Satire

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10. LIAM FOX The International Trade Secretary delivered a tantalising hint of the amazing deals to come post-Brexit when he visited a bassoon shop in Newport. No doubt delighted to meet some other expensive wind instruments, Fox tweeted that Double Reed was an ‘internationally respected […]

Has the constant reel of Brexit news got you pulling your hair out? Comedian and musician MITCH BENN looks at one piece of news this week that has taken minds off of Brexit. Hey folks. Do you sometimes find yourself longing for the days when I – and everyone else – had other things to […]

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 ALAN BRAZIL Brushing off the departures of the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam and the European Banking Authority to Paris, the bibulous Talksport host assured listeners that ‘if we get a good Brexit there will be 5,000 jobs created for every 1,000 lost’. So […]

I didn’t get much from my Twitter spat with Kylie Minogue’s songwriter, but his famous lyrics certainly sum up the mindset of Brexiteers. I won’t lie to you; this hasn’t been an easy gig this week. I don’t necessarily regard it as being my responsibility to put a comical spin on events in every issue, […]

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Stella Fellas No-one is suggesting that Brexiteers are desperate for some good news, but Daily Telegraph chief political correspondent Christopher Hope appeared to have caught a glimpse of those famous sunlit uplands when he excitedly tweeted ‘Stella is now selling beer in pint cans. […]

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 BILL ETHERIDGE ‘I have been extremely naïve,’ said West Midlands MEP and failed UKIP leadership candidate Etheridge back in 2015, after he had repeated Enoch Powell’s warning that multiculturalism would lead to ‘rivers of blood’. Happily Bill is a changed man and now acts […]

RICHARD PORRITT rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Peter Lundgren MEP Swedish right-winger Lundgren has claimed this week that warnings about Britain being isolated and poor after Brexit are ‘bulls**t’. Phew. This from a man who represents a party launched by […]

Steve Anglesey counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Arron Banks If his lucrative dog-whistle business should ever go wrong, Leave.EU backer Banks really should consider a career as a psychic. Just after 9am on October 30 he was crowing on Twitter that the ‘Russian stuff out of the US against Trump… is […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Henry Bolton Fresh from declaring that he could strange a badger with his bare hands, UKIP’s new leader has admitted that since the party is skint and his position is unpaid, he’ll probably have to sell his home to get by. No worries, Henry […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Gerard Batten ‘English is not taught in our schools and hasn’t been for decades,’ claimed the UKIP MEP on Twitter, surprising hundreds of English teachers across the nation and enraging thousands of pupils […]

Steve Anglesey rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit. 10. Jacob Rees-Mogg Told a Tory fringe meeting: ‘I think our Prime Minister is a heroine of 10,000 years and I welcome the every waking breath of the Prime Minister, our great leader.’ So […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Russell Brand Asked on Newsnight if he supports Brexit, the increasingly precious former comedian replied: ‘To be honest, I source my emotional connection to politics beyond those kind of parameters.’ Sadly, Rusty later […]

Steve Anglesey rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 John Rees-Evans Desperate to bring some momentum to his flagging UKIP leadership challenge, Rees-Evans retweeted a Twitter poll asking people to name their favourite candidate. He cheekily asked his followers to ‘Vote Early, […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Michael Caine The 84-year-old actor told an audience at the Venice Film Festival that he supported Brexit because ‘I’d rather be a poor master of my own fate than a rich servant of […]

Right, so where are we now then? When last we spoke, Keir Starmer had give us perhaps the first hint that Labour might be starting to back away from at least a ‘Hard’ Brexit, if not (yet) Brexit altogether. Nothing much else (at time of writing) seems to have happened on that front; Labour appear […]

For comedian MITCH BENN, Theresa May’s attempts to extend her political life put him in mind of his favourite film, Blade Runner. Here, he goes on the trail of Downing Street’s replicant They don’t advertise for killers in a newspaper. Not this newspaper anyway. They advertise attractively reduced rate subscriptions, framed signed copies of the […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Peter Whittle ‘Great to speak tonight at @UKIP Norfolk hustings,’ tweeted the favourite to become the Kippers’ next leader, after talking at an event last weekend. ‘This is a party with a strong beating heart.’ And who can doubt it when you see the […]

As I think I’ve mentioned before, my wife Clara (who is in the process of becoming my ex-wife although we remain best of friends – a neat trick if you can pull it off and thus far we seem to be doing OK) grew up in Berlin both before and after the reunification of Germany. […]

It’s not who you are underneath it’s what you do that defines you When a character has been around as long as Batman (78 years, Batfact fans) it’s interesting to examine the differences, both broad and subtle, between the various iterations – both in print and especially, on screen – of the Caped Crusader’s adventures. […]

I don’t blame the Scots if Brexit leads them to want another shot at independence I have a bit of a confession to make; I very nearly didn’t get this article in on time. I’d like to pretend that this was because I was engaged on urgent business; swept away on some vital errand of […]

I’m banging the drum for the people being allowed to make an informed choice One can scarcely even begin to wonder at the thoughts which passed through the mind of young Lieutenant Commander John McCain during his long years of imprisonment and torture in Vietnam, but I’m going to go out on a limb here […]

The democratic principle merely holds that the wishes of the majority should, where practicable, be upheld. It says absolutely NOTHING about whether the majority is RIGHT You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I began my column by making the declaration that Julia Hartley-Brewer is a nice person (just one who believes, and […]

I find I’m just as uncomfortable with sneering schadenfreude when it’s our ‘side’ doing it as when it comes from the opposition. Young Christian Americans sometimes wear a bracelet around one wrist inscribed with the letters ‘WWJD?’ This of course stands for ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ and is intended to help them clarify their thoughts […]

Really Theresa May? Consensus? With the ‘saboteurs’, the ‘enemies of the people’? Say what you like about George Orwell, but the man was even-handed in his scorn for political thuggery: having been shot in the throat while fighting as a volunteer against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War, he then came home and wrote […]

Both will be as bad as the other. Julia Hartley-Brewer is a nice person. There, I said it. No, really; I’ve worked with her a few times over the years on various radio things (although last time we actually conversed on Twitter she insisted she had no idea who I was, which is entirely possible) […]

Less than two weeks after blowing £130 million on an election which served nobody’s interest but theirs, the Tories somehow laid hands on another BILLION. When you’ve been in the entertainment business since your early 20s (and your early 20s are a dim memory receding even more quickly than your hairline) you never know what […]

You can’t have a negotiation when you have literally nothing the other side wants It’s become clear over the course of the last twelve months (has it really only been a year? The pre-Brexit era seems like some dimly remembered Halcyon Age these days) that much as there are people who have no idea how […]

The Conservatives have been exposed as the opportunistic self-serving incompetents that they are. Like many Corbyn-sceptics I’ve been bombarded with messages this last week demanding I issue some sort of grovelling apology for having said Jeremy Corbyn would lose the election. There’s one thing I feel I should point out in my defence: Jeremy Corbyn […]

If the Vice President and a majority of either Congress or the Senate decide that the President is no longer fit for duty, he’s out. I sometimes feel a little semi-detached from my own emotions. Like I’m observing everything which happens to me – and moreover, how I feel about it – at a remove. […]

The thing that has made the Conservative Party the most formidable election-winning machine in political history is also its fatal weakness; its blithe assumption of authority. It may come as a surprise to those of you who only know me from this column to be told that politics is not the abiding obsession in my […]

Starve of attention those who can’t keep their mouths shut This article originally appeared in The New European on May 26 As the aftermath of the atrocity in Manchester is being picked through both literally and figuratively, I don’t have anything useful, insightful or helpful to say on the subject. I could join in with […]

Embracing political identity on a tribal level can lead to disastrous decisions A staunchly left-wing friend of mine tweeted earlier this week that they were clinging to the vague (but still existent) hope that Labour could turn things around in the short time remaining before the election, that, in her words, ‘we might win’. I […]