Satire

Let’s not forget, peace in Europe is not a natural state. We have to fight for it, says MITCH BENN I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the archive footage of the First World War trenches ‘restored’ by filmmaker Peter Jackson for his new documentary They Shall Not Grow Old. I put quotes around […]

Politics of hate will fall and the politics of hope will endure, writes MITCH BENN. It’s been another one of those weeks in which clinging to the positive – indeed just finding the positive – has seemed like a Herculean labour. And don’t come to me expecting zingers about the (thankfully ineptly-executed) mail bomb campaign […]

The People’s Vote March for the Future proves resistance is working, argues Mitch Benn. Well, that was a thing. I took part in the People’s Vote March for the Future in London on Saturday and, a quick mental number-crunch confirms, there’s a reasonable statistical probability that you did too. I’ve seen the jaw-dropping aerial shots […]

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. […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

MITCH BENN assesses whether Boris’ fixation has moved from Churchill to Bannon. Two thoughts on the topic of freedom of speech: 1. Boris Johnson is perfectly within his rights to say whatever he wants about burqas. 2. The rest of us are perfectly within our rights to call Boris Johnson a reckless, shameless attention-craving, trouble-stirring, […]

Steve Anglesey looks at online reaction as Britain’s food shops prepare for a no-deal Brexit. Thank goodness for the earlier football transfer deadline! This self-inflicted wound, which disadvantages English teams while Europeans can still trade freely, has provided welcome relief from the problems of Brexit. But before we were obsessed with the transfer market, we […]

STEVE ANGLESEY introduces the drink Leavers will cheer… until they read the bottle Not to everyone’s taste, but intoxicating to some and the cause of many headaches and much regret later on. It seems like whiskey and Brexit were made for each other. So thirsty Leavers will no doubt be cheering the arrival of Brexit […]

Comedian MITCH BENN looks forward to how we can all spend our first summer after leaving the EU Hi! I hope you’re all enjoying your final pre-Brexit summer! Oh, were you trying not to think about that? Yeah, me too. Sorry. Well, chin up! Brexit isn’t the end of the world! Not LITERALLY, anyway. Economically […]

Piers Morgan is mistaken, we’re not jealous about his interview with Donald Trump, it’s cozying up with the president which worries us, writes Mitch Benn. OK; I’m going to do something now which, I suspect, many of you may not entirely approve of. I’m going to give Piers Morgan the benefit of the doubt. In […]

Why we don’t have to drive over the cliff like Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon. Ok, time out. Cool your boots. Easy, tiger. Whoa there. Hang fire. Take five. Hold your horses. Phrase it any damn way you want to but please, for the love of whatever it is you pray to, just STOP. ENOUGH. […]

The People’s Vote march received just the kind of snarky criticism we have all come to expect, says MITCH BENN. Like many of you in body and all of you in spirit, I imagine, I spent Saturday last taking part in what became known as the People’s Vote March, and have the badly sunburnt ever-expanding […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and the losers (because their are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 LIAM FOX The international trade secretary celebrated ‘Thank A Teacher’ day with a video praising his old schoolmistress, Patsy Watt. Created with all the care and attention for which Liam Fox is […]

As the World Cup kicks off in Russia, MITCH BENN is inspired by David Beckham’s never-give-up attitude to his England career. The World Cup is upon us again; I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t seem to be capturing the public’s imagination quite so inescapably as on previous occasions. Perhaps the genial madness attending […]

However much hardship a straight white guy may have to deal with, there are whole worlds of hardship he’ll never experience, says MITCH BENN. Something which most outwardly progessive-thinking people can generally be expected to agree upon is the principle of the level playing field. This is, of course, the idea that a person should […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 NIGEL FARAGE The nicotine-stained man-frog managed to give Fox News a pre-royal wedding tour of Westminster without a) correcting host Ainsley Earhardt when she introduced him as ‘basically royalty… you’re the man responsible […]

The American obsession with guns fails to stop dangerous obsessions with fantasies, says MITCH BENN. Something has to change to stop those fantasies becoming reality. I’m about to make what may or may not be a startling admission. See what you think. I had, all things considered, a pretty happy time at school. I guess […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks the losers and the losers – because there are no winners – from another week on Planet Brexit STRIPPER ‘KIPPERS A plotline worthy of EastEnders in the East Anglian resort of Great Yarmouth, where the sole remaining UKIP councillor has defected after claiming the party’s home affairs spokesman said his partner looked […]

Comedian, musician and writer Mitch Benn discusses the similarities between Avenger’s character Thanos, and a certain MP. I don’t know what your favourite thing is about this newspaper. Perhaps it’s the publication’s mere existence, a printed voice of sanity in the maelstrom of blimpish Brexit lunacy which otherwise dominates the newsstands. Perhaps it’s the cast […]

Young men are railing against the unfairness of the womenfolk of the world’s refusal to have sex with them. MITCH BENN sends them a public message. I’ve been thinking, as it would appear have quite a few columnists of late, about the whole ‘incel’ thing. Now ‘incel’, if you are fortunate enough to have avoided […]

In the fallout of Michelle Wolf’s set at the White House correspondent’s dinner Mitch Benn explores the potholes of a misunderstood joke. It’s quite the week to be in the comedy business, and in particular the political comedy business. The fall out from Michelle Wolf’s set at the White House correspondents’ dinner continues to rain […]

In this week’s column, Mitch Benn explores who should be held accountable for the Windrush scandal. One of my favourite things about this job is that it’s never really been specified to me precisely what this job is. I know that I attracted the attention of the good folk here at New European Towers soon […]

So. Yeah. Easter. Bit of a weird one. For all that Easter is in many ways the direct counterpart festival to Christmas, the yin to Yuletide’s yang, as it were, it’s always been very much the junior partner. It’s just not as big a deal, for all that in theological terms the two festivals ‘bookend’ […]

It is time to face the fact that Washington’s ‘special relationship’ is now with Moscow, writes MITCH BENN. There’s an inherent risk in writing on the topic of the many and varied scandals and intrigues which currently beset the Trump administration; that is, by the time you publish something, it is a pretty safe bet […]

MITCH BENN examines tweets from an organisation that claims to be returning conservatism to the grassroots A tweet appeared a few days ago from the group Activate UK; this organisation describes its objective in its Twitter ‘bio’ as ‘Creating a united platform for young conservatives and returning power to the grassroots’. Leaving aside the slightly […]

MITCH BENN has taken the words of David Davis to heart and is now ready for dystopia. Like, I imagine, a lot of you, I’ve been spending this week stocking up on crossbow bolts, carefully removing one sleeve from my old black leather bike jacket, and fitting my Toyota Aygo’s engine with an illegal nitrous […]