Gareth Roberts is a TV scriptwriter and novelist who has worked on Doctor Who and Coronation Street. He is the author of The Age of Stupid substack.
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Some 91 prisoners have been freed by mistake between April and October of this year, according to government figures released last week. Normally I’d be joining in the full-throated chorus of exasperation, as I do with the fresh clown shows that Labour thoughtfully provide every couple of days. But I’m a bit quieter about this
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After its Gotterdämerung week, capped by the ‘sorry not sorry’ resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, it didn’t take long for the BBC and its supporters to start flinging mud. You are political; we are not. We are only being nice; you have mounted a ‘right-wing coup’. I’m trying to imagine what a Daily
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Early morning surprises can be lovely, but not when they involve Rachel Reeves. Probably the last thing anybody wants to see as they wipe the sand from their eyes is the Chancellor looming over them. The sudden, unexpected appearance of Reeves at cock crow this morning – ‘My office, first thing, sharp!’ – felt like
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What imaginary country does Labour’s new deputy leader, Lucy Powell, live in? When Powell was crowned as the official thorn-in-the-side of Keir Starmer – as if he needed one – this weekend, she painted a picture of a Britain frustrated at the slow pace of change that Labour is delivering. It’s always enjoyable hearing about
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What do the following things have in common? The ‘Safety Advisory Group’ of Birmingham City Council banning the sale of away tickets to fans of an Israeli football team. The refusal of police to arrest ‘pro-Palestinian’ marchers calling to ‘globalise the intifada’ right in front of them. The reluctance of politicians to implement the law
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The Greens are having quite a moment. Since the anointing of Zack Polanski as leader of the party, there’s been a 45 per cent increase in the membership, which is now up to about a hundred thousand believers. The party is also doing very well, comparatively speaking, in opinion polling, reaching about 15 per cent,
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The State of California v. OJ Simpson, Oscar Wilde v. the Marquess of Queensberry, Galileo before the Inquisition… now our age will be able to add its own entry to the annals of famed legal proceedings. Because Paddington is suing Spitting Image. It is the barmiest news story of late against fierce competition. The Telegraph
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Among the 488 arrests at the weekend at what the media is still pleased to call ‘pro-Palestine demonstrations’ were many, going by the video and photographic evidence, who were considerably beyond their first flush of youth. Grey hair and wrinkles abounded – one of the decrepit demonstrators was pictured dressed in a charming garment juxtaposing
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The G-A-Y Bar in Soho’s Old Compton Street is to close for good this weekend. It opened in the mid-1990s, spinning off from the Saturday club night of the same name at the nearby Astoria (itself long gone, thanks to Crossrail). Entrepreneur Jeremy Joseph, who has run the ‘brand’ since its inception, posted the news
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The Labour conference, given the government’s current levels of popularity – somewhere about the same rung occupied by, say, galloping dysentery or Huw Edwards – was always going to be a macabre spectacle. But there’s an aspect to this Grand Guignol that I wasn’t expecting; the unpleasant sight of various members of the cabinet vying,
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In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a peculiar phenomenon has re-emerged: the casket caveat. Instead of simply condemning the dreadful murder of a young man, many eulogies to Kirk are laced with qualifications. Clods of faint praise scattered over a fresh grave. ‘It’s regrettable that he was shot, no matter how much of a
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I was 20, and in the recovery room of my local hospital, coming round from general anaesthetic after minor surgery. My mind was lost wherever our minds go in such conditions, steering itself gently back into its familiar harbour. But then, suddenly – or as suddenly as anything can be when you’re in that numbed
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There’s a certain thrill in saying, ‘I told you so.’ We all relish the moment when our warnings are vindicated, when the world finally catches up with our foresight. But this time, I genuinely take no pleasure in it. I said Britain would begin to crack, and now it is. I’m exhausted by those who,
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They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I have a better serving suggestion. How about revenge plated up simmering, every single day, again and again, inescapable and eternal? For surely that is the intended outcome of Emily Thornberry’s plan to – maybe, possibly – run for the position of deputy leader of
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Gay Times, the longstanding monthly magazine formerly aimed at gay men – but now repurposed as an ‘LGBTQ+’ title – is in trouble: it has lost 80 per cent of its advertisers in the last year, and £5 million in advertising revenue as a result. ‘Good old-fashioned discrimination’ is to blame, according to its chief
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51 min listen
First: Reform is naff – and that’s why people like it Gareth Roberts warns this week that ‘the Overton window is shifting’ but in a very unexpected way. Nigel Farage is ahead in the polls – not only because his party is ‘bracingly right-wing’, but ‘because Reform is camp’. Farage offers what Britain wants: ‘a
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It’s a very serious and rancorous time in Britain. Social strife is simmering. The asylum system is at breaking point. The lines on the economics graphs are all going in unsettling directions – the ones you’d prefer to see going down are going up, and vice versa. And inevitably the Overton window is shifting. Though
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I’ve always been quite fond of Rylan Clark. No, that isn’t quite true – when his terrifyingly toothsome grin appeared for the very first time on TV, as a contestant on The X Factor back in 2012, I did grimace at this apparently air-headed Katie Price-meets-General-Zod wannabe. As often happens with reality TV, despite what
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If I had to summarise, in a word, the mood of the nation in 2025, I’d probably plump for fraught. There is something in the air that I can’t quite recall having sniffed before, the kind of crackle that might be quite exciting or intriguing if you were standing a little bit further back from
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Two shirts were in the news at the weekend, both worn by politicians. In the light blue corner, we had Nigel Farage launching his personally branded football strip top – in Reform colours, with the name Farage and the number 10, a bargain at £39.99 (£99.99 if you want it signed by the man himself).
