Is Iain Duncan Smith the Brexit bogeyman? - September 2019 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 8th, 2019

‘Everyone will have the food they need,” declared Michael Gove to Andrew Marr last Sunday, denying both the lies of Project Fear and the hysterical, biased, ill-informed and suppressed research of his own department. On Tuesday, as the Commons camera drifted past Ken Clarke, I saw the Brexit cheerleader Iain Duncan Smith picking his nose…

book extract: ‘My work became increasingly angry, bitter and incoherent’ - August 2019 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 25th, 2019

I always maintain that I take on a persona when writing columns for the Observer: that of an adopted man, from a relatively normal social background, who is an obvious victim of imposter syndrome. I don’t so much write the columns as transcribe them. The adopted man stands at my shoulder, just out of sight,…

Revealed: Boris Johnson’s secret weapon for a no-deal Brexit - August 2019 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 18th, 2019

How many small plastic toy egg casings could be hidden in, for example, a Michael Gove? And, if we knew this figure, and had an accurate idea of potential volunteer multiple plastic toy egg couriers, could we extrapolate from it the volume of goods that might be secretly transported, in this fashion, both in and…

Dude, I take no pleasure in having been right about Boris Johnson - July 2019 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - July 28th, 2019

I believe it was I who wrote in June 2017 in this very paper: “The secret Tory steering committee has always intended Boris Johnson to be leader of the party and Theresa May has only been put in place as a kind of palate cleanser, a nasty-tasting mouthwash that you swill around your gums before…

Can Alexa fix my Brexit and Trump-induced ills? - July 2019 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - July 14th, 2019

I woke early on Monday morning, and sat bolt upright clutching my chest, with the sense that something was afoot. Over the Atlantic, in Washington, a mysterious grey-haired child, with the face of a wizened old man, burst forth from a vast blue egg, laid unnoticed overnight in the White House garden, and declared as…

Boris Johnson says hair-gate is ‘beyond satire’. Here goes… - June 2019 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - June 30th, 2019

I had this week’s column nailed by Tuesday teatime, 36 hours ahead of the deadline. Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Cake Bumboys Haircut Inconclusive-Cocaine-Event Wall-Spaffer Fuck-Business Get-Off-My-Fucking-Laptop Johnson was the gift that kept on giving. Piccaninny’s fans had complained that as the neighbours who called the police to his screams-and-swearing-filled flat last Thursday self-identified as Remainers…