All the Tory sleaze that’s fit to print… - May 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - May 2nd, 2021

I first filed this supposedly funny column, about Boris Let the Bodies Pile High in Their Thousands Johnson’s wallpaper, at 8pm on Wednesday, 15 glorious hours before the Thursday 11am deadline. Now I could enjoy a leisurely morning cycle to a Pret a Manger™ ® breakfast bap with my name on it and some passive-aggressive…

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Let’s hear it for the Town Crier Super League - April 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 25th, 2021

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! There can be few British traditions more English than that of the town crier. In his scarlet frock, tricorn hat, winklepicker shoes, white silk stockings and ermine posing pouch, the town crier’s bleating horn, clanging dong and horrid rasping voice have brought good news to the filthy peasant and the fragrant lord…

Behold Boris Johnson’s world-beating oration - March 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - March 28th, 2021

On 23 March 2020, 74 days after China declared coronavirus to the WHO, Britain went into lockdown. In the interim Boris “I Shook Hands With Everyone” Johnson had ignored emails about a Europe-wide PPE purchasing scheme; ignored experts’ recommendations to close pubs and restaurants; taken a holiday in Kent, back before it became clogged with…

There’s something fishy going on at Tory HQ… - February 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - February 21st, 2021

Before Brexit, 44% of British musicians, including my showbusiness friend Fish from Marillion, earned up to half their income from now inaccessible European audiences. But, should Fish find some way around the government’s failure to preserve artists’ touring opportunities, his unfortunate choice of stage name could mean he was still subject to time-consuming delays at…

Oh see how the Tories now run from Donald Trump - January 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 17th, 2021

In 2019, Jeremy Hunt, who once hid behind a tree to avoid the press on the way to a party, said politicians boycotting Donald Trump’s state visit were exhibiting “virtue signalling of the worst kind”. Was Hunt also virtue signalling last week, then, when he conceded that Trump “shames American democracy”? Or have the goalposts,…

English Covid: a truly world-beating virus - December 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - December 27th, 2020

If the United Kingdom can take one positive thing from the Covid-19 crisis, it is that the most powerful and virulent version of the virus is perceived globally as being British, faster and stronger than its puny foreign counterparts. And the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has rightly declared this the sort of thing that makes…