Opinion

The royal family is a rock – and it has some pretty unsavoury things beneath it. But it is changing and the Duchess of Sussex is helping achieve that Walking through the dark, the way illuminated by discreet Klieg lighting and torches on stands, the smell of fresh flowers in the air and the sound […]

You don’t obstruct an investigation which you will believe will clear your name, says MITCH BENN Matt Damon on Saturday Night Live as Brett Kavanaugh. PHOTO: Fox News – Credit: Archant I’ve just finished watching the ‘cold open’ to the last edition of Saturday Night Live. The ‘cold open’ is a pre-opening credits sketch which, […]

Blustering, bumbling and bilious though it was, Boris Johnson’s Brexit broadside has ignited Tory conference. More than 1,400 delegates queued for up to two hours to get in and their hero received a rapturous welcome. But the truth is he offered little in the way of detail. In fact instead of outlining his plan for […]

In JAMES BALL’s most recent Deconstructed, he takes aim at a Tory party divided by a doomed obsession with Brexit ahead of their party conference in Birmingham. The Conservative Party conference does not kick off until this weekend, but we already know it will be a disaster when it comes to Brexit. Faced with the […]

We’re winning this, writes MITCH BENN, and Brexit will ultimately meet its Waterloo. This year’s Labour conference was, you’ll note, in Liverpool, my birthplace and boyhood home; this is slightly ironic for reasons which will become apparent in a few paragraphs’ time. There was a very well attended pro-People’s Vote march there on Sunday. As […]

As the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh mount, BONNIE GREER explains why victims do not always come forward. We humans are built to survive. When the brain realises that extinction may be near, it changes pace. Once, my brother had a gun put to his head. He told me later that he saw his […]

Readers react to the latest announcement from Jacob Rees-Mogg and the ERG. May it comfort readers to be reminded that a ERG is an obsolete unit of work in the metric system? An ERG of work is done when a force of one dyne moves its point of application through one centimetre. It is a […]

Comparing the careers of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford with those of later generations of female stars shows how cinema is changing, says Bonnie Greer. For mothers and grandmothers, for our aunts who grew up wearing petticoats, and for aficionados of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were the Alpha and […]

Anti-Western philosopher Aleksandr Dugin is said to hold sway over Vladimir Putin. But it is not just the Russian president who is in thrall to him

Mitch Benn on the danger of creeping optimism and the power of Scotland. Something dangerous is creeping into our movement. Optimism. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with optimism. But like anything else that makes you feel good, you have to take it easy with optimism. A little bit will put a spring […]

JAMES BALL says the real reason we’ve made so little progress on Brexit is clear: the hardliners central to the process have made very little effort to understand it. It is perhaps only this week, six months from Brexit, that the reason we’ve made so little progress has become clear. We’d wondered whether the issue […]

Comedian Mitch Benn takes to task the political commentators going to absurd lengths in search of the moral high-ground. If there’s anything more depressing than the sight of someone truly stupid giving full rein to their stupidity (and we’re getting more than enough of that at the moment, not to name any presidents) then it’s […]

For the Conservatives this is all out war – and Boris Johnson is advancing on Downing Street. The former foreign secretary is planning a Blitzkrieg on the Chequers plan as the Tories prepare for conference. Monday after Monday in the pages of the Tory parish newsletter the Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson will fling grenades in […]

During his lifetime John McCain challenged colleagues on both sides of the American political divide but his death has led the country to pause for thought. One of the most interesting things surrounding the death of Senator John McCain was the fulminations of various pundits on the left and the right, insisting how awful he […]

Time is running out for a broken parliament The Chequers deal is dead-on-arrival in both Westminster and in Brussels. Boris Johnson is openly scorning the prime minister’s plan, while offering precisely zero details on an alternative. And Nick Boles has suggested the UK should jettison its current proposals for transition – which are themselves far […]

The shorts are safely back in the drawer and the paddling pool has been deflated – Britain’s MPs are back to school. Labour’s front bench listens as Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions Photo: PA – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images But it has hardly been a restful, tranquil summer for the leaders of the […]

MPs are returning to work and the pre-Tory conference Battle of Brexit has begun. Brexit cheerleader and wannabe prime minister Boris Johnson has savaged Theresa May’s Brexit plan saying the proposed Chequers deal would leave the UK with ‘diddly squat’ and hand the European Union ‘victory’. On the Brexiteer wing of the Tory party his […]

I wrote to my MEP Nigel Farage requesting a financial assessment of the benefits of Brexit. I was expecting a mathematical answer but was astonished to receive a reply blaming those bloody Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle: ‘May I suggest some general reading for you: Hobbes, Locke, Von Mises, Hayek, Fukuyama. The EU is based […]

Following the death of John McCain mainstream media has been flooded with tributes to America’s war hero. But further into the blogosphere, Senator McCain’s death is proving just as divisive as he was, writes Mitch Benn US Republican Presidential Candidate Senator John McCain speaks during a rally in Davenport, Iowa. (Photo credit should read JIM […]

Comedian, musician and writer MITCH BENN recalls the speech he gave at a People’s Vote rally What do you think, is 48 too old to discover your true calling? I’m still in Edinburgh, still have a few days left of my Fringe run… About 10 days ago, I got wind of the fact that there […]

What happens next in both the UK and the US could be pivotal. BONNIE GREER reflects on the story of the two countries and asks who will write the next chapter US comedian Rosie O’Donnell addresses a protest against US President Donald Trump in front of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 6, […]

Isn’t it ironic that our divided government should mark the centenary of the ending of the First World War with facile arguments over Brexit and internal feuding? If only, for the sake of the millions killed on all sides in the conflict, they could show some real magnanimity and unity with our European counterparts. John […]

To many people who voted Remain, it often feels like moving Britain back into the past is a major objective for many Brexiteers. As the plans and assessments of a no-deal Brexit – from the government and from independent bodies alike – begin to appear in earnest, it seems like such Brexiteers may get their […]

MITCH BENN assesses whether Boris’ fixation has moved from Churchill to Bannon. Two thoughts on the topic of freedom of speech: 1. Boris Johnson is perfectly within his rights to say whatever he wants about burqas. 2. The rest of us are perfectly within our rights to call Boris Johnson a reckless, shameless attention-craving, trouble-stirring, […]

Boris’ cheap shots are part of a pantomime – allowing him to discover who his real troops are, says BONNIE GREER. Mark Twain once said: ‘The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.’ I thought of that quote as I watched a crowd standing in awe in […]

The first signs of Labour’s erosion under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership might just be appearing, says JAMES BALL The country, the polls suggest, may finally be starting to seriously change its mind on Brexit. For the first months – and then the first year – after the UK voted to leave, polls stubbornly bounced around within […]

I voted out in the referendum, but rapidly recovered my senses when Brexit fell prey to the far-right agenda. This stairway to heaven has become a dark passage inhabited by the dark art of data manipulation, and questions about the people behind anti-EU backers. To me it is now crystal clear that the whole Brexit […]

I noted with interest Tory trade secretary, Liam Fox, warning that a no-deal Brexit was now more likely than the UK getting an agreement with the EU. Quite bizarrely, this appears to be the same Liam Fox who little more than a year ago said that a post-Brexit free trade with the EU should be […]

In summer 2016 my wife sent to our MP a detailed response about the conduct of the referendum, outlining all our now too-familiar concerns. In summer 2016 my wife sent to our MP a detailed response about the conduct of the referendum, outlining all our now too-familiar concerns. She received an acknowledgement that her letter […]

There’s more than just misguided coverage behind the Today programme’s malaise, says MIC WRIGHT The Today programme — required listening for anyone who works in politics — took a beating in the latest Rajar figures. The body, which monitors UK radio listening, reported last week that the audience for Radio 4’s flagship current affairs show […]

The £39billion we have committed to pay to the EU upon our exit is NOT a gratuity or a divorce payment. It represents a legal liability. It represents historic infrastructure commitments and liabilities entered into by our nation that are to be completed by 2030. It represents the remaining 21 months of the seven-year budget […]

It would seem that one of the scapegoats being prepared for when Brexit fails are Remainers who refuse to ‘get behind Brexit’. How one is supposed to support a vacuum is beyond me. Brexit is by definition a negative, dismantling process; there is nothing there of substance to support, even if one wanted to. It’s […]