The long rightward journey of the Telegraph’s Michael Deacon

That seemed to change, though, in 2022 when Deacon was promoted to Telegraph assistant editor and a general columnist and his scribblings took a turn towards attacking gender politics, progressivism, environmental activism and the catch-all “woke”. His News Quiz appearances seemed to quickly dry up as his columns stopped being funny.

Over the past couple of years, though, Deacon’s right wing leanings appear to have ramped up heavily, obsessing against immigration and diversity, railing against perceived left wing biases in institutions and increasingly aligning himself with Nigel Farage and Reform UK. And he seems to be getting even more extreme…

May 19, 2026: “Should we ban the unemployed from voting?” wonders Deacon aloud, suggesting that this simple suggestion could be the way to curb rising benefits bills.

“Even those of us who are not on the Left… would probably baulk at the idea of forcibly sterilising benefits claimants,” he writes, with unusual compassion. “Banning them from voting, however, would at the very least settle a long-running debate.

“Whenever Labour MPs vote to raise benefits, they insist that they’re doing it out of compassion… banning the unemployed from voting would give us the answer immediately. By removing any electoral incentive to raise benefits for the unemployed – and indeed adding a strong electoral incentive to cut them – we would at last establish exactly how compassionate our Labour MPs are.” Let’s hope the Telegraph’s new owners don’t embark on a round of cost-cutting any time soon!

June 3, 2026: In the wake of Henry Nowak’s murder by a British-born Sikh, a protest takes place in Southampton attended by Britain First leader Paul Golding, UKIP leader Nick Tenconi and Laurence Fox. 11 officers and a police dog are injured during the disorder, and Farage is criticised for posting a video on social media in which he links the case to “anti-White prejudice”.

But it’s not his fault! “The truth is, it’s not Nigel Farage who has made our society so dangerously divided. It’s the Left itself,” writes Deacon.

“For decades, our country has been relentlessly destabilised by rocketing immigration and multiculturalism. A development fuelled by the Left-wing conviction that just about everyone on the planet has an inalienable right to come and live in Britain, and that once they arrive, they don’t need to make any effort to follow our customs or even, it sometimes seems, our laws.” 

Nobody serious on the left ever says this, and Deacon doesn’t actually cite any examples, but he must know what he’s talking about as he was nominated for Broadcast Columnist of the Year in the 2014 British Press Awards.

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July 1, 2026: “Diversity is not Britain’s strength. Here’s the proof” runs the headline over Deacon’s musings on how diversity initiatives are not just failing but deliberately discriminating against white people.

“After all, when the competitors limber up for the final of the men’s 100m sprint at the Olympics, no one says: ‘Hmm. These finalists don’t look terribly diverse. Because absolutely none of them are white,’” he writes. “This will not do. In future, therefore, the organisers should scrap the requirement that finalists must be able to run fast – and instead, have a line-up which precisely reflects the ethnic make-up of the global population as a whole. That would be much fairer, wouldn’t it?” 

What a card!

August 11, 2026: “Sick of yobs blasting out music on the bus? Here’s my simple solution” runs the headline over Deacon’s tirade against youngsters blaring their phones on public transport.

To be fair, stopping that particular annoyance is something Rats in a Sack, and no doubt many readers, could get behind. But oddly, one paragraph from Deacon suggests he thinks one very specific demographic is responsible.

“When some 19-year-old Neet sees the careworn faces of his fellow train or bus passengers, he thinks: ‘These poor commuters. They all look so miserable. And no wonder. It must be awful, having to work for a living. Still, I know what will cheer them up. Being forced to listen at ear-splitting volume to a blisteringly obnoxious drill rap track in which a small-time drug-dealer boasts of stabbing a schoolboy to death for looking at him funny in the queue for fried chicken.’”

Hmm. Whatever could he be getting at?

August 16, 2026: With the Iran war still raging, Ukraine in flames, Gaza no closer to peace and AI threatening to destroy humanity itself, Deacon knows what the real problem is: men dressing as women on TV.

Under the headline “The BBC will come to regret its bizarre obsession with drag queens”, Deacon hits out at RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, which the BBC has actually said is about to leave the corporation.

“The BBC’s peculiar fixation with drag queens shows no signs of abating,” he writes, just as it cancels its main and indeed only show about them. “Just this week, Newsnight invited one to participate in a discussion of the UK’s floundering economy. Perhaps we could boost quarterly growth if we each buy a pair of size 12 stilettos.

“In another 50 years, maybe the BBC will once again be wringing its hands, as it wonders, in horrified disbelief, how it could ever have promoted the practice of pinking up.”

August 25, 2026: “Diane Abbott should pay reparations” runs the headline over a column in which Deacon fulminates over the left wing Labour veteran MP’s calls for Britain to pay compensation for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.

“I’ve decided to launch a reparations campaign of my own,” he announces. “Mine, however, has nothing to do with the slave trade. Instead, it’s to do with an even greater source of human suffering. Socialism.

“Throughout the 20th century, socialism caused untold poverty, starvation, misery and death. And even those countries that have since freed themselves from its shackles are still blighted by its horrifying legacy.

“Therefore, I believe there’s only one way to atone for this historic injustice. All of today’s socialists – such as, for example, the sainted Diane – should be made to pay trillions of pounds in reparations to the descendants of those who suffered under socialist regimes.” 

It appears this may be satire, although readers may have failed to feel their sides splitting.

September 2, 2026: Deacon takes a break from lambasting diversity and immigration to cheer the news that Sadie Sink, an actress best known for Stranger Things, has posed for Calvin Klein in nothing but a bra and jeans.

“Something about these ads is politically very significant,” he claims. “A few years ago… something peculiar happened. Major fashion and beauty brands started filling their ads with people who are, shall we say, less conventionally attractive.

“Take Calvin Klein itself. In 2019, it ran a billboard campaign in which its jeans were modelled by a woman who was unmistakably – in the euphemism favoured by women’s magazines – ‘plus-size’. Or, as one rather less generous commentator put it: ‘morbidly obese’.”

Fortunately, though, that seems to have ended with Calvin Klein’s new ad campaign. “I hope this doesn’t sound too controversial – people who are good looking are nicer to look at than people who aren’t,” writes Deacon, who is 46 years old. Sink is 24.

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September 12, 2026: ‘What if the far-Right start wearing the burka?’, muses Deacon, suggesting that the groups amassing in Dover and Portsmouth might do well to adopt traditional Islamic veils to avoid being harassed by police.

“Frankly, I suspect they’d revel in it,” he writes. “At every protest they’d gleefully taunt the police from behind the safety of their full-face veils. “Go on, coppers! Dare you to arrest us now we’re dressed like this! Be awful if ‘our communities’ saw you doing it, and misunderstood what was happening, wouldn’t it?”

Deacon also notes a recent post on social media by Labour MP Stella Creasy hailing a group of talented young Muslim women in her constituency. “Let this be a warning to the mobs of masked men,” he says. “If they start dressing in burkas, there’s a serious risk they’ll be followed everywhere they go by Britain’s most insufferable MP, gushing relentlessly at them about what a glorious symbol of diversity they are.” 

Hilarious! Remind us: why did that News Quiz gig end?

September 22, 2026: Under the headline “Why do Man Utd have a Muslim supporters’ group?”, Deacon questions why one of the world’s most popular football clubs has a group explicitly made up of Muslims. 

“Obviously there’s nothing wrong with Muslims supporting Man Utd,” he says, generously. “Unlike pork, alcohol and being married to more than four women at once, the 13-time FA Cup winners are not considered haram.” 

He also takes umbrage with the group’s claim that without “players, staff, stewards, security teams and supporters” from “different countries, cultures, ethnicities, religions and backgrounds” Man Utd “would not be Man Utd”.

“In 1968, Man Utd became the first English team to win the European Cup,” writes Deacon. “And the starting XI that night was ‘diverse’ only in the sense that it featured one player from Scotland, one from Northern Ireland, and two from the Republic of Ireland. The rest of the players were English, and all were white.” 

Better days indeed! Incidentally, Manchester United also has a Jewish supporters’ club and a Sikh supporters’ club, and neither seems to have a problem with their Muslim equivalent.

And on and on it goes. As one of Deacon’s contemporaries at university puts it, he’s “been on a journey”. But no doubt a very lucrative one…