Is Nadine Dorries bird-brained or what? - April 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 10th, 2022

Like Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, apparently has restless thoughts and only finds ease in destroying. Doubtless, Dorries is aware on some level of the epic poem, in her capacity as guardian of the nation’s cultural treasures, and as an author herself, and yet she learns nothing from it. So…

Eat your heart out Will Smith – I certainly did - April 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 3rd, 2022

The inspirational Leicester comedy festival awards ceremony, which I attended on Monday in the ballroom of the refurbished Grade II-listed Mercure Leicester Grand, could only have been improved by a multimillionaire performatively punching another multimillionaire in the face. Nonetheless, my once-in-a-lifetime Legend of Comedy statuette win was overshadowed by the violent brawling of the Oscar…

Rishi Sunak is taking us for mugs. £180 smart mugs - March 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - March 27th, 2022

My Covid-postponed standup tour continues. Another Thursday morning; another hotel room; another opportunity to purloin branded shower caps and shoe-mitts that I will never use, yet which signify an indefinable victory over normal life, from which I appear to have fatally exempted my nomadic self. My stolen mini shampoo bottle supply will outlast my hair.…

Putin tied Boris Johnson up in his own trousers - March 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - March 13th, 2022

A nakedly corrupt and evidently narcissistic leader, surrounded by a phalanx of accommodating acolytes, enriched his supporters with liquidised public assets and spurious government schemes, flagrantly broke international treaties, trashed domestic political standards, systematically flooded social media with fake news, used his power over the press to spread disinformation over many decades, sought to destabilise…

I knew Abramovich was taking the piss - March 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - March 6th, 2022

Superyachts seek safe havens. Property portfolios dissolve. Lawyers are engaged, accountants contracted. Politicians confect plausible denials over ostentatious donations. Tory party co-chairman Ben Elliot deletes online boasts of his company’s “15 years’ experience providing luxury lifestyle management services to Russia’s elite and corporate members”. It seems there were oligarchs everywhere, all along. We’ve been living…

The government’s Flickr photo-diary is a spoof unto itself - February 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - February 20th, 2022

Did you know the UK government had a Flickr account? A fast-moving succession of unexplained photographs create an impression that things involving Tory politicians are happening, at a very high level, and at some speed, but offer no explanation of what they mean. It is perfect – the taxpayer-funded, vanity-engineered photo-diary of a group of…