Opinion

‘Tis the week before the elections, and the polls the polls are calling. Nigel Farage and his newly-formed Brexit party are in a dominant position as we head towards the upcoming European Parliament Elections, the latest forecasts show, knocking the Conservatives to fifth place and eclipsing Labour – the next closest party – by a remarkable 18 points. But if we have been taught anything by the past few elections it is to take poll results with a bucket full...

“A WTO No Deal Brexit is now the only way to honour the referendum result”, Alasdair Dow of the grassroots cross-party campaign group Get Britain Out wrote on Brexit Central earlier this year. The consensus among Leave advocates seems to be the same. Theresa May’s negotiated deal with the European Union is a betrayal of the Brexit vote, a second referendum would be a betrayal of the Brexit vote and therefore the only way to honour it is to bring...

As a lifelong Doncaster Rovers fan who has collected more wooden spoons than I’ve eaten hot meals I have become well accustomed to losing over the years. I voted for Ed Miliband when he lost the general election in 2010 and for Jeremy Corbyn when he lost out in 2015 too. I voted against Boris Johnson twice in the London Mayoral elections and when he won, on both occasions, I accepted it and moved on. So it makes me chuckle...

Ahead of the Local Elections this week a fascinating piece of footage was unearthed from 1985 in which James Burke appeared to predict how politics would been played out in an internet age. In his words, we would operate on the basis that facts and truths “all depend on what your view of the world is”, and that there may be “as many views of that as there are people”. The proof that his prophecies have come to be was...

Caster Semenya is a woman. She’s not transgender. She hasn’t wilfully altered her hormone levels. She’s just a woman who has elevated levels of testosterone. This biological quirk helps her to be world class athlete. And now she’s being punished for it. The IAAF’S ruling will force Semenya to artificially lower her testosterone levels or stop competing. This is a regressive disgrace that should be immediately reversed. Semenya deserves an unreserved apology for the vile idea that she should change...

There is a paragraph in the BBC’s impartiality code that has, to coin a phrase, become a part that is more than the sum of its whole. It reads: “We are committed to reflecting a wide range of opinion across our output as a whole and over an appropriate timeframe so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or under-represented.” And in doing so it has allowed bias in by the back door. Reflecting all significant strands of...

Children must finally have the confidence that if they report abuse their disclosure will not be ignored.

Donald Trump has reached his late-Nixon phase: he’s paranoid, unpredictable and a threat to American democracy. The Mueller Report showed a litany of unethical actions, attempts to obstruct justice and old fashioned executive incompetence. Impeachment is probably off the table, but Trump’s numbers are under water in key swing states and key voter demographics. Smart Republicans should follow Bill Weld’s example and try to push Trump out of office before the next election. But the Republican Party is now so...

“Deeply troubling” ONS stats were revealed today that once again confirmed the more police officers you cut the more crime you will see on our streets. Police recorded 732 homicides in England and Wales last year, the highest total in a decade, according to official new figures. It comes as the number of offences involving knives or sharp instruments increased by 6 per cent in 2018 compared to the previous 12 months. Louise Haigh MP called the new figures “chilling”...