Some years ago, while staying in the Loire Valley, we were taken by our French host to visit a memorial to seven crew members of an Avro Lancaster shot down over the Commune of Grez-Neuville in June 1943. It was special to him, since he was responsible for its upkeep, a role in which he […]
There is an old truism that suggests that the Leader of the Conservatives always enjoys the total support of their party until, that is, the day that they do not. So the question is, has that day arrived for Johnson? April 21 was a miserable day for Johnson. William Wragg laid into him from the […]
I read with interest the Peter Roberts article you published on 16 April, a ‘letter’ to Jacob Rees Mogg asking him not to make his usual Easter Tweet. As we all know, he went ahead, quoting from the Easter liturgy: “Christ is risen, Alleluia. He is risen indeed, Alleluia, Alleluia.” As a practising Catholic, I […]
Before he became Prime Minister, before Covid, before lockdowns, before partygate, Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary temporarily disappeared and attended a booze-up with an ex-Russian spy at an Italian villa. We still don’t know the full details. Just as we still don’t know the full details of Russia’s interference into our politics and democracy. Isn’t […]
No matter what he does wrong – and there’s a thick catalogue of wrongs – Boris Johnson thinks he can just say “sorry” and everything will be fine. But everything isn’t fine and sorry won’t do. He must go, along with all his ministers who protect him in government and who are destroying our country, […]
The UK and Russia are two of the ‘sick men of Europe’ (the others being Hungary and Poland), bookending a continent that has been pursuing peaceful collaboration and exchange for decades – on the whole with positive results in terms of stability and prosperity. Both countries have lost their way, crippled by myths and ‘alternative […]
Dear Mr Rees-Mogg, Each Easter Sunday you post on social media a rather oleaginous celebration of the risen Christ. I would like to ask you not to post one this Easter Sunday. Like many who have observed your career, your statements, your actions and your manner, I think it hypocritical of you to make such […]
Tomasz is our ‘resident’ Polish writer. We preserve his unique voice in this challenging, thought-provoking piece on the reality of Putin’s Russia and the implacability of evil. In the first days of this war I was really hoping it’s true, that this is just a madness of one man, that those poor boys were lied […]
Maybe until this month, Boris Johnson could have got away with the dead cat speech of 14 April. A rousing play to the ‘Leave’-voting gallery, appealing to xenophobia and fear whilst making a rational-sounding case for deporting thousands of young men each year to what amounts to a penal colony in Rwanda. Except, he is […]
Many will feel that the need for a written, enforceable constitution must surely be beyond doubt. But imagine if Johnson’s government decided to write it? [They’d want to ensure they were in power forever, thereafter, for sure. Ed] 1) When a prime minister or minister breaks the ministerial code, an apology will suffice instead of […]
As some of you might expect, the latest banshee howl that is #TheWeekInTory is quite lengthy, and I advise a deep dive into your preferred sedative before beginning. Let us begin where the last one ended, which is, astonishingly, a mere five days ago [cue wobbly screen]… 1. Having spent a week insisting there was […]
Dear Derek, I’m really not sure how much more of this you and your colleagues can take. I know you entered politics to help people, to change society for the better, to make a difference. And at a local level you appear to be succeeding, albeit up against 12 years of austerity and economic and […]
The partner of one of our readers has gone to Poland to help with the effort to rescue refugees from Ukraine. He’s a field/trauma medic with extensive experience having served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had intended to go straight into Ukraine to join extraction efforts, but the attack on the Ukraine military base has […]
Here is a sample of the letters MPs will no doubt be receiving today and for days to come. The anger is not going to go away and the fact that the Conservatives feel they have no one to take Johnson’s place merely adds yet more insults to the very many injuries. Attention Mr Jupp […]
We are at a very dangerous point for our democracy. We are not being shelled, starved and murdered by Russians, but we are being cheated, lied to, gaslighted and exploited by the most corrupt, mendacious and cruel government seen in our lifetime. Johnson is so greedy for power and so utterly contemptuous of truth and […]
It’s high time we got real and faced up to the disastrous performance of the Johnson government and its damaging impact on our lives argues David Knopfler. We live in fictitious times, where magical thinking has replaced facts: where we pretend that pandemics are over despite the bodies piling up at our mortuaries in ever […]
Let’s start #TheWeekInTory with PartyGate, where randy Honey Monster and (no, really) Prime Minister Boris Johnson denied 20 fines meant there had been wrongdoing. 2. This doesn’t quite explain why he had personally phoned the Queen to apologise for all the wrongdoing. 3. Regardless, The Metropilitan Police issued MASSIVE fines of £50 for breaching lockdown […]
As a Russian-speaking person of colour who was born and raised in Ukraine, I believe that I am in a position to speak on the issue of nationalism and neo-Nazism in Ukraine. To talk about Ukrainian nationalism, we first have to establish the context of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. These are not just […]
Regular readers of my Facebook posts will know that it is my position that this current government is dangerous because of its incompetence. I recognise that many of you find them to be cruel, or their policies deliberately designed towards the vicious and unnecessary, but my own experience is that they haven’t got a clue […]
As the queues on the M20 get longer and longer with the average waiting time of anywhere between 18-30 hrs you have to wonder how much this will cost consumers. Moreover, many don’t even know why it’s happening. Here is a quick piece to explain this lunacy. Back in January the new IT system GVMS […]
It’s been reported that the Chancellor’s wife, Akshata Murthy, is not tax domiciled in the UK. This has been confirmed by a statement issued on her behalf. But I think the statement of facts issued by her is wrong. And I also suggest HMRC could challenge this claim. I need to report what a spokeswoman […]
Dear Sheryll Murray, Thank you for your letter replying to this email: Dear Sheryll Murray, I hope that you are well and that you enjoyed celebrating your wedding anniversary. Fines have now been issued to people attending ‘gatherings’ at 10 Downing Street. More are in the pipeline. Mr Johnson told parliament that ‘all rules were […]
If we continue to delude ourselves about Putin’s agenda, we will reap the whirlwind. Andrew Levi explains why we have to face up to what drives Putin in this hard-hitting article. Clueless in Europe’s Chancelleries You’ve probably never heard of Lars Klingbeil. If you have, you know more about German politics than most. He’s a […]
On 4 December last year you published a letter from me that expressed my theory that the leadership (and subsequently the policies) of this country is finally decided by some 180,000 Conservative Party members, plus 370 sitting Tory MPs and a small number of press barons. Obviously, we can now add a number of Russians who […]
I spy with my little eye – yellow stars on a blue background… If you look carefully, all across the UK there are blue plaques with yellow stars, announcing funding by the EU for that area. Funding that has helped our country. Funding that came from the EU, not the UK. Funding that the UK […]
Note: No EU country has ever fired a shot at another EU country. Sixty years ago, in 1962, the then British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, set out a strong and compelling case for Britain to join the European Economic Community (later to be renamed the European Union). What’s remarkable is that Macmillan’s pro-Europe arguments of […]
Being an inveterate reader of the online Spanish press, my attention was drawn recently to an article in El Mundo online which linked the Ukraine War of 2022 to the Falklands War of 1982… in the context of Boris Johnson. On the 40th anniversary of this conflict, this article is timely; is it really 40 […]
Many of us are watching the disintegration of democracy and the UK’s reputation for trustworthiness and integrity and (naively) wondering when the rule of law, standards of conduct will reassert themselves. Surely someone, some authority will step in and stop the canker from spreading? Andrew Levi tells it like it (unfortunately) is… It won’t take […]
This edition of #TheWeekInTory fell on April Fool’s Day, and there was an obvious temptation to slip a fib into this. I didn’t. So if you feel fooled, it’s only because some of you voted for these gibbering apes. Anyway, here we go, with the longest, stupidest one yet… 1. Grant Shapps (who has more […]
This article by Mark E Thomas explores whether the Johnson government is the worst in recent British history. You can read the ‘summary’ or delve into the supporting articles. Either way, it’s a compelling and damning reckoning. All politicians (and all people) occasionally lie. But Johnson is “probably the best liar we’ve ever had as […]