The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the coalition plays silly burgers - June 2013 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - June 30th, 2013

George Osborne chewed his pencil nervously. It tasted funny. He worried where it had been. But his fellow Bullingdon boy Nat Rothschild had assured him he had burned all those pencils. Maybe this one had escaped the inferno. It was Wednesday evening. Our conscience-stricken chancellor required sustenance. Lashed by the twin madames of ethics and…

Gobbling pate allowed a nation to scoff at the legacy of Thatcherism - April 2013 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 20th, 2013

During Margaret Thatcher’s funeral on Wednesday, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres, the bishop of London, boasted to all and sundry of how the late prime minister had once physically restrained him when he lunged at some pulverised ducks’ breasts. He had intended to cram into his mouth. Fatty duck pâté, it transpired, was a forbidden…

Where are all the right-wing stand-ups? - April 2013 The New Statesman - By Stewart Lee - April 16th, 2013

Caroline Raphael, BBC Radio 4’s commissioning editor for comedy, recently confessed to difficulty in finding unashamedly right-wing comedians to balance the left-wingers on her shows. I know about stand-up only, not about comedy in general, but in my experience there aren’t really any right-wing stand-up comedians who would fit Raphael’s brief. You can’t programme something…

Margaret Thatcher is dead. But someone has reinvented her life - April 2013 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 14th, 2013

Baroness Margaret Thatcher died on Monday. Or so they say. Whenever an important figure passes away, the usual marijuana-muddled conspiracy quacks are quick to suggest they faked their own death. But the demise of Baroness Margaret Thatcher has been accepted without question, even by friends of mine who love Nordic jazz fusion, live on houseboats,…

I’ve seen Jesus and thanks to Iain Duncan Smith She’s in a bad way - April 2013 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - April 7th, 2013

Over the Easter weekend, I myself was deservedly one of a party of important contemporary artists invited by Danny Boyle to a research project buried beneath the Chipping Norton triangle. Our task was to use our visionary gifts to respond creatively to a government-initiated search not for the “God particle”, but for God himself. Donning…

Farewell, BBC TV Centre. You were Britain’s very own Disneyland - March 2013 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - March 31st, 2013

Last week I attended the ceremonial destruction of BBC TV Centre, which was enthusiastically blown to pieces in a controlled nuclear explosion by a delighted David Cameron. With one hand on the detonator and the other jiggling in his pocket, David Cameron was flanked by representatives of the principal faith groups, as well as leading…