the air, but dehumidifies it. This is good, because dryer air can absorb more water, and the human body’s cooling mechanism involves the evaporation of sweat, which i

Britain is criss-crossed with legacies of greatness, cities connected by railway lines, trading hubs linked by canals, rivers spanned by bridges. What were the fundamental principles that enabled these engineering marvels, peaking with the astonishing Victorian construction of great public works that so overshadows our own era? How did they do what we apparently cannot? The foundations were laid in the 1700s where the stability of British society, compared to much of Europe, gave the confidence

When Lucy Smith’s daughter Owen stopped going to school, it was an inevitable point that had taken years to reach. The family had tried every tactic to try to keep her in the classroom, but it had become untenable.  Owen suffered from depression from a young age. She was diagnosed with autism when she was 11, while still in primary school. The transition to secondary proved a crisis point. “It was difficult as a family. She was suicidal most days and getting into school was incredibly distr