Andrew Neil enters his broom-cupboard years… - August 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 29th, 2021

A woman I went on a blind date with in 1988 told me that witches she knew would consort with the devil at midnight, on the meadow by the river outside the town where I was a student. Soon after I decided to become a standup comedian, I sought them out, in the shadow of…

Tory values? Urination, urination, urination - August 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 8th, 2021

Did the Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen cultivate lagoons of urine in his rural Leicestershire constituency? In 2014, the Environment Agency claimed lagoons at the Measham depot of his vegetable packaging and distribution company, AB Produce, emitted a pervasive urine smell. “It smells just like urine all the time – first thing in the morning until…

Turns out Boris Johnson’s crime strategy was just another pile of mud - August 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 1st, 2021

Earlier this week a pile of mud was dumped at the west end of Oxford Street. Then some squares of grass were stuck on the mud. Then people were charged £8 to go up it. Visitor Emma Wright tweeted that going up the mud was “the worst thing I have ever done in London”. But…

Did I cock up over the Marcus Rashford mural? - July 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - July 25th, 2021

On Wednesday of the week before last I filed one of my supposedly funny “columns” for last Sunday’s Observer. I wanted to write a personal pastiche of feel-good op-eds about England’s near victory in the Euros and reference how Boris Johnson government’s calculated culture war tried to draw the squad into its sights, as surely…

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…