Opinion

The thing that has made the Conservative Party the most formidable election-winning machine in political history is also its fatal weakness; its blithe assumption of authority. It may come as a surprise to those of you who only know me from this column to be told that politics is not the abiding obsession in my […]

Starve of attention those who can’t keep their mouths shut This article originally appeared in The New European on May 26 As the aftermath of the atrocity in Manchester is being picked through both literally and figuratively, I don’t have anything useful, insightful or helpful to say on the subject. I could join in with […]

How the indomitable spirit of our city dwellers renders terror pointless Two ladies walked out of the shopping centre in Manchester and straight up to the reporter. They were of what the French call ‘a certain age’ and they were arm-in-arm. One of the ladies flicked her long black hair back, then turned to look […]

Embracing political identity on a tribal level can lead to disastrous decisions A staunchly left-wing friend of mine tweeted earlier this week that they were clinging to the vague (but still existent) hope that Labour could turn things around in the short time remaining before the election, that, in her words, ‘we might win’. I […]

The dangers of the presidential-style government Theresa May and her ‘team’ are seeking for the UK One of the advantageous of being an immigrant is that you can observe your new country in ways the native-born can’t. Or won’t. You can see things differently. If you choose to. And what I can see is the […]

Those of us who support Remain or Soft Brexit are stored away in the ‘women’ category. HARDCORE MASCULINITY A TEMPLATE FOR POWER WHICH DOES NOT ALLOW NUANCE BONNIE GREER Early in the morning a few days ago, a thread came through on Twitter. There are times when you have to be cautious and read things […]

When you think about it, Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election should come as no surprise. We were once on Question Time together. Before the show, she paced the waiting area like many of the politicians do. You have to be careful on QT if you’re an elected official. One slip, and you […]

The game is back on… and you have to ask why? Well I did NOT see that coming. Literally; as you may even remember, in an early column I dismissed the notion of Theresa May calling a snap election before 2020 as I could see no electoral advantage for her in doing so. What’s changed? […]

Truth and lies dance circles round each other – and part of us even admires the con men Aaron Banks; Nigel Farage; Katie Hopkins; Milo Yiannopoulos; Ann Coulter, among others, have all suffered a grave shock recently. Donald Trump has betrayed them. ‘Who stole my President? #Syriahoax’ Hopkins lamented on Twitter after Trump sent Tomahawk […]

Lies, fibs, untruths… in the end the truth about quitting the EU will be revealed Ever told a lie? Yeah, me too. Not for quite a while, though. Because I’ll tell you what I haven’t done; while I’ve told a few lies in my time, something I’ve never done is got away with telling a […]

Finding an answer to the cri de coeur: how the promise of a home away from home is vanishing for European students I heard the group in front of me speaking French. They were lost, so I stepped up and asked if I could help. They asked in very good English if I knew of […]

Baby Boomers must share the blame for Brexit and Trump, but the real rage comes from elsewhere The Baby Boomer Era of great American art shines through the exquisite American Dream exhibition now on at the British Museum. But it made me realise something… every time I see a picture of Woodstock (which is not […]

Triggered or not, Article 50 makes no difference to our fight So, it has come to pass. Our PM, guided as always by the voices in her head, has fired two proton torpedoes through the two-metre wide exhaust port of Article 50 and set off the chain reaction of bureaucratic and economic explosions which will, […]

Trump could have us in the palm of his hand – and that’s a bad place to be Theresa May could cause us to end up as the vassals of Donald Trump. And that’s very bad because he doesn’t build. He tears down. I know. My first immigration was from my hometown of Chicago to […]

As he prepares to head off for talks with Moscow, the Russians easily have the measure of Boris Johnson Sergei Lavrov – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images Russia right now is on a roll. Just imagine the scope of Russian reach in the world: the sheer number of things and people that have the stamp ‘Made […]

Whatever you think about Nigel Farage he is blockbuster television. But is the BBC enabling his ring-wing rhetoric? Getty – Credit: Archant We need to talk about Nigel. The last time it was announced that he was to appear on Question Time, an audible groan arose from the audience. His interrogation by Piers Morgan a […]

Piers Morgan and Milo Yiannopoulos share more than a love of attention: Society needs provocateurs, but it also needs us to see them for what they are What do Piers Morgan and the far-right pundit with a high-femme persona, the self-declared ‘dangerous faggot’ Milo Yiannopoulos, have in common – besides their masculinity? They both consider […]

Today is a big day for Mitch Benn; it’s his birthday. But he also has a message for those concerned by the presidency of ‘he who must not be named’: Stop clutching your pearls If you’re reading this article on its day of publication, it’s my birthday. On January 20, I turn 47 years old, […]

The American Dream belongs to every US citizen, but Donald Trump has denied it to many. As he is sworn in to office, Bonnie Greer remembers her earlier protest against another ‘Strong Man’ president I went to my first Washington protest in the Nixon era. The anti-Vietnam War organisation that was sponsoring us had organised […]

Donald Trump, like Barack Obama before him, is an actor and Meryl Streep played the role of the critic. Playwright Bonnie Greer on an unfolding American drama Piers Morgan ends his assessment of Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech with the following: ‘How much more effective would it have been had the most powerful woman in […]

Ok, we got Brexit, but at least Britain doesn’t have to put up with this ‘War on Christmas’ nonsense Merry Christmas.Yeah I said it. Merry Christmas. If Christmas is something you do, Merry Christmas, and if you do something else, Merry Whatever It Is You Do, and if you do nothing, be merry doing that. […]

Could the battle of left versus right be a thing of the past? So I’ve got a new MP; as I’m sure you will have heard, last week Zac Goldsmith managed to lose a majority of 25,000 in Richmond Park to be unseated by the endearingly gobsmacked-looking Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Olney. This has been […]

The Foreign Secretary thinks he’s re-creating Britain’s imperial past. In fact, he acts like he’s in ‘Allo ‘Allo, and is turning the UK into a Twilight Zone of bunting and marching bands ‘The biggest stitch-up since the Bayeux tapestry.’ That’s how the Right Honourable Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, currently Secretary of State for Foreign […]

The ‘post-truth’ era is upon us and we must fight to stop it becoming the norm, argues Bonnie Greer UK Independence Party (UKIP) leadership hopeful Raheem Kassam delivers a speech in Westminster, London, Friday, Oct. 28, 2016. Raheem Kassam delivered a campaign speech in the pub Friday, ahead of the expected upcoming party leadership vote. […]

So Jeremy Corbyn was, entirely un-unexpectedly, re-elected leader of the Labour Party and was feted (and immortalised in verse) by an adoring membership in my old hometown of Liverpool. Like most politically unaffiliated liberal intellectual smart-arses, I am unsure how I feel about this. The major objection one encounters to The Corbyn Project is his […]

Looking at this tweet which just went out the other day, I was reminded of that undoubtedly hot night just this past August in Mississippi, when Nigel Farage strode out on to the stage of a Donald Trump rally. https://twitter.com/prweekuknews/status/775295684178247680 This was one of modern politics’ most beautifully symmetrical moments. Here they were – the […]

The hottest book in America right now is a memoir by Silicon Valley executive J. D. Vance. It’s called: Hillbilly Elegy. It is the poignant and eye-opening memoir of a son of what are called in the US ‘white trash’; ‘rednecks’; ‘hillbillies’. They are the descendants of the Scotch/Irish-people who came to America as indentured […]