73 m. ago SUE REID: As Government promises to stop the boats, revealing pictures of crowds queuing in France to catch traffickers' ride to Dover will startle and anger Britain

REID: All the migrants at the quayside bus stop were waiting for a free local ride to the beaches to run towards the boats which are now operated like a taxi service across to Dover.

Politics

5 h. ago SUE REID: As Government promises to stop the boats, startling pictures of crowds queuing in France to catch traffickers' ride to Dover will startle and anger Britain

REID: All the migrants at the quayside bus stop were waiting for a free local ride to the beaches to run towards the boats which are now operated like a taxi service across to Dover.

Politics

4 d. ago Row review – impressive, largely unknown cast keep seagoing horror afloat

A woman washes up on the Orkney island of Hoy, the only survivor of a transatlantic sortie in Matthew Losasso’s debut feature, a twisty if murky chillerWater, like the human psyche, is unpredictable and full of beasts lurking in the depths, and so it says a lot about our primal fear of the ocean that boat movies often offer threats either under the surface, in the shape of sharks, or psychosis or both. With Row, a smattering of startling jump cuts showing blood splashed around a boat and flashbacks of the protagonist Megan (Bella Dayne, very impressive) screaming, but the viewer needs to wait out a somewhat unreasonably long running time to find out if the antagonists here are biting fish or knife-wielding killers.All we know at first is that Megan is the only survivor of an attempt to break the record for rowing across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to the UK with four crew members, two men and two women. Having washed up on the Orkney island of Hoy, Megan spends most of the film’s...

Events

7 d. ago Starmer promises action on small boat migrants as pressure mounts on Government

Former lord chancellor Lord Falconer said the Government had to convince people it had an answer to the crisis.

Events

9 d. ago A decade after throwing open its borders to millions of migrants, Germany is now proof Farage's deportation flights pledge can work, writes SUE REID

SUE REID: Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced this week that the German welfare state is no longer sustainable for either its own people or the millions of Merkel newcomers. The welcome is over.

Economics

1 week ago First time buyer, 24, is left with £50,000 debt after buying dream 'empty home' under government scheme that promised to fund it

Abigail, who purchased a property in Pembrokeshire in June 2024, claimed the Welsh Government's Empty Home Grant is a 'scam' - saying she was ignored for months and left financially stranded

Economics

1 week ago Labour urged to agree to 'bespoke' oil and gas permits after independent review findings

Keir Starmer’s government has been urged to agree a compromise to its promised ban on new oil and gas licences.

Politics

1 week ago Amsterdam’s squatter wars are back – and wealthy Dutch homeowners have only themselves to blame | Senay Boztas

Those already on the property ladder are fuelling a shameful disparity. Until they wake up, the krakers will keep comingThe late Dutch author and Holocaust survivor Marga Minco once wrote about an empty house in Amsterdam where she and a group of artists and students took refuge towards the end of the second world war. Last month, the house she lived in for decades was squatted by a new generation of the dispossessed. In the Dutch capital’s overpriced, overcrowded housing market, where homes fetch more per square metre on average than they do in London, the squatters, or krakers, are back.They are the byproduct of a crisis that has spiralled out of control, in which growing anger is justifiably focused on a startling and unsustainable unfairness: the cost of the country’s generous tax breaks for homeowners, who make up more than half of the population, is being borne by hard-working tenants. The return of squatting is a symptom of a public mood that is increasingly furious about the...

Events

1 week ago Notting Hill Carnival in pictures as huge crowds turn out for first day of celebration

Notting Hill Carnival got underway today as the streets of London were transformed with a spectacular display of music, dance and colourful costumes for the event's 59th year

Politics

1 week ago Government promises asylum appeals overhaul as hotel protests continue

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said a new appeals body would help speed up the system and reduce demand for hotels.

Events

2 w. ago SUE REID: Ten years ago, Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders to Syrian refugees. It was a trigger for mass arrivals across the Continent and a decade that changed Europe for ever

Ten years ago Germans were putting balloons on lamp posts to greet a multitude of foreigners. The popular tabloid, Bild, screamed the headline 'Refugees Welcome'.

Events

2 w. ago STEPHEN GLOVER: Even our family homes are not sacrosanct for this desperate, foolish Government. If Starmer breaks his promise on Capital Gains Tax, no one should trust anything he says ever again

Until now those fortunate enough to own their home have had the consolation that they won't have to pay Capital Gains Tax on it if they come to sell, writes STEPHEN GLOVER. No longer, it seems.

Politics

2 w. ago Scrapping of audit watchdog for English councils ‘led to soaring costs and chaos’

High critical report finds that instead of promised annual saving of £100m, fees have rocketed amid financial crisisDavid Cameron’s “bonfire of the quangos” decision to abolish England’s council spending watchdog has left a broken system that is costing taxpayers more money than it was promised to save.In a highly critical report, academics at the University of Sheffield said the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had promised savings of £100m a year by abolishing the Audit Commission. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Underrated UK seaside town has picturesque sandy beaches and no crowds

An underrated UK seaside town boasts stretches of sandy beaches, rock pools for the kids and a picturesque harbour - and the bonus of not being packed with crowds

Politics

3 w. ago Starmer accused of ‘abject failure’ as people smuggling arrests fall under Labour

National Crime Agency arrests for people smuggling went down last year, as the new Labour government promised more resources to target immigration crime.

Events

3 w. ago Judge rejects Trump administration request to unseal Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury transcripts

Judge wrote transcripts from case of Jeffrey Epstein associate couldn’t be released because it would risk ‘unraveling secrecy’ of grand juryDismissing it as little more than a “diversion,” a federal judge in New York has formally rejected the Trump-led US justice department’s request to release transcripts of pre-indictment, grand jury interviews with witnesses in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and associate of Jeffrey Epstein.Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote that the transcripts could not be released publicly – “casually or promiscuously” – as Donald Trump’s government had pushed for because it would risk “unraveling the foundations of secrecy upon which the grand jury is premised”. Continue reading...

Politics

last month What’s the best thing world leaders could do now? 'Let go' and 'embrace uncertainty' | Fran Boait

Self-help homilies seem out out of place in this era of Starmer and Trump. In fact, applied to government, they can offer new solutions for global problemsIf there is one thing that has marked the first year of Keir Starmer’s premiership, it is a propensity for control – whether it’s managing his own party, cracking down on civil liberties and protest, or instilling fear and anxiety in marginalised groups. For a centre-left party, the authoritarian strain Starmer has shown isn’t exactly in line with the “change” from the Tories that was promised.Governments seek to control populations, politicians seek to control their parties: this is nothing new and has been explicitly promoted since Machiavelli’s The Prince was published in 1532. When leaders understand holding power as an end in itself, and see the method as controlling those they have power over, they block themselves from being able to bring about real change, because not “losing control” becomes more important than any change...

Politics