The Tories are trashing more than just the nation - October 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 30th, 2022

I opened my new standup show, Basic Lee, 14 days after Liz Truss took office. Do you remember her? The cheese one? I joked to the Guardian-reading tofu-eating wokerati in attendance at the Leicester Square theatre that there was little point in pursuing my usual practice of tying a personal story into the contemporary political…

The Euro final loss is a victory for what’s best about England - July 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - July 18th, 2021

A mural of Jadon Sancho’s fellow footballer Marcus Rashford was graffitied after Sunday night’s final. Four semen streaks spurted simultaneously from a tumorous cartoon penis towards Rashford’s face, suggesting a ruined urethra with multiple lesions. Perhaps this satirical penis had been snagged in a waste disposal, caught in a cruel penis trap, or nibbled by…

Who needs Channel 4 now we have GB News? - June 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - June 27th, 2021

Last week, the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, opportunistically pretended to have bailed out a picturesque Cornish theatre that had, like most arts practitioners, received nothing from him. Also last week, Dowden was outlining his plans for privatising Channel 4 in a piece penned for the Times, hidden behind the paywall. Dowden’s favourite kind of policy…

Please could we have a cultured culture secretary? - May 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - May 30th, 2021

I am a pan-disciplinary recipient of the country’s two highest cultural accolades, the Bafta for film and television and the Olivier for theatre; I have been described by the Times as the “world’s greatest living standup comedian”; I have rapped in 10th-century Old English on a No 1 single; I won Celebrity Mastermind answering questions…