Satire

MITCH BENN on the annual controversy over Fairytale of New York. One of my favourite things about the Christmas season is the way that new Yuletide traditions are always evolving and emerging to take their place alongside the more ‘time-honoured’ ones. A recent addition to the canon of Christmas customs is the online game Whamageddon; as […]

So as I type this it’s the morning of December 1, and I’ve just done something I always do on this day each year; put my earphones in, hit up the Christmas songs playlist for the first time and hit ‘shuffle’. I think I’ve mentioned before that I operate a strict embargo system where Christmas […]

MITCH BENN on the delights and the dangers of indulging in nostalgia. One of the few industries to derive any sort of benefit from this flaming bin fire of a year has been podcasting: with swathes of the global population being confined indoors for much of the last few months (and with leisure options having […]

What the world craves now is some slightly more ‘precedented’ politics, says MITCH BENN. I don’t know about you, but I could really use some boredom right now. It’s pretty exhausting living in ‘unprecedented’ times, isn’t it? Every day something else unprecedented befalls us, whether it’s an unprecedented pandemic, an unprecedented level of chaos in the response […]

MITCH BENN on why he would almost be as bad as Boris Johnson. There’s a very useful expression which succinctly encapsulates the difference between the concepts of knowledge and wisdom. As is sometimes the case with such modern aphorisms, I’ve heard a few different versions of it, and I’m not sure with whom the phrase […]

Mitch Benn says Joe Biden’s altruism beats Donald Trump’s cynicism. I do realise that I’ve been talking about America a lot just recently (and that this paper is called The New European) but I feel I should cast at least a nervous nod across the pond this week as this will be the last column […]

I read that Dame Julie Walters, having recently turned 70 and survived a brush with cancer, has said that she’s considering retiring from acting, although she might be tempted back to do Mamma Mia 3 if it happens. What’s perhaps interesting about this announcement is the fact that it’s considered newsworthy at all… A woman […]

Like many of you, I’ve made some new discoveries over the course of this virus-beset year. I read, both on social and ‘regular’ media, of people finding new hobbies, new TV shows to box-binge, new podcasts to follow, new books to read. I myself have stumbled upon something rather wonderful, something I perhaps didn’t realise […]

Many years ago now, I was on a panel at a sceptics’ conference with, among other luminaries, professor Richard Dawkins (it’s on YouTube if you look for it). Towards the end of the discussion we were asked if there could be a version of ‘God’ which we could find easier to believe in than those […]

It was more a source of sadness than surprise in the USA last week when the indomitable but very frail and elderly Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, giving the Republican president and senate a chance to rush-confirm another right-wing judge onto the bench before the (extremely) imminent election. It was a source of some […]

I don’t know about you, but I rather miss being bored by British politics. For the last couple of decades, I’ve been obsessively following American political developments; in fact, for much of the early part of the period I paid rather more attention to events across the pond than to what was happening over here. […]

Donald Trump’s comments about the military show that he’s only interested in self-service, writes MITCH BENN. As I mentioned here last week, there is an ongoing deluge of tell-all books written by former associates (and indeed family members) of president Trump, detailing his various alleged excesses and misdeeds and timed, one can’t help but suppose, […]

MITCH BENN on how former TV personalities such as Boris Johnson and Donald Trump should be banned from becoming politicians. Okay, how’s this for a semi-serious suggestion: anyone who’s ever presented a TV game show should be barred for life from running for high office. What do you think? I’m sorry if this nips in […]

MITCH BENN reflects on his childhood television habits as streaming giants prepare to reboot old favourites. If the current (and yes it is still current, whatever the government says) pandemic has benefitted one industry more than any other, it has to be the burgeoning TV streaming sector. I’ve heard some people opine – probably in […]

After poking fun at the Conservative Party, MITCH BENN reports on the long road ahead for the Labour Party. Eagle-eyed (and elephant-brained) readers may recall that I spent all of last week’s column poking fun at the Conservative Party; specifically the way that occasional attempts by Tory politicians to look and act normal merely serve […]

MITCH BENN says he is disturbed by Conservative politicians attempting to act normal. You may have run into the term ‘Uncanny Valley’; it’s an expression primarily used in the fields of robotics and computer animation. It refers to that uniquely uncomfortable phenomenon whereby the more human something looks, the more disturbing the fact that it’s […]

MITCH BENN on how Boris Johnson’s decisions to tackle obesity are not helping. As is generally the case with what we will, for the lack of a more accurate term, call our present ‘government’, I find myself wondering if I’d be eyeing their newfound enthusiasm for tackling obesity with less suspicion if it were coming […]

MITCH BENN says loyalty is great, but it’s rarely an indicator of intelligence – and that’s the government’s problem. It’s good to know that as the country sinks into ever more viscous mires of torpor and despair, there’s still someone out there who can be guaranteed to raise a smile. I refer of course to […]

MITCH BENN on the tell-all memoir by Mary Trump which delves deep into the president’s pschye. I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression ‘I think, therefore I am’; it was first coined by the philosopher René Descartes in 1637 and it describes, succinctly, the limits placed upon human cognition and on the whole idea of […]

MITCH BENN sees 2020 as the perfect time for Sapphire and Steel to return – as something has definitely gone wrong with time. Okay so who remembers Sapphire & Steel? I’m guessing that most of you of a similar (increasingly dusty and obscure) vintage as myself will recall Sapphire & Steel being on prime time […]

MITCH BENN is dreading the end of lockdown. Here he wonders why so many other people aren’t. I have a small confession to make. In fact it might not even be that small; I can’t really tell. Certainly I’m nervous as I type this but here goes: I’m really dreading lockdown ending. I’m aware that […]

MITCH BENN on the Boris Johnson and Donald Trump supporters who can no longer defend their leader. It’s not often that I feel sympathy for Donald Trump. Actually I’d like to revise that statement; it’s never that I feel sympathy for Donald Trump. Whatever misfortunes he may fleetingly suffer he has invariably brought upon himself […]

The government no longer exists, writes MITCH BENN. In its place, we have a PR machine. I’ve come to something of a realisation in the last week or so: we do not, at this moment, have a government in the country. We have a prime minister, when he can be bothered to turn up; we […]

Statues and monuments have an inherent context, writes MITCH BENN. They honour and elevate people and it’s legitimate to take down those we no longer respect. Like most of you, with the exception of some readers in Bristol, I’ve learned more about the 17th-18th century slave trading magnate (and, not that this changes anything, civic […]

With the US leader likely to face a plethora of investigations and possible legal proceedings the moment he is no longer a sitting president, MITCH BENN wonders if Trump might use national crisis as an excuse to delay this November’s election. The trouble with populism is that it’s empty. It’s like a slick advertisement advertising […]

MITCH BENN on the Durham dash that has everybody talking. So anyway, one day I woke up and thought do you know, I’m feeling a bit wobbly; in fact I’m not sure my sense of balance is everything it should be. Rather than take any chances, I decided to test just how good my sense […]

MITCH BENN reflects on last weekend’s coronavirus lockdown protests in Hyde Park. For someone who’s ostensibly got nothing to do at the moment I seem to be weirdly busy. If anything I’ve been over-committing myself; I’ve actually had to back out of a couple of projects for which I’d volunteered in a burst of enthusiasm […]

While our TV news is still fairly responsible, according to MITCH BENN, our newspapers are even worse for bias and recklessness than their American counterparts. There’s a sort of numbness setting in now, isn’t there? A hollow, aching, weary resignation punctuated by periods of gnawing dread (and perhaps searing grief) when the virus’s crosshairs hover […]

MITCH BENN says it will be up to those of us left standing to ensure the lessons are learned, and it will involve fighting the very powerful to make sure it happens. First of all, many thanks to those of you who sent messages of support and condolence after last week’s column; Harry’s family send […]

MITCH BENN on a death which represents far more than a statistic. I met Harry McFarlane in the late summer of 2018, when my girlfriend Leslie – Harry’s granddaughter – and I called in at her old hometown of Prestwick on our way back from that year’s Edinburgh Festival. Harry was on good form that […]

MITCH BENN issues a musical call-to-arms to a country under the coronavirus curfew. Mitch Benn’s song and video urged people to stay in during coronavirus. Picture: Contributed – Credit: Archant On the one hand, envisaging into what sort of post-Covid world we might one day emerge, fat and blinking, seems like the most exquisite form […]

Shining humour on to dark times, comedian MITCH BENN says if this was The Walking Dead, he would skip ahead. First of all, I hope this finds you safe, well and still relatively sane. I know the waggish thing to do at the moment is to draw satirical comparison between our current plight and the […]