Nadine Dorries was a low point in Reform’s Campest Show On Earth
Reform had clearly planned the Campest Show On Earth for their conference this year. Sparklers, club anthems and strobe lights:…
Paraffin Powell comes to Angela Rayner’s defence
Imagine a school assembly run by the most boring narcissists imaginable. Right – you’ve come close to picturing the first…
How could Badenoch fail to skewer Starmer this time?
It was taxes that eventually did for Al Capone. And Spiro Agnew. And Judy Garland. So now the taxman’s bell…
It’s impossible to take the Greens seriously
The Green party’s leadership announcement was live streamed using a phone which seemed to be wrapped in clingfilm and held…
Keir Starmer is Downing Street’s David Brent
How many resets does it take to make a doom loop? In another attempt to work out what the problem…
The ADHD racket
In 1620, in the Staffordshire market town of Bilston, a teenage boy decided he didn’t much fancy going to school.…
Why Rachel Reeves will keep designing terrible taxes
I suspect most of us long ago gave up on expecting any humility from our politicians – indeed, the less…
How long can Miliband’s net zero wheeze last?
The current head of energy policy in this country is Muppet-made-flesh Ed Miliband. While he makes a speciality of eye-catching…
Bridget Phillipson is motivated by spite
There are few more irritating features of the modern apparatchik’s lexicon than ‘lived experience’. It implies the existence of some…
Dan Jarvis is the model of a modern flailing minister
I wonder how No. 10 decides which minister is up for the ritual humiliation of the Today programme each morning.…
The joy of Giorgia Meloni
There are not, as far as I know, any Italian top-flight poker players. Italians are hardly renowned for their ability…
Trump-Zelensky II went off without a hitch
Not since Barack Obama held a press conference dressed as the Man from Del Monte has a suit played such…
Give J.D. Vance a glimpse of real Britain
We’re used to strange sights in north Oxfordshire. The first person I ever met in our small Cotswolds town was…
Ricky Jones and the reality of two-tier justice
This may be looked back on as the week when two-tier justice moved from being an accusation to a statement…
Thought for the Day and the elite empathy problem
Like much of Radio 4’s output, Thought for the Day is something of a curate’s egg – sometimes enlightening and a…
Labour is entering its ‘Zanu-PF’ era
If you hadn’t heard of Rushanara Ali until her resignation yesterday, then good for you. If you still hadn’t until…
What will Rachel Reeves take credit for next?
There’s no rest, they say, for the wicked. Nobody, however, ever deigns to inform us what amount of downtime will…
Migration has radicalised middle England
One of the symptoms that something has truly shifted is unrest in unlikely places. The sleepy heartlands of middle England…
Sadiq Khan will wear his Trump insult as a badge of honour
The Trump Golf Course at Turnberry in Scotland looks like a middle-ranking complex for assisted living. It is all plastic…
The Epping migrant delusion
The origin of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes is difficult to pin down: could it be 19th century Denmark…
Boredom is Rachel Reeves’s secret weapon
When French General Bosquet watched the 600 men of the Light Brigade charge helplessly into the Russian heavy artillery at…
Sausage King Starmer’s bad afternoon on the grill
Sir Keir Starmer has a sausage problem. Stop sniggering at the back. Not only was there his infamous slip demanding…
Life is good in Starmerland. It’s a shame about Britain
It was clearly hot in the House of Commons today. The Lib Dem benches were a sea of pastel colours,…
I’ve got Donald Trump to thank for my unusual middle name
Never make a drunken bet. At about 3 a.m. one fateful morning, pre-pandemic and several bottles down, a friend and…
PMQs is truly cursed
In the Fifth Circle of Dante’s Inferno, the damned are cursed to bob on the surface of the Styx, scrapping…
