In the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge, here, in no particular order, are my current irritants:
 
• Paddy Ashdown
 
• Lady (Shami) Chakrabarti of Kennington
 
• First Minister Nicola Sturrrgeon
 
• Brussels grands fromages Michel Barnier, Guy Verhofstadt and Monsieur Tipsy Jean-Claude Juncker
 
• Three out of five Newsnight discussions
 
• Dance judge Len Goodman (those teeth are whistling again, Len)
 
• Donald Trump’s hand gestures
 
• Sir Philip Green
 
• Lady Green and that dog of hers
 
• Nicky Morgan
 
• Business Secretary Greg Clark, the cabinet’s fruity-voiced answer to Clifford the Listerine dragon
 
• Benedict Cumberbatch
 
• Caitlin Moran
 
• The National Secular Society
 
• Ukip braggart Raheem Kassam
 
• Diane Abbott, particularly when she closes her eyes while speaking
 
• Advertising man Sir Martin ‘£43 million a year’ Sorrell
 
• Anti-press windbag Evan Harris
 
• Mumsnet
 
• Hugh Grant
 
• Labour chief whip Nick Brown
 
• Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood
 
• Telly scientist Prof Brian Cox
 
• Gary Lineker
 
• James Purnell, the former Labour culture secretary who now poses as a non-partisan BBC radio boss
 
• Emily Thornberry QC MP
 
• Political aide Rohan Silva, who ‘became too big for No. 10’ — now a ‘techpreneur’
 
• Cara Delevingne and her eyebrows
 
• Sir Richard Branson
 
• Politician manqué Mark Carney
 
• You probably won’t have heard of her and I wish I never had — Scots Nat MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh
 
• Complete and utter lawyer Charlie Falconer
 
• BBC greenhouse gasbag Roger Harrabin
 
• Susie Orbach
 
• Sir Elton John and David Furnish
 
• Know-all Stephen Hawking
 
• Dog-throttling Europhile Michael Heseltine
 
• The Institute for Government
 
• Nick Clegg
 
• Jamie Oliver
 
• Sandi Toksvig
 
• Jimmy Carr’s laugh
 
• The Archers Omnibus theme tune
 
• Owen Smith MP
 
• Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders
 
• The RSPCA
 
• Eagle twins Angela and Maria
 
• Soon-to-depart US ambassador Matthew Barzun
 
• Editorial columns in the Church Times
 
• Jonathan Ross
 
• Simon bloody Schama
 
• Civil Service shop steward Lord (Gus) O’Donnell
 
• Facebook’s British boss Lady Mendelsohn, who gave a wonderfully bad speech at the CBI conference
 
• Brian May
 
• ‘Train managers’, ‘next station stops’ and ‘arriving into’
 
• Roland Rudd
 
• Architect Richard Rogers
 
• Gender-bending on stage
 
• Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy
 
• Lady Hale, particularly when she dresses up in her Supreme Court robes and that squashed hat
 
• ‘Evidence-based’
 
• Celery
 
• Boaty McBoatface
 
• Screeny McScreenface on Robert Peston’s Sunday ITV show
 
• Rolls-Royce boss Warren East
 
• The words ‘“Thought for the Day” is presented by John Bell of the Iona Community’
 
• David Baddiel’s beardlet
 
• Banksy
 
• The University access czar, Prof Les Ebdon
 
• Tim Farron
 
• Alex Salmond
 
• Self-regarding Heidi Allen MP
 
• HRH Duchess of York
 
• Gaz and Leccy
 
• Dominic Grieve
 
• Mariella Frostbite
 
• Peter Bone MP’s references to ‘Mrs Bone’
 
• Sir Anish Kapoor, that minor talent chosen as one of the ‘British cultural icons’ for the new passport
 
• Nepotiste Victoria Coren Mitchell
 
• Philip Hammond MP
 
• Russia apologist Sir Edward Leigh MP
 
• People who pop Strepsils out of their foil packets during plays
 
• Post-match interviews with football managers
 
• Janet Street-Porter CBE
 
• Andrew Tyrie’s daily pronouncements as chairman of the Treasury select committee
 
• Dame Helen Ghosh of the National Trust
 
• Statistics bore Jonathan Portes
 
• Alan Milburn and his Social Mobility Commission
 
• Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation
 
• Squeaker Bercow
 
• Sir Keir Starmer QC MP
 
• Sir John Major
 
• Zzzzzzadie Smith

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