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Never in postwar British history has there been such a weak, divided, and poorly run Conservative government. Prime Minister Theresa May inherited the disaster of her predecessor David Cameron's 2016 [...]

If Brexit actually happens, those most harmed will be the people who voted for it. How did Britain get into such a mess, and how might she yet muddle out [...]

China bullies Australia with 'bans and restrictions on its exports', and this justifies the Australian PM's breaking the global rule that the Southern Hemisphere should not be nuclearised, argues Helen [...]

Harry Lambert resurrects the myth that all would have been different had Labour imposed the EU's seven-year transition period in 2004 for people from new member states working in the [...]

Sir Keir Starmer, the new Prime Minister of Britain, has risen to prominence as a leader of the European left. Unlike previous Labour prime ministers who had years of political experience, Starmer was a lawyer specializing in human rights cases before entering politics. He became leader of the Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn's defeat in 2019 and positioned himself as a centrist, avoiding reopening the Brexit divide. Starmer's calm and measured approach, along with the disarray within the Conservative Party, helped him secure a majority in the Commons. While his leadership is not revolutionary, it has brought stability and progress to British politics. [Extracted from the article]

The upcoming European Parliament elections are unlikely to bring about significant changes in European politics. While the elections are often seen as a way to demonstrate the existence of a European identity, the decisions that directly impact people's lives, such as taxes and social policies, are still made by national governments. The EU's influence in areas like foreign policy is limited, as national governments retain control over key decisions. The elections are often used as a platform for protest votes, with right-wing nationalist and anti-European parties gaining support. However, this does not necessarily translate into control of national governments or the EU. The far-right movement in Europe is fragmented and lacks a common vision. The upcoming elections are predicted to see gains for right-wing nationalist parties, a decline in social democratic parties, and a fading influence of liberal parties. The Labour Party in the UK, under the leadership of Keir Starmer, is expected to achieve a major victory, while the Brexit-era Conservatives face challenges. Overall, the European Parliament elections are not expected to bring about significant changes in the European political landscape. [Extracted from the article]

In 'A Machiavel in Downing Street' (27 September), Harry Lambert claims that Dominic Cummings's work for the anti-EU outfit Business for Sterling 'helped dissuade Tony Blair from holding a referendum [...]

When I worked for the BBC World Service as a journalist in the 1970s, we were never allowed to write an item for a bulletin without at least three sources. [...]

As one of the politicians involved in settlement of the phone-hacking cases on 19 January, I believe it should mark the beginning of a serious inquiry into the power and [...]

BILL MORRIS, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union The leadership election nobody wanted is now behind us. We have had our first experience of 'one member, one [...]

It is a century since the Socialist International was founded, 50 years since Stalin wound up the Communist International and two millennia since the first really serious global network - [...]

Helen Thompson glides over the reasons why Tony Blair offered a referendum in 2004 on the EU constitutional treaty (These Times, 20 September). Blair resisted referendum fever when many ministers, [...]

Helen Thompson's article (These Times, 26 July) gets the record a bit wrong and draws, I would suggest, the wrong conclusion. By the time Margaret Thatcher sealed her fate with [...]

I enjoyed Marigold Johnson's reflections on her husband, Paul Johnson, the editor of the New Statesman when I first began reading it (Diary, 7 November). This is a small addition [...]

American soldiers in Saudi Arabia who bother to buy any of the local newspapers will be puzzled by advertisements that look suspiciously like the 6 wanted' notices issued by police [...]

While the latest reshuffle was under way, a rumour went around that Downing Street would appoint a secretary of state--a full cabinet minister--for Europe. It is a pity it didn't [...]

Danny Dorling's fascinating account of how a Britain that achieved near-Nordic levels of income equality in the first 30 years after 1945 and then became one of the least equal [...]

Re "After Corbyn, After Covid" by Gary Younge [June 1/8 ]: As an ex - Labour MP and ex-minister for Europe, I would like to qualify the conventional wisdom from him that the UK chose "to leave the European Union in a referendum. But in Labour seats in the North - and I represented one for 18 years - while the totality voted for Brexit, most identifiable Labour voters did not. The fact is the Remain campaign was poorly run, and Labour voters backed Remain by the same margin as Scottish National Party voters. [Extracted from the article]

A little more than a year ago, China Culture Gazette, official organ of China's Ministry of Culture, was transformed. For years, CCG had been an infamous stronghold of the hard-line [...]

The TUC has survived 14 years of non-stop attack, but lost ground in the process. Now it is time to draw on other countries' experience, says Denis MacShane One of [...]

Byline: Denis MacShane Browder's tale is a warning to the West. Had you asked Stalin about Earl Browder, he would have snorted in derision. Ask Putin about Bill Browder, and [...]

Byline: Denis Macshane Geographically, Britain and Japan are cousins, two island nations off Eurasia. Geopolitically, they could not be more different. Western Eurasia, with its comfort blanket of NATO, two [...]

Byline: Denis Macshane The fall of parliamentary seats into extremist hands represents the biggest shake-up on the continent since the disappearance of communism. Sweden has revealed the future direction of [...]

Byline: Denis MacShane Europe and Turkey need each other. In the cold war years Turkey was unquestionably accepted as the West's most important frontier nation. Now it seems to prefer [...]

Byline: Denis MacShane It's in Germany, not Britain. As the drama of Europe's debt crisis slowly unfolds, all eyes have been diverted to the wrong national subplot. The new Conservative-Liberal [...]

Byline: Denis MacShane There is a new divide in Europe. not an iron curtain, but an iron intolerance as politicians revert to blaming minorities for their nations' woes. In Western [...]

Byline: Denis MacShane Not since the 1930s have international politics been in such flux. Rising states such as China, India, Turkey, and Brazil, as well as a newly assertive Russia, [...]

Byline: Denis Macshane Not since the 1930s have international politics been in such flux. Rising states such as China, In-dia, Turkey, and Brazil, as well as a newly assertive Russia, [...]

Byline: Denis MacShane The price of underachievement. It may not be time to say adieu, but French President Nicolas Sarkozy is finally starting to look like a loser after seeming [...]

Byline: Denis MacShane It may not be time to say adieu just yet, but French President Nicolas Sarkozy is finally starting to look like a loser after seeming unbeatable for [...]

Byline: Denis MacShane Albania shows its neighbors the way. Only yesterday Albania was the world's joke nation. Ruled over by a King Zog and then a weirdo Stalinist turned Maoist, [...]

Byline: Denis Macshane The economic crisis and rising xenophobia are breaking down the great Swiss myths and undoing this once unique model nation. In the third man, Orson Welles famously [...]