Look at the Tories – scotch egg all over their faces - December 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - December 6th, 2020

On Wednesday morning, on Times Radio, the terminally bewildered health secretary, Matt Handcock, claimed unchallenged that our imminent departure from the EU meant the Covid vaccine had been approved more quickly. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency quickly clarified we had completed the process using existing provisions of EU law. If the Brexit-Covid government…

Since we’re talking fantasy Brexit deals… - October 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 25th, 2020

In 1981, tarnished by a legacy of nuclear embarrassments, the leaky Cumbrian atomic power plant Windscale was rebranded as Sellafield and the problems of public perception simply melted away, like hot uranium seeping into a water table. Likewise, we are no longer about to embrace a similarly contaminated no-deal Brexit. We are instead welcoming a…

What’s the story with Britpop and Covid denial? - September 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 20th, 2020

On Monday, the Oasis pop star Noel Gallagher announced his suspicion of masks: “If I get the virus it’s on me, it’s not on anyone else… it’s a piss-take,” declared the People’s Virologist. “There’s no need for it… They’re pointless.” The previous week, in a punctuation-resistant statement Auto-Tuned into near coherence, former Stone Roses singer…

Never mind Extinction Rebellion, let’s consider Boris Johnson’s charge sheet - September 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 13th, 2020

My old university friend, the American geographer William Dyer, accepted my Skype call at a research station on the pebble shores of the Antarctic Sound. Once, it would have been too remote to receive messages and yet here I was, laughing at the Sub Pop Records baseball cap that fixed him temporally and culturally. Will…

Now Boris Johnson is talking through his Tugendhat - May 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - May 17th, 2020

Stay alert! On Twitter, Tom Tugendhat, The Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, is talking. There! He is thanking the prime minister for his “very clear message”. Tom Tugendhat! On Twitter! Now! He is enjoying the sheer coral sea clarity of the prime minister’s Sunday statement, like sunlight shining through spring water in Waterford crystal!…

Enter Baby Boris, or to give him his full name… - May 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - May 10th, 2020

Few British prime ministers have guarded their privacy as admirably as Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Cake Bumboys Vampires Haircut Wall-Spaffer Spunk-Burster Fuck-Business Fuck-the-Families Get-Off-My-Fucking-Laptop Girly-Swot Big-Girl’s-Blouse Chicken-frit Hulk-Smash Noseringed-Crusties Death-Humbug Technology-Lessons Surrender-Bullshit French-Turds Dog-Whistle Get-Stuffed FactcheckUK@CCHQ 88%-lies Get-Brexit-Done Bung-a-Bob-for-Big-Ben’s-Bongs Cocaine-Event Spiritual-Worth Three-Men-and-a-Dog Whatever-It-Takes I-Shook-Hands-With-Everyone Herd-Immunity I-Want-to-Thank-Po-Ling Squash-the-Sombrero Johnson. We do not even know exactly how…