When I tell people I write parliamentary sketches, they often look a bit blank. Even political people can be confused – one person I met at Labour party conference thought I might be like a courtroom artist. But sketchwriting has a long tradition in Britain. It’s a way of writing about what’s going on that aims to convey how events felt, as well as what happened. Very often in politics, events feel ridiculous, and so sketches tend to have quite a few jokes. If you still can’t imagine what I mean, below are my recent sketches for The Critic magazine.
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Was Boris Johnson’s Cabinet made up of “useless fuckpigs”? You may have views on the matter. Or you may be offended by the very question, in which case this sketch, which deals with Dominic Cummings’…
“I cannot remember the substance.” Martin Reynolds, former Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, was drawing a blank. He was five minutes into several hours of evidence before the Covid…
Rishi Sunak rose for prime minister’s questions on an auspicious day. It was his first anniversary in office and, as it happens, St Crispin’s Day, made famous by Shakespeare as the moment that an…
It’s a year since Rishi Sunak swept into Downing Street, promising to be less of an obvious disaster than Liz Truss. In this essential Critic Deep Dive, our political team takes you inside Downing…
“Can I thank the leader of the opposition for his support and his constructive comments?” Rishi Sunak said, after Keir Starmer has said his piece on the Middle East crisis. In a country that seems…
Wednesday in Parliament began, at least for Conservative MPs, on a jolly note. They were cheered by the arrival on their benches of Lisa Cameron, who has crossed the floor from the Scottish National…
There were under a dozen Conservative MPs in place on Tuesday afternoon as Schools Minister Nick Gibb rose to discuss the latest mess at the Department for Education. Kit Malthouse…
“There are complexities,” Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons. He was talking about the crisis in Gaza, so this was something of an understatement. The Commons had returned from its epic conference…
Keir Starmer had been on the stage less than a minute when the protester joined him. We had been treated before his arrival to a video introducing us to Action Keir. Action Keir can kick a football!
Half an hour before Rachel Reeves was due to speak at Labour conference, the stewards in the vast hall were busy guiding people to seats. Diplomats here, journalists there…
“As a pragmatist, I want a pragmatic plan,” Keir Starmer was telling Victoria Derbyshire in what felt like the third hour of his start-of-conference BBC sit-down chat. Every ball bowled at him was…
“He is incapable of standing up and fighting,” Penny Mordaunt said as she warmed up the crowd for Rishi Sunak on the final day of the Conservative conference. “He doesn’t believe in anything. He doesn’…
There is no more vital tradition in our democracy than the brazen leadership bid disguised as a conference speech. Labour has had a few, of course, but the art has always been best performed by the…
“We all believe the same thing,” Danny Kruger told Tory activists in an upstairs room in Manchester. From anyone else, speaking at the most fractious Conservative conference in decades…
You wouldn’t mind playing poker against Rishi Sunak. He’s not a Theresa May, whose face would broadcast her horror as the dealer turned over a two rather than an ace, but he’s not impossible to read…
There was an air of desperation in Rishi Sunak’s voice as he began to address the nation on Wednesday. Earlier in the week, the idea had been that he would deliver this speech on Friday…
The House of Commons having been back from its summer holidays for nearly two and a half weeks, it rose on Tuesday afternoon for a three-an- a-half-week break. The official reason for this is the need…
Publicly shamed, denounced in the press, defended only by cranks on Twitter and fringe TV channels, it was time to get on stage and put the case for the defence. Everything you’d heard in the…
Up in the public gallery, the comedian Charlie Brooker looked down on the House of Commons. His TV series Black Mirror asks viewers to imagine dystopian near-futures with characters trapped in living…