A pyre of burning hate in a pagan, polluted England - November 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - November 8th, 2015

Have you ever looked into the eyes of a hedgehog and known that it wanted to die? I have. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself. On Halloween, as we headed west in our Volkswagen Passat, I realised the most horrifying thing in the vicinity was our own family estate. With our car belching…

My name is Stewart Lee, and I’m an AAlcoholic - November 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - November 1st, 2015

Stewart Lee’s new memoir, AAlcoholic AAnonymous, is an honest, searingly brutal saga of a privileged and educated man in the midst of a relatively short-lived and ultimately self-induced torpor, who repays the world for his undeserved second chance at life with nothing but scorn and contempt. In this extract he writes – for the first…

Royal kisses on the cheeks of a flatulent superpower - October 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 25th, 2015

Last weekend, residents of our east London thoroughfare were told to remove their vehicles, clearing the route for an exceptionally wide and potentially hazardous load. Perhaps your mum, who I believe lives locally, had ordered a new pair of pants from Littlewoods? Rising on Tuesday to a thunderous ding dong, I saw “Free Tibet” protesters…

Now even Bake Off is being used to stir the pot on immigration - October 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 11th, 2015

On Tuesday, the unflappable Conservative party leadership hopeful Theresa May opined that high levels of immigration make it “impossible to build a cohesive society”. To be fair, so do massive social inequality, a lack of affordable housing and systematic corporate tax avoidance on an industrial scale by the government’s friends and backers. Ka-pow! Take that…

Where dreams come true: a fantasia on the theme of a liberal pope - October 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 4th, 2015

At first, I admit, I was angered by the distress that Pope Francis, the Richard Dawkins of Catholicism, had caused during this week’s capricious state visit to Disneyland, California. Though I have many religious friends, had Pope Francis been one of them, his obtuse behaviour in Disneyland would have tested the limits of our relationship.…

Jezza the jester? He’s here to satirise politics as we know it - September 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 20th, 2015

As you can imagine, it is a constant source of irritation to me that I am frequently ridiculed in academic circles for my supposed over-reliance on cultural comparisons drawn from the world of the Native American shaman clown. And yet, in the light of the ascension of Jeremy Corbyn, I find myself taking familiar soundings…