Police are battling to stop illegal raves including 140 revellers cramming on canal boat for party

Soaked in sweat, random strangers hugged each other as music blared out. Class A drugs were openly handed around and consumed with abandon. Revellers who had overdone it were violently ill in front of fellow partygoers. Yet far from being a description of the goings-on in one of the Ibiza …...Read More

Michael Gove is 'working round the clock' to prepare Britain for a No Deal Brexit

Michael Gove is ‘working round the clock’ to prepare Britain for a No Deal Brexit, as the UK’s trade talks with the EU continued to be deadlocked. Sources say that the Cabinet Office Minister – who played a leading role in the Vote Leave campaign – has intensified the Government’s …...Read More

Boris Johnson fights Dominic Cummings' plans for a 'West Wing'-style No 10

Boris Johnson has joined forces with senior civil servants to resist moves by No10 adviser Dominic Cummings to shift them to a new suite of West Wing-style offices in Whitehall. According to senior Government sources, the Prime Minister has spent six months objecting to Mr Cummings's attempt to move him …...Read More

'Alienated' Tories are planning to vote down chief aide Dominic Cummings' star wars plan

Tory MPs are planning a Commons rebellion against Dominic Cummings's 'star wars' plans to turbocharge the UK's science and technology capabilities Tory MPs are planning a Commons rebellion against Dominic Cummings's 'star wars' plans to turbocharge the UK's science and technology capabilities – as a 'proxy protest' against his Downing …...Read More

From S. A. Cosby, Wendy Holden, Elena Ferrante and Diane Cook: This week's best new fiction

Blacktop Wasteland S. A. Cosby Headline £18.99 This is an exciting slice of American noir. Centring on a retired getaway driver who’s persuaded to take on one last heist, the plot is nothing new, but it’s rarely been executed with such relentless power and heart. The driver, Beauregard, is a …...Read More

CRAIG BROWN: Summer books quiz

Did the author of The Graduate really live above a Sussex pet shop? Who did John Bercow call as wooden as a coffee table? Find out in our fiendish summer quiz 1 ‘To be bad is good, because to be good is simply boring.’ In a biography published this year, …...Read More

Cornwall's open air Minack Theatre revives Educating Rita and it is a joy

Educating Rita Minack Theatre, Cornwall Until August 30, 1hr 50mins Rating: The Minack open-air theatre, near Land’s End, is doing an actual play – a rare event indeed in this endless theatre drought. The planned tour was kyboshed by Covid but it has been salvaged for a run at this …...Read More

How councils are closing roads but creating cycle lanes all under guise of saving us from virus

Roads narrowed so that pavements can be widened. Streets reduced from two lanes to one. Extra cycle lanes. Town-centre parking spaces suspended. Major diversions. Under the guise of protecting us from Covid, councils all across the country have introduced a host of tough restrictions on motorists. Of course, everything necessary …...Read More

DEBORAH ROSS: Forget loo roll... Derren shows we've run out of TV

Derren Brown: 20 Years Of Mind Control Sunday, Channel 4 Rating: Albion Sunday, BBC Four Rating: The time has arrived: we are running out of TV. All anybody thought about hoarding at the outset of the pandemic was toilet paper. And bleach. No one thought: but what if we run …...Read More

Great British boltholes: A review of The Swan in Lavenham, Suffolk

Advertisement To visit Lavenham, arguably England’s most perfect medieval village, is to discover a visual delight at every turn. No fewer than 340 listed buildings adorn its streets, while its beautiful church is regarded as one of the finest examples of late perpendicular Gothic architecture in the country and is …...Read More