Exclusive: travellers let down by private providers are being forced to fall back on the taxpayer-funded NHS serviceCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageA Covid-19 testing company co-owned by a former Labour justice minister and …
Dominic Raab ‘persuaded PM he could stay on holiday’ in Afghanistan crisis
Report raises further questions over foreign secretary as Tory ex-minister says UK should have stood up to US over withdrawalA former defence minister has said the UK failed to “stand up” to the US over the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, amid mor…
‘I could have had a midlife crisis’: Ed Balls on cooking and life after politics
He’s been shadow chancellor, and he wowed the crowds on Strictly. Now Ed Balls has written a book that’s part memoir, part cookbook. He talks about kitchen confidence, failing at diets – and why politics is still a hot subject for himEd Balls is unhapp…
If only Dominic Raab had watched Iron Man | Stewart Lee
The foreign secretary was in good company in woefully misjudging the Taliban threatMany of the excitable characters who impulsively phone talk radio stations without having thought through their contradictory positions are rightly horrified by footage …
As the UK economy bounces back, do we sceptics need to say we got it wrong? | Willl Hutton
Many of us have been confounded by recent figures, but the British model remains flawedBritish capitalism seems to be on a roll. A million job vacancies were advertised in July, a new monthly record. Early signs are that unwinding the furlough scheme, …
Afghans face catastrophe without urgent aid, UN warns
As deaths are reported in crush at Kabul airport, Keir Starmer leads calls for Dominic Raab to resign over UK’s ‘complacent’ responseAfghanistan is facing an “absolute catastrophe” involving widespread hunger, homelessness and economic collapse unless …
Keir Starmer: my No 1 priority is winning elections
Labour leader says party must modernise to stand a chance of winning over votersKeir Starmer has told Labour that it has to modernise and become “the party of the next 10 or 20 years” if it is to stand a chance of winning the next election, as he vowed…
When power thrives on unspoken fear, bravery is in saying ‘I am afraid’ | Nick Cohen
Admitting cowardice is a subversive act within cultures that demand lip serviceMost of us aren’t brave. We wouldn’t protest in the streets of Kabul as armed and triumphant clerical reactionaries fingered their guns. I am hardly breaking news when I say…
Afghan child refugees left without support in Home Office hotels
Charities accuse the government of failing to meet young asylum seekers’ basic needs, despite care pledge Child refugees from Afghanistan are being held by the Home Office in hotels for weeks on end without shoes, spare clothes, money or access to heal…
Alan Johnson: ‘John Betjeman was wrong about Slough’
The former health secretary and acclaimed memoirist on his rock’n’roll past, how the Litvinenko poisoning inspired his new thriller, and how he’d have handled CovidAlan Johnson grew up in working-class Notting Hill, London, in the 1950s, raised by his …