There has always been a sensitivity to humour amongst demagogues, dictators and fundamentalists
- 8 Jan 2015
There is a justified sense of horror and outrage in the civilised world at the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The real question is why are we at all surprised? In our cosy, reasonably well fed Western European comfort blanket satire and the freedom to cause offence is deeply embedded...
May will be livid at being called 'once loyal' by Tim Montgomerie
- 22 Dec 2014
Just as I had thought that John Witherow had unbuckled the final strap of Tim Montgomerie’s canvas jacket and administered the final dose of Maggadone (a fairly painless method of weaning people off of a deadly addiction to Thatcherism), his latest piece in the Thunderer made ...
Baroness Jenkin is right. Get over it
- 8 Dec 2014
Now I appreciate that this will really piss some people off, but Baroness Jenkin was right. Some of the poor do not know how to cook. This is an historical problem. My folks and their folks were brought up in the East End of London. Looking back it would seem an horrific child...
We don't want an economist as Chancellor we need a politician
- 4 Dec 2014
Will someone please explain to columnists like Peter Oborne that the Chancellor is actually a politician. And, shock horror, politicians make decisions to persuade the public to vote for them. There seems to be a sneering attitude towards George Osborne from the chattering cla...
What if Penny Mordaunt had been a man? The wimmin would be screaming for her resignation
- 30 Nov 2014
I have been reading with various degrees of mild irritation and amusement Penny Mordaunt’s now notorious ‘cock’ speech. Her real mistake was not so much making a rather foolish and on the scale of things a rather minor error of judgement, but fessing up to it at a public even...
Fire up the KIPPER Quattro. But Farage will not be at the controls. It will be Ed and the SNP
- 21 Nov 2014
If only the Labour Party could take a few lessons from Tony Blair. He understood the importance of encouraging hardworking people. He understood that if Labour was to win it was vital that the party reached across party divides. More importantly, he understood that voters woul...
UKIP has now become a fully fledged Westminster bubble party. It is tearing itself apart
- 18 Nov 2014
It may have passed by the good people of Rochester and Strood but UKIP have finally grown into a fully fledged Westminster bubble party. They are tearing themselves apart. This is not about the racism, sexism homophobia and general bonkerism that simmers unpleasantly below the...
Cameron and May must be incandescent with rage. It looks like the Whips Office have panicked.Not their finest hour
- 10 Nov 2014
It is not often that I get really, really angry with my party, but today’s disgraceful, degrading fiasco has made my blood boil. The European Arrest Warrant, as I have written before, is eminently sensible. It is, apart from the Tory brain dead, a no brainer. May has skilfully...
In politics always shoot to kill and never to wound
- 10 Nov 2014
In the early eighties as a young and foolish backbencher I was accused of plotting to oust Margaret Thatcher. It was, of course, nonsense. Francis Pym, a sacked and bitter Foreign Secretary, gathered a group of wets together to try and put a more compassionate and human face o...
Grayling is a menace. His department is frighteningly Kafkaesque
- 4 Nov 2014
In that great Palais de Wankerdom, the Ministry of Justice, Grayling’s peculiars have been up to their usual tricks. A few months ago I was defence counsel for one of the defendants in the Leicester fire bombing. This was the case where an innocent family were burned to death....