Time may be up for the Tories, but their legacy of lies will live on - June 2024 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - June 16th, 2024

“It’s the lying I can’t stand.” That’s the close of the affair cliche isn’t it? We can forgive so much – incompetence, petulance, flatulence – but in the end dishonesty derails things. I suppose that’s why the nation’s 14-year abusive relationship with the Conservative party is finally finished. That’s all folks, bar an argument about…

From mayoral elections to Rwanda removals, Sunak won’t let the truth jeopardise his mission - May 2024 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - May 5th, 2024

In the psychedelic 60s stop-frame animation children’s television series Trumpton, all the characters have identifying proper names – the fireman Captain Flack, the state stormtrooper Police Constable Potter, and the mysterious dungeon-dwelling economist Gideon Pencils Osborne. The mayor of Trumpton, however, was known only as The Mayor, and neither his actual name nor his political…

Context is vital. That’s why I’m filming everything I say and do from now on - April 2024 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 28th, 2024

The terrible massacre of innocent Israelis by sadistic Hamas agents on 7 October last year has set in motion a dreadful chain of events, exploited by bad faith actors on all sides to sow division and hate. Last week the campaigner Gideon Falter tenaciously stage-managed a confrontation with the Metropolitan police by demanding to walk…

Andrew Neil needs to be more Vorderman, less Voldemort - April 2024 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 21st, 2024

The discredited television personality Andrew Neil, formerly the laughing launch-face of the seemingly Ofcom-untouchable, fun-packed, fact-averse, rightwing TV station GB News, floats contentedly in a foaming brown bathtub of bubbling human waste, his Weetabix hair matted with muck, and yet considers himself clean, the nutshell king of infinite filth. On 10 April, Neil told his…

I value Brummie art, but who else does? - April 2024 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 14th, 2024

Why should the people of Birmingham have 100% arts cuts imposed on them? Brummies are quite capable of devaluing their own art without official encouragement. In 2020, the director Michael Cumming and I completed King Rocker (“One of my all time favourite rock docs” – Mark Kermode; “the new gold standard for rockumentaries” – the…

The right is as stale as its ‘woke National Trust scones’ gambit - April 2024 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 7th, 2024

William Blake wrote that we can see heaven in a wild flower and hold infinity in the palms of our hands. He also thought a massive flea with a bald man’s face and no pants on came into his bedroom at night, and I speak as a fan. But, like Blake would, I think we…