Opinion

Public displays of policy are a powerful thing, argues James Ball. When a politician makes a big and public declaration on a policy, it becomes far more likely that they’re going to do it. Anyone who remembers the 2010 Liberal Democrat election campaign and manifesto will know this is no hard-and-fast rule – after promising […]

It is time for the Baby Boomers to step aside and allow the young to take control, argues Bonnie Greer. In conversation with a much younger friend recently I started to see more clearly than ever before why those of us of the Baby Boomer generation must step aside and allow the young to go […]

JAMES BALL says despite the week of theatrics for the UK government, the bigger challenge ahead is still whether they can pass a budget. This has not been a week short on theatrics for the UK government, whether in the Commons chamber or EU negotiating rooms. But despite all this public drama, there is – […]

BONNIE GREER on the stubborn strand of irrationality that is the bedrock of Brexit LONDON, ENGLAND – MAY 10: Conservative MP John Redwood gives an interview adjacent to the Houses of Parliament on May 10, 2010 in London, England. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that he is to stand down as Prime Minister and […]

Why are our institutions and public servants being stopped from doing their jobs, asks a New European reader. The Met Police are stalling on an investigation of the Leave campaigns which broke electoral law because it is too ‘politically sensitive’. The head of HM Revenue and Customs has received death threats after setting out the […]

MITCH BENN has a simple message for all of those considering marching on Saturday – get on the bus and turn up! It can be tricky sometimes, when trying to spur one’s contemporaries into action (which appears to be pretty much my full-time job these days) to strike the proper balance between urgency and despair. […]

It’s almost crunch time and expectations are mounting on what Brexit will look like. After two years that have felt like Groundhog Day, we’re rapidly approaching crunch time on Brexit – if the bare bones of an exit deal aren’t in place within the next fortnight, there will be no November summit and no realistic […]

The indomitable singer remains an inspiration as her songs remain anthemic Within days of Aretha Louise Franklin’s birth, on March 25, 1942, a new Bob Hope movie was released called My Favourite Blonde. Hope plays his usual wiseguy, nudnik and stooge, caught up in a maelstrom he cannot comprehend. His sidekick in life and in […]

Writer, comedian and musician MITCH BENN issues a rallying call for readers to join the People’s Vote March in London. It’s getting more difficult, isn’t it? With every day that passes it’s getting harder not to just switch off the news, log off the internet, go about our daily business and pretend that none of […]

The royal family is a rock – and it has some pretty unsavoury things beneath it. But it is changing and the Duchess of Sussex is helping achieve that Walking through the dark, the way illuminated by discreet Klieg lighting and torches on stands, the smell of fresh flowers in the air and the sound […]

You don’t obstruct an investigation which you will believe will clear your name, says MITCH BENN Matt Damon on Saturday Night Live as Brett Kavanaugh. PHOTO: Fox News – Credit: Archant I’ve just finished watching the ‘cold open’ to the last edition of Saturday Night Live. The ‘cold open’ is a pre-opening credits sketch which, […]

Blustering, bumbling and bilious though it was, Boris Johnson’s Brexit broadside has ignited Tory conference. More than 1,400 delegates queued for up to two hours to get in and their hero received a rapturous welcome. But the truth is he offered little in the way of detail. In fact instead of outlining his plan for […]

In JAMES BALL’s most recent Deconstructed, he takes aim at a Tory party divided by a doomed obsession with Brexit ahead of their party conference in Birmingham. The Conservative Party conference does not kick off until this weekend, but we already know it will be a disaster when it comes to Brexit. Faced with the […]

We’re winning this, writes MITCH BENN, and Brexit will ultimately meet its Waterloo. This year’s Labour conference was, you’ll note, in Liverpool, my birthplace and boyhood home; this is slightly ironic for reasons which will become apparent in a few paragraphs’ time. There was a very well attended pro-People’s Vote march there on Sunday. As […]

As the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh mount, BONNIE GREER explains why victims do not always come forward. We humans are built to survive. When the brain realises that extinction may be near, it changes pace. Once, my brother had a gun put to his head. He told me later that he saw his […]

Readers react to the latest announcement from Jacob Rees-Mogg and the ERG. May it comfort readers to be reminded that a ERG is an obsolete unit of work in the metric system? An ERG of work is done when a force of one dyne moves its point of application through one centimetre. It is a […]

Comparing the careers of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford with those of later generations of female stars shows how cinema is changing, says Bonnie Greer. For mothers and grandmothers, for our aunts who grew up wearing petticoats, and for aficionados of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were the Alpha and […]

Anti-Western philosopher Aleksandr Dugin is said to hold sway over Vladimir Putin. But it is not just the Russian president who is in thrall to him

Mitch Benn on the danger of creeping optimism and the power of Scotland. Something dangerous is creeping into our movement. Optimism. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with optimism. But like anything else that makes you feel good, you have to take it easy with optimism. A little bit will put a spring […]

JAMES BALL says the real reason we’ve made so little progress on Brexit is clear: the hardliners central to the process have made very little effort to understand it. It is perhaps only this week, six months from Brexit, that the reason we’ve made so little progress has become clear. We’d wondered whether the issue […]

Comedian Mitch Benn takes to task the political commentators going to absurd lengths in search of the moral high-ground. If there’s anything more depressing than the sight of someone truly stupid giving full rein to their stupidity (and we’re getting more than enough of that at the moment, not to name any presidents) then it’s […]

For the Conservatives this is all out war – and Boris Johnson is advancing on Downing Street. The former foreign secretary is planning a Blitzkrieg on the Chequers plan as the Tories prepare for conference. Monday after Monday in the pages of the Tory parish newsletter the Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson will fling grenades in […]

During his lifetime John McCain challenged colleagues on both sides of the American political divide but his death has led the country to pause for thought. One of the most interesting things surrounding the death of Senator John McCain was the fulminations of various pundits on the left and the right, insisting how awful he […]

Time is running out for a broken parliament The Chequers deal is dead-on-arrival in both Westminster and in Brussels. Boris Johnson is openly scorning the prime minister’s plan, while offering precisely zero details on an alternative. And Nick Boles has suggested the UK should jettison its current proposals for transition – which are themselves far […]

The shorts are safely back in the drawer and the paddling pool has been deflated – Britain’s MPs are back to school. Labour’s front bench listens as Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions Photo: PA – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images But it has hardly been a restful, tranquil summer for the leaders of the […]

MPs are returning to work and the pre-Tory conference Battle of Brexit has begun. Brexit cheerleader and wannabe prime minister Boris Johnson has savaged Theresa May’s Brexit plan saying the proposed Chequers deal would leave the UK with ‘diddly squat’ and hand the European Union ‘victory’. On the Brexiteer wing of the Tory party his […]

I wrote to my MEP Nigel Farage requesting a financial assessment of the benefits of Brexit. I was expecting a mathematical answer but was astonished to receive a reply blaming those bloody Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle: ‘May I suggest some general reading for you: Hobbes, Locke, Von Mises, Hayek, Fukuyama. The EU is based […]

Following the death of John McCain mainstream media has been flooded with tributes to America’s war hero. But further into the blogosphere, Senator McCain’s death is proving just as divisive as he was, writes Mitch Benn US Republican Presidential Candidate Senator John McCain speaks during a rally in Davenport, Iowa. (Photo credit should read JIM […]

Comedian, musician and writer MITCH BENN recalls the speech he gave at a People’s Vote rally What do you think, is 48 too old to discover your true calling? I’m still in Edinburgh, still have a few days left of my Fringe run… About 10 days ago, I got wind of the fact that there […]

What happens next in both the UK and the US could be pivotal. BONNIE GREER reflects on the story of the two countries and asks who will write the next chapter US comedian Rosie O’Donnell addresses a protest against US President Donald Trump in front of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 6, […]

Isn’t it ironic that our divided government should mark the centenary of the ending of the First World War with facile arguments over Brexit and internal feuding? If only, for the sake of the millions killed on all sides in the conflict, they could show some real magnanimity and unity with our European counterparts. John […]

To many people who voted Remain, it often feels like moving Britain back into the past is a major objective for many Brexiteers. As the plans and assessments of a no-deal Brexit – from the government and from independent bodies alike – begin to appear in earnest, it seems like such Brexiteers may get their […]