My naughty list

In the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge, here, in no particular order, are my current irritants:

• Paddy Ashdown

• Lady (Shami) Chakrabarti of Kennington

• First Minister Nicola Sturrrgeon

• Brussels grands fromages Michel Barnier, Guy Verhofstadt and Monsieur Tipsy Jean-Claude Juncker

• Three out of five Newsnight discussions

• Dance judge Len Goodman (those teeth are whistling again, Len)

• Donald Trump’s hand gestures

• Sir Philip Green

• Lady Green and that dog of hers

• Nicky Morgan

• Business Secretary Greg Clark, the cabinet’s fruity-voiced answer to Clifford the Listerine dragon

• Benedict Cumberbatch

• Caitlin Moran

• The National Secular Society

• Ukip braggart Raheem Kassam

• Diane Abbott, particularly when she closes her eyes while speaking

• Advertising man Sir Martin ‘£43 million a year’ Sorrell

• Anti-press windbag Evan Harris

• Mumsnet

• Hugh Grant

• Labour chief whip Nick Brown

• Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood

• Telly scientist Prof Brian Cox

• Gary Lineker

• James Purnell, the former Labour culture secretary who now poses as a non-partisan BBC radio boss

• Emily Thornberry QC MP

• Political aide Rohan Silva, who ‘became too big for No. 10’ — now a ‘techpreneur’

• Cara Delevingne and her eyebrows

• Sir Richard Branson

• Politician manqué Mark Carney

• You probably won’t have heard of her and I wish I never had — Scots Nat MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

• Complete and utter lawyer Charlie Falconer

• BBC greenhouse gasbag Roger Harrabin

• Susie Orbach

• Sir Elton John and David Furnish

• Know-all Stephen Hawking

• Dog-throttling Europhile Michael Heseltine

• The Institute for Government

• Nick Clegg

• Jamie Oliver

• Sandi Toksvig

• Jimmy Carr’s laugh

• The Archers Omnibus theme tune

• Owen Smith MP

• Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders

• The RSPCA

• Eagle twins Angela and Maria

• Soon-to-depart US ambassador Matthew Barzun

• Editorial columns in the Church Times

• Jonathan Ross

• Simon bloody Schama

• Civil Service shop steward Lord (Gus) O’Donnell

• Facebook’s British boss Lady Mendelsohn, who gave a wonderfully bad speech at the CBI conference

• Brian May

• ‘Train managers’, ‘next station stops’ and ‘arriving into’

• Roland Rudd

• Architect Richard Rogers

• Gender-bending on stage

• Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy

• Lady Hale, particularly when she dresses up in her Supreme Court robes and that squashed hat

• ‘Evidence-based’

• Celery

• Boaty McBoatface

• Screeny McScreenface on Robert Peston’s Sunday ITV show

• Rolls-Royce boss Warren East

• The words ‘“Thought for the Day” is presented by...