As a newcomer to TNE, the first article of yours I have ever read is the Shit List. Surprising myself, I find that I’m entirely in agreement.
I have a few disappointments, not with any of the selections but that some of those nominated – for whom I once had respect – have justified their inclusion on the list. I cheered Owen Jones (#18) for eviscerating Liz Truss, but he now spouts nonsense. While hating Morrissey’s (#19) dreary music, I used to agree with some of his politics. Neil Oliver (#34) was a proper historian until conspiracist maggots ate his brain.
The absurd and despicable hypocrite Nigel Farage has earned #1 spot for “standing up for farmers” when the Brexit he promoted has been the worst plague on British agriculture – and the whole nation – in our history. One question I have is: only 50?
Paul Carter Block
They might all just squeeze on an inflatable dinghy; we can launch them off Land’s End, see how far they get.
Lisa Wrake
It seems to me cowardly to produce such a list without producing a Hit List of laudable people. I briefly gave up the TNE because of the Shit List last year. There is so much I like about the paper that I continue to take it, especially Peter Trudgill and Carousel.
Mary Quarmby
I wouldn’t wish to displace anyone on your Shit List 2024, so how about adding a subs’ bench to enable the inclusion of some more people we could definitely do without. I nominate Tzipi Hotovely, current Israeli ambassador to the UK, to be joined by the former IEA think tanker, the gun-loving, Question Time season ticket holder Kate Andrews – both of them non-Brits who should feature in any mass deportation exercise.
Ed Lewis
Potters Bar, Herts
Where’s Brendan O’Neill?
Alan Franklin
Great list, but missing Charlie Windsor and Billy Middleton-Windsor for their cash-grabbing Duchies.
Nigel Roberts
It’s high time you did a European Shit List. This is far too parochial.
Mark Scott
Surely it is unfair to include Justin Welby in such a rogues’ gallery as your Shit List? He oversaw the introduction of female bishops and the blessing of same-sex couples, opposed the Rwanda policies of the Tory government, and managed to hold together the very disparate factions of Anglicanism outside the UK. His outstanding sin was one of omission, for which he has paid the price.
George Emerson
To me, Justin Welby seemed to be generally making a good fist of a very difficult job. Clearly the greatest care has to be taken to prevent abuses of the Smyth type, but my experience of the Church during Welby’s tenure is that it has been very focused on that.
Therefore I was glad to read Alastair Campbell’s complimentary remarks in TNE #413 about Welby, and unhappy to see in the same issue the headline given to Patience Wheatcroft’s article – “The devastating failure of Justin Welby”. It is absurd to blame him for the continued decline in church attendance, and the church for its “failure to do anything significant to confront those problems itself” of child poverty and immigration.
What could it possibly do beyond speaking out about them, which is exactly what Justin Welby did?
James Dunnett
London N1
I cannot contest your choice of selection for recipient of the TNE Shit of the Year 2024 Award, but I do take issue with your also identifying Nigel Farage as “owner of the most offensive pair of trousers ever seen in Whitehall” (“startling banana-yellow”), because I assert prior title to the subsidiary claim – as evidenced by the attached pic of self at the 2024 Rejoin March on September 28. I suspect Nigel must’ve been there too, and thought “now there’s a man with taste”.
Simon Flett
Norwich, Norfolk
A deserved Shit List winner at No 1. Nigel Farage is the ultimate stain on Britain.
Simon Thom
Praise before death
Re: Alastair Campbell’s Diary (TNE #414). He writes of John Prescott: “It was really nice to know those same things had been said to him when he was still alive.”
A friend with a terminal illness wanted to be with his many friends and relatives at a sort of “pre-funeral gathering”. So it was organised. He was there, people said what they wanted to say to him and he graciously listened and sometimes replied. We loved it, he loved it. I can recommend it. He died soon afterwards.
James Walker
In all the tributes to John Prescott since he died, his love of jazz has been mentioned. But there has been no mention that Ken Clarke on the Tory benches shared that love, and after the division bell they would often share a taxi to Ronnie Scott’s. I bet some taxi drivers overheard some interesting conversations.
Talking of Ken Clarke, here’s an amusing story for you. He was a postgraduate when I was an undergraduate at Cambridge, and had rooms just down the corridor from me. During the “great freeze” of 1962-63, Ken kept the only two gas appliances in his room, the gas fire and the single gas ring to cook on, burning all winter long.
When he got his quarterly bill from British Gas, he rang them up and said “In order to use the amount of gas you’ve billed me for, I would have had to keep my two appliances alight day and night for the entire quarter”. British Gas responded saying that they agreed with his calculation, and that there must have been some mistake on their part, and halved the bill.
Tim Fell
Pay farmers fairly
In his column on farming, Josh Barrie writes “but it does appear that farmers are in line to bear a heftier load than most, relatively speaking.”
By still paying less than literally every other set of people in the country? They bear exactly the least hefty load!
There are farmers who should not be caught up in these tax changes, which will be detrimental for them. It is also extremely sad that people who might have worked the land for hundreds of years might have to sell their farm land.
This is, however, not the fault of Labour’s change in tax policy. It is the fault of consumers, government policy around subsidies, and of course, supermarkets and food producers.
Farmers should pay inheritance tax, they have no God-given right to pass down millions of pounds to their children for free when no one else can. But they should clearly be paid sufficiently such that they can afford to pay a tax on their, by any reasonable measure, incredible wealth.
James Reid
The government erred in two ways:
1) They should have raised the inheritance tax on farm land to 40% like everyone else. The halfway house at 20% means that for the Dysons and Clarksons of the world, land is still the best tax avoidance scheme and artificially increases land values;
2) The exemption threshold for genuine small family farms should be higher if we want those entities to continue to exist to produce our food.
Peter Holpin
The tax is justified. Farmers get a bad deal from food processors and supermarkets, but they are also their own worst enemy. Many voted for Brexit and I can’t sympathise with anyone who did.
Russell Sage
We need new ideas
Re: James Ball’s “Rise of the ‘Fuck You’ Party”. The problem with modern politics is that it becomes Populist v Non-Populist, Trump v Not Trump and so on. There is a need for some new ideas in the “Not Trump” space.
Personally – though it reflects my outlook – I would like to see the alternative having a really proper liberal option. A liberalism with a serious sense of rights and also responsibilities.
I would say it maybe does mean looking at some aspects of the state – which is too big. Being outward-looking needs to be a really big thing.
A “super-empath” culture is also something that needs to be built up as a political thought in countering the sociopathic culture that is such a big part of what Trump are co are about.
Ronald Eccles
Cultural voice
Mina Mazzini, as hymned by Sophia Deboick in TNE #414, is a great woman with a great voice. Thanks for spreading European culture in an Anglo-Saxon way.
Raffaele Di Manno
Thank you for this article. I have been listening to Mina’s music ever since reading it, having never heard of her before. This sort of article is why I’m a New European subscriber.
Andrew Robinson
Platform alteration
I empathised with Marie Le Conte’s article on leaving Twitter, being rather obsessive myself. She is right, being on any platform constantly posting and expecting instant gratification is really no way to live. It will only get worse if people don’t take control and put their phones away.
Judith A Daniels
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
