Opinion

The zealots who allow the Brexit fiasco to happen are diminishing the UK inch by inch, day by day. More than twenty years ago, when I became a citizen, there was no citizenship test. That means that there was no official notion of what being ‘British’ was. Not in the sense of what being American […]

Really Theresa May? Consensus? With the ‘saboteurs’, the ‘enemies of the people’? Say what you like about George Orwell, but the man was even-handed in his scorn for political thuggery: having been shot in the throat while fighting as a volunteer against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War, he then came home and wrote […]

Prime Minister Theresa May has become a much diminished figure on the world stage Whether you care for Theresa May or not, the sight right now of the PM of Great Britain on the world stage should give none of us pleasure. She has become a diminished figure. Next to the Queen she represents the […]

Both will be as bad as the other. Julia Hartley-Brewer is a nice person. There, I said it. No, really; I’ve worked with her a few times over the years on various radio things (although last time we actually conversed on Twitter she insisted she had no idea who I was, which is entirely possible) […]

Everyone is buying Europe just when Britain is selling La construction européenne est ‘fragilisée par la prolifération bureaucratique’ et ‘le scepticisme croissant qui en découle’. The European construction is ‘weakened by bureaucratic proliferation’ and ‘the growing scepticism that ensues’, Emmanuel Macron announced at his gathering of legislators at Versailles. Summoning what could only be described […]

A poignant review of artist Khadija Saye who was among the victims of the Grenfell tragedy Khadija Saye, Sothiou 2017 – Credit: Archant The photographic prints of Khadija Saye have what can best be described as a kind of powerfully transgressive, tumultuous quiet. This is mixed with something spiritual, almost ritualistic. The Crowned explores the […]

Trump is the person with no credentials who talks back to the PhDs, and the big journalists, and the pollsters who just don’t get it. He’s Mr Tell-It-Like-It-Is. Forget about ‘Left’ and ‘Right’. It’s all about ‘Kaboom!’ Take the last US Presidential election . How could Donald Trump, born a millionaire who then became a […]

Less than two weeks after blowing £130 million on an election which served nobody’s interest but theirs, the Tories somehow laid hands on another BILLION. When you’ve been in the entertainment business since your early 20s (and your early 20s are a dim memory receding even more quickly than your hairline) you never know what […]

Communities must not become havens for the international super-rich who pay next to no tax In the US, housing estates are known as housing projects. ‘Projects’ for short. If you lived in the ‘projects’, you were considered to be one of the losers of the American Dream; the one who somehow (and it had to […]

You can’t have a negotiation when you have literally nothing the other side wants It’s become clear over the course of the last twelve months (has it really only been a year? The pre-Brexit era seems like some dimly remembered Halcyon Age these days) that much as there are people who have no idea how […]

The Conservatives have been exposed as the opportunistic self-serving incompetents that they are. Like many Corbyn-sceptics I’ve been bombarded with messages this last week demanding I issue some sort of grovelling apology for having said Jeremy Corbyn would lose the election. There’s one thing I feel I should point out in my defence: Jeremy Corbyn […]

None of us want this great nation to be laughed at … But that is what is happening Let’s be clear: The Conservative and Unionist Party lost the 2017 snap General Election. You’d have to be a corpse – and a certified one – not to win for the Conservatives in the constituency where I […]

What better persons to aid and abet that than the Alpha and the Omega of British populism on US television: Nigel Farage and Katie Hopkins. One day I happened to stumble on Fox & Friends, Fox News’ breakfast show, where the President of the United States gets most of his information. The show has three […]

If the Vice President and a majority of either Congress or the Senate decide that the President is no longer fit for duty, he’s out. I sometimes feel a little semi-detached from my own emotions. Like I’m observing everything which happens to me – and moreover, how I feel about it – at a remove. […]

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, […]