Mark Steel

Profile:

Full name: Mark Steel

Area of interest: Society, Politics, Current affairs, Social justice

Journals/Organisation: The Independent

Email: info@marksteelinfo.com

Personal website: http://www.marksteelinfo.com

Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel

Blog: Mark Steel's Blog

Representation:

Networks: https://twitter.com/#!/mrmarksteel

Biography:

Legal Aid: Well, they are called the wheels of justice... - If a case revolves around an M6 bottleneck, who better to hire than Eddie Stobart? - 14th June
Miliband makes his play: do everything the same - It’s daft enough that the Tories are scared of Labour; but Labour is scared of itself, too - 7th June
Next we’ll be saying the poor don’t need to eat - Benefit cuts made Kenny depend on food banks. It’s just take take take with some people, isn’t it? - 31st May
What, let gays get married? We must be bonkers - This is the latest of a long line of things we can no longer enjoy because gays are allowed to do them as well. Why bother buying food when lesbian couples can too? - 23rd May
Gove’s lesson: spare the comma, spoil the child - Every parent cherishes those oh-so-fleeting times, when their child sits up eagerly in bed squealing “Please can you explain the uses of a colon again. PLEEEEASE.” - 17th May
Have you heard? The immigrants ruined Britain - Of all those cockle-pickers who brought the banking system to its knees, not one has voluntarily given back their knighthood. At last the Government is taking action - 10th May
Look on the bright side: There’s a roaring heroin trade in Afghanistan, and it's all thanks to us - It just goes to show that, even in the most difficult circumstances, with a popular product and thoughtful marketing, there are always business opportunities - 3rd May
If every Boston marathon runner had a gun, they’d be safe, right? - This is the logic of the US gun lobby, although it might be tricky with sprint races, as every runner would instinctively fire on the poor sod who fired the starting gun - 26th April
Thatcher's funeral is over. Can we go back to normal now, please? - It’s essential for the nation that we quickly revert to our normal madness levels. Somehow we became so doolally last week we banned a song from The Wizard of Oz - 19th April
Thatcher’s legacy: where there is discord, could there be harmony? - Two noted political voices, socialist Mark Steel and Thatcherite Bruce Anderson, go head to head on the question of Thatcher's impact - 13th April
You can't just shut us up now that Margaret Thatcher's dead - If someone robs your house, you don’t say: “I disagreed with the burglar’s policy, of tying me to a chair. But I did admire his convictions.” - 12th April
What did I learn from this class survey? Watch out for the postman if he's humming Mozart - For class to have any meaning, it must represent more than which music you listen to - 5th April
The poor spend all the money. Isn’t it obvious? - It’s a tricky argument to pull off – the poor caused the debt so they should pay it back - 29th March
Iraq: We can all change our opinion, can’t we? - MPs shouldn’t be so hard on themselves. They made a fully conscious decision to back the war on the scientific basis that it might upset their careers if they didn’t - 22nd March
Prince Charles is just what those Syrian refugees needed - The Saudi visit’s theme is ‘military collaboration’. Because it’s only polite to stick to small talk - 15th March
Feeling bold, Mr Milliband? I've got a cunning plan to deliver a Labour victory in 2015 - Millions are upset about bankers and Murdoch, which ought to translate into Labour support. Instead Ed Miliband comes across as an inoffensive Sellotape salesman - 8th March
Abraham Lincoln's real lesson for Labour? Compromise is over-rated - The idea that Lincoln was the consummate modern political compromiser has to answer one awkward fact: he abolished slavery - 27th February
Mansion tax: It always seems to work out that taxing the rich is pointless, doesn’t it? - If this is the politics of envy, you can count me in - 20th February
People's Assembly: Right, that’s enough, now what are we going to do about it? - The anger so many feel at this Government's austerity policies needs an outlet. So we're coming together to protest around the country - 19th February
It’s now accepted that learning has to be profitable to be valid - Sussex University has decided to go private - and the students aren't happy - 13th February
Why the horror at match-fixing in global football? The 'legal' fixing is just as bad - Europol say hundreds of football matches have been fixed by betting syndicates - this is great news for football fans; it's so much fairer than the current system - 5th February
Who needs a spare room, anyway? - I’m sure Lord Freud would love the chance to swap just one of his eight bedrooms in his comfy mansion for a single sofa - 30th January
Unless Ricky Tomlinson is working for al-Qa'ida, 'national security' is an odd reason for secrecy - The Government would like the 1972 building workers strike to stay buried. Bad luck for them that one of the strikers went on to become a household name - 23rd January
Labour says the working class no longer exists, so why do 60 per cent of us claim to belong to it? - When politicians who believe everyone is middle class see vast decaying housing estates, they must think someone’s having a giant dinner party with a Victorian theme - 16th January
Luis Suárez's handball: Cheating isn’t cheating if you don’t think it is - Football is only a reflection of that society - and that doesn't say much about us - 9th January
Let's make Lord Coe King of the Jungle - The man who delivered London's Olympics is fast running out of titles to acquire - 2nd January

Articles: 2012

The more lethal weapons, the better - The US gun lobby's strategy of allowing everyone to have guns has worked out so well, it's high time it was extended - 19th December
Orphans of war: why Unicef does no more valuable work than when helping Africa's child soldiers - The veteran war correspondent says that to understand why rescued child soldiers need our help, you need only to listen to their stories and look into their eyes - 12th December
Let's give all crimes the Leveson treatment - They had to get a Lord Justice to do it. Anyone normal would have yelled, “You did WHAT? Are you competing with Savile for the Sicko Personality of the Year Award?” - 5th December
Are Tory ministers really so stupid that they think that leaving the blinds down is a crime? - In the idiotic claims they make about welfare claimants, the likes of Grant Shapps and George Osborne reveal how completely out of touch they are - 28th November
Why do journalists and media companies pretend the battle between Israel and Hamas is an even one? - On one side you've got three generations of a family wiped out. On the other, a woman's got to ring Autoglass. And we act like this is battle whose fate is in the balance - 21st November
Love your enemies is the Prime Minister’s gospel - David Cameron must believe the best weapon he has against the world's despots and dictators is love. And arms deals - 7th November
Who could we possibly get to run the police better than they do themselves? - The police don't seem keen on these elections for police commissioners. Understandable, since they are scandal-free and completely beyond reproach - 31st October
In the wake of the Savile scandal, only the complete abolition of the BBC will do - Goodness Gracious Me has a title similar to one of Savile’s catchphrases. Why has no one at the BBC destroyed all copies of the tainted show from their archives? - 18th October
Jimmy Savile, Fred Goodwin, Rupert Murdoch: How did we let these wrongdoers hide in plain sight? - We'll forgive anything if charity work is on the CV. Fred West would still be free if he’d sat in a bath full of baked beans to raise money for prostate cancer - 10th October
Eric Hobsbawm wanted to use History to improve lives. Now, about those views on the Soviet Union... - On why, as jobs go, Marxist historian isn’t often suggested by career advisers at school - 4th October
I’m sorry – so that’s all right then - If Clegg was really sorry about trebling tuition fees, he’d smash up his own office in protest, then apologise for allowing the movement to be taken over by militants - 26th September
How to win while loathing half the voters - Is Romney even that enthusiastic about becoming president? Or maybe he just doesn't realise you need over 50 per cent to win - 19th September
The point of unions is to show that defenceless people are stronger by sticking together - If only Union bosses weren't constantly apologising, more people would take notice of them. I hope you're listening, Brendan Barber and the TUC Congress - 12th September
The Lib Dems should hire a bouncy castle - It's like signing up for Weight Watchers but being stuffed with trifle - 5th September
They can't be disabled – they can swim - Having Atos sponsor the Paralympics is like having a gay Olympics and letting the Pope sponsor them - 29th August
Exporting the NHS won't make it better - The NHS has a global reputation not because it's a brand, but because it's free - 22nd August
Here's how to teach football some humility - Change has happened when people have accepted that they're useless - 15th August
Cyclists, women and refugees – all vindicated at last - If immigration continues at this rate, we'll win every medal in everything - 9th August
I love the Olympics – but not here - A global festival is taking place in our city and we're told to stay at home - 18th July
Sport for all... who can afford it? - It's considered a crime to fund anything properly for free - 11th July
So you all hate bankers now. I was there first - We need a trial. That’s what happens after a bank robbery - 4th July
You have to work hard for a silver spoon - How's Cameron planning to stop the £90bn of tax avoidance we suffer? - 27th June
Three years in jail – that's some red card - I guess the Palestinians were trying that old terrorist trick of becoming a national football team - 20th June
Executive pay - so how do you get by on £3.7m? - What could these bosses be short of last year that meant they needed a rise - 13th June
Just when I was getting over Blair... - He didn't call Murdoch because he had influence in any way, he just wanted to have a chat - 30th May
They can't license the Olympic spirit - Coca-Cola has spent $100m in sponsorship just because they love badminton - 23rd May
Starve the Greeks and they'll feel better - The bill for rubber stamps alone comes to twice that of the defence budget - 16th May
What do we want? More of the same! - Labour might as well have their policy unit run by an expert strategist from 1793 - 9th May
Let's just hold the Olympics at Heathrow - The queuing could be made more exciting by turning it into a race - the marathon - 2nd May
Give credit to Bernie Ecclestone - every despot should have a GP - Why stop at Bahrain? If Formula One spread to Syria, Libya, and the rest, we might see democracy in the Middle East yet - 25th April
Shall we let the rich decide who's cured? - Patients could just lie there screaming, hoping a banker rescues them - 18th April
Galloway and Aung San Suu Kyi – so alike - His win has proved that people, including the young, can be reconnected with politics - 4th April
Watch out! Democracy is dangerous - Perhaps strike votes should be disallowed if the number in favour is a prime number - 28th March
Sign up now and win a heart bypass! - It rests on the premise that society can't provide adequate care without a profit motive - 21st March
That's an awful lot of bad apples - The best way to win the people’s hearts and minds? Burn copies of their holy book - 14th March
We need a minister for Abu Qatada - If al-Qa'ida were smart, they would get 50 of their men to make a DVD each - 7th March
As Jesus said, you're ruining it for tourists - To advance their cause, the occupiers should have taken the riot police head to lunch - 29th February
Iraq was such a laugh, let's do it to Iran - Why can't our leaders think up new stories to justify a military attack? - 22nd February
If religion is 'marginal', I'm the Pope - Baroness Warsi is clearly committed to making religion look ridiculous - 15th February
How to get efficient or die trying - If hospitals were converted into flats, we could enjoy an efficient health service - 8th February
Still relaxed about the filthy rich? - I'm not sure I've read it right, but is the Labour Party AGAINST bankers getting million-pound bonuses now? - 1st February
All aboard the London Eye, claimants! - You might as well say that some people are exploiting the NHS by being in intensive care - 25th January
A new yacht is least she deserves - I expect Daily Mail readers in Haiti are busy sending off their cheques - 18th January
Let's hand out gold medals to big business - If we're trying to attract global companies, we don't want to let on we've got poor areas - 11th January
Do the elderly need a £14m bonus as well as pudding? - Almost everyone connected to care homes has insisted the Government addresses the issue of the lack of care homes - 4th January

Articles: 2011

Just because you're an atheist doesn't make you rational - Once you make it your primary aim to refute the existence of God, you miss what's really fundamental - 29th December
I'd like to be taken for lunch by the taxman - You have to congratulate these companies for managing to pull this trick off - 21st December
Hands off our greedy bankers - It's the right of every Englishman to have his country robbed blind by the banks - 14th December
Let's ask florists for a credit rating - Governments should be made to recite their policies in front of a panel on TV every Saturday - 7th December
Unions just want the mums to pay - Michael Gove believes the strikers want 'mothers to give up a day's work or pay for childcare' - 30th November
Don't let's forget the rich are different - You almost have to admire the front when people can't stop swiping billions - 24th November
Oh, no! How can I pay the school fees? - Ignoring your children is really the only loving thing a good parent can do - 16th November
How to be a giant and still second best - Joe Frazier's problem was that his most celebrated opponent was much more than a boxer - 9th November
You calling my town boring? - They might have identikit chain stores and car parks – but every town in Britain has a distinct character - 5th November
Seven billion? That's not a problem - Many people seem to feel it's a disaster now there are seven billion people on the planet, but there are several arguments that can be used against this view - 2nd November
The price is always right (whatever it is) - If prices go up, demand goes down. But not with university courses apparently - 26th October
If only we'd shopped around more - Huhne will deal with electricity prices by saying he's hoping for a mild winter - 19th October
Stop the NHS prioritising parakeets - The Housing Minister will say a local council built a town hall out of Wedgwood china - 12th October
Will we ever be rid of Tony Blair? - Tony Blair keeps popping back to annoy us, doesn't he? Every few months, just as you think he's slid into history, he emerges getting paid a million pounds for something, like brokering an arms deal with Josef Fritzl and you realise we'll never be rid of him - 28th September
Lost in the car insurance labyrinth - To sense the irrational terrifying chaos that drives the modern economy you should get someone to drive into your parked car in the middle of the night - 21st September
Eight billion years in jail should do it - Instead of the Vickers Report about how to sort out banks, investigation should have been carried out by Supernanny - 14th September
Welcome to the Wapping Experience - As the Murdochs are selling off their plant at Wapping, it should be bought by English Heritage the way they do with other shut-down workplaces, and turned into "The News International Experience" - 7th September
When in doubt, blame red tape - The problem, apparently, is red tape. It's stifling business and preventing growth, because red tape is evil, and you can no more argue in favour of red tape than say, "I don't wish to contribute to the fight against cancer as I think we should have more of it" - 31st August
Flogging is too good for them - People who love to scream about stern discipline and National Service are having a fantastic time in post-riot Britain - 17th August
Imagine the Bastille with BlackBerrys - At least there's one way in which the police seem to be improving. If the recently deposed Inspector Yates was still in charge he'd have said, "I've had a look and can see no evidence there's been any riots, so there'll be no arrests." - 10th August
Alcohol can be a problem, as can doctors - Britain is getting drunker than ever, apparently, with a government "consultation" expected to reveal the shocking statistic that, compared with 20 years ago, there are 80 per cent more documentaries or news items showing a clip of a girl in a short skirt being sick on a bench while a lad with no shirt makes a noise like a werewolf as he's thrown into a police van - 3rd August
Time to inflict pain on the terminally ill - How do YOU suggest we cut the deficit then? - 27th July
My guess is the cleaners are to blame - This year's television drama awards must surely go to the news, whose current scriptwriters are outstanding - 20th July
How about a TV detective called Yates? - Oh this is such fun. And every few hours it gets better, but always with an announcement there's "still worse to come", leaving us struggling to imagine what they might have done that's worse - 13th July
Why Labour leaders speak drivel - In one sense Ed should be applauded as upholding the Labour tradition - 6th July
Teaching? Anyone can do that - Tomorrow's strike of teachers and civil servants should be one of the most enjoyable industrial disputes - 29th June
Pensions: no wonder firemen are on the rich lists - How is the Government getting away with this idea that a public-sector pension is a 'luxury'? - 23rd June
Is wanting a Murray win enough? - He is by far the best British tennis player for 70 years, and getting to semi-finals regularly is remarkable - 16th June
It's like being endorsed by Gary Glitter - Isn't this excellent news? The IMF say the Government's strategy for sorting us out is going to work - 8th June
Can any of us afford to be old now? - The Association of British Insurers has been public spirited enough to find a solution - 1st June
Dig a flower bed, find a sponsor - This week we were given a pretty good idea of which way society is heading thanks to a radio interview about flowers - 25th May
I can see why drivers shout at prams - 18th May
It's the wrong people doing the gagging - You can understand why some tabloid newspapers are upset about these super-injunctions. Because when they write something about a footballer with a prostitute it's almost the only time they print a story that's true - 11th May
The modern jihadist must be on Twitter - What seems strange is that if this raid was watched live on film, wouldn't someone have bought the rights and released it on DVD by now? Americans aren't usually slow with a commercial opportunity - 4th May
Go on, have fun. Roll out the barrel - A book's been rushed out called 'Knit Your Own Royal Wedding' - 13th April
Let's kick hypocrisy out of football - Wayne Rooney seemed like such a polite young man that who would have guessed he'd be the type to use a swear word at a time of high emotion? - 6th April
Protest scenes that left Benghazi in the shade - From the way the news has been since Saturday, I expect this week's episode of Gardeners' Question Time to go: "Before answering the question about Mister Dibley's crocus, do the panel condemn the violence we saw in Oxford Street? - 30th March
It's Blair I feel really sorry for - Isn't it marvellous that all these governments are determined to do "something" about Gaddafi? For example Hillary Clinton said she supported military action once the Arab League backed the air strikes. And it is encouraging that the policy of not tolerating a dictator has the backing of so many dictators - 23rd March
We need the spirit of Wisconsin - It must be part of the Coalition agreement that every day every member of the Government has to do the speech full of weird facts about how much debt we're in - 17th March
I know, let's sell weapons to a lunatic - The Western leaders now condemning Gaddafi as a madman must be perplexed as to what's gone wrong with him, because up until a month ago they obviously thought he was perfectly sane and well-balanced - 9th March
Rulers who still need our sympathy - Who'll be left to offer Tony and Cherie Blair a free holiday? - 23rd February
Dictators? It's a question of taste - One of the joys of Mubarak's demise was watching his Western backers figure out what they were supposed to say. So the US line was: "It's not our place to intervene in a country run by a dictator we've armed and financed for 30 years." - 16th February
The caring, sharing way to bad times - The first troubling side to the Big Society is no one can explain what it means - 9th February
It's people who bring about change - All those scenes from Cairo of mass demonstrations look like the perfect expression of the big society. So we can only assume David Cameron wants us to try something similar here - 2nd February
Grant Shapps: at last – a man to really annoy us - One government post that always takes a while to fill after an election is the job of minister who more than any other makes you feel sick as soon as you see their face, often for reasons you can't quite put your finger on - 26th January
Gallstones? NHS choice will cure you - You can see why they've announced this plan to change the health service, because it looks similar to the way they transformed the railways into competing units, and that's been such a success who wouldn't want to use a similar system to deal with triple by-passes and liver transplants? - 19th January
We owe it to bankers to feel their pain - Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, who himself has to suffer the trauma of an £8m bonus, said yesterday that the bankers' "period of remorse and apology should be over" - 12th January
VAT: can't they lie any better than this? - This might sound smug, but I've done marvellously at sticking to my New Year's Resolution - 5th January

Articles: 2010

We have seen the fall of a cricketing empire - It feels like we've taken part in the victory as we stayed up all night - 29th December
Unseasonal apocalypse forecast - The moment a single flake drifts on to the Lake District, every news report tells us: "The police advise you not to go anywhere unless your journey is necessary", which is pointless because who makes journeys they don't think are necessary? - 22nd December
A clear case of attack by wheelchair - The police like to set their PR department a special Christmas challenge, don't they? - 15th December
Next term, how to stage a sit-in - This is the age of 24-hour entertainment, so at night we can enjoy the sight of the Australian cricket team squirming helplessly, and in the daytime we can enjoy the Liberal Democrats doing exactly the same - 8th December
Ashes series are such an awful addiction my family have learnt coping methods - My Ashes: During that 1982 match that England won by three runs I was living in a filthy squat. We huddled around the radio amid the mould - 23rd November
Do you have the strength for the 7.57 to Euston? - The spokespeople for train operators must enjoy themselves. Yesterday they merrily announced that overcrowding on trains is going to get "much worse" without a glimmer of remorse – the equivalent of the BBC announcing their autumn season by saying, "We've got a right lot of old rubbish on between now and Christmas. Still, there we are." - 10th November
Did Obama forget he's in charge? - The easy view to adopt would be that we're back to normal, and Americans are just mental - 3rd November
Even the Vikings found jobs - Where do they get these idiots who come on the radio and television to tell us how to prepare for our pensions - 27th October
Shamed by our spirit of protest - Wayne Rooney must look in the papers every morning and think, "How does Vince Cable get away with it? Just like me, a year ago he was a national hero, the embodiment of hope, and now he's a bumbling fool and revealed as a cheat. But he's allowed to carry on as he pleases and isn't even substituted. I want a transfer to the Liberal Democrats." - 20th October
My tips on paying for university - How are they allowed to suggest this mad scheme where they charge £36,000 for student fees? - 13th October
Solving disputes the Boris way - The marvellous part about a transport strike is the reports on the news afterwards - 7th October
Voting how you want? Outrageous! - He won the leadership, according to some people, because the unions levered him in with their wily ways. The sneaky trick they used this time was to give their members a vote each, who then acted in their usual selfish fashion by voting for the candidate they preferred - 29th September
That's right, it was all a Muslim plot - You might think that a plot to blow up the Pope would be news for a while. Popes don't get blown up all that often, and this one's enough of a celebrity that if he fell over drunk at the MTV awards with Kanye West it would be in the papers for a few days, so it's strange that a plot to blow him up was only of interest for one day - 22nd September
Let Ryanair run all our services - Eventually the Coalition will sell itself off and the country will be run by Ryanair - 15th September
You've got to be joking - Everyone seems to agree that the Labour party is better off having the polite contest taking place now, rather than its old ideological fights. But the result is a series of debates about nothing, with no one daring to say anything, let alone disagree with the nothing someone else has said - 8th September
They all sell out in the end - Now there must be loads of people who wish they'd be accused of making mistakes on purpose to satisfy a betting scam - 1st September
If anyone is fanatic it's Sarah Palin - How far away is it permissible to be a Muslim? Maybe there should be special guidelines - 25th August
But did Tony run it by Cherie first? - You can't blame the British Legion for accepting this money - 18th August
No guns? They must be terrorists - Somehow, the Chilcot Inquiry has become like Big Brother - 5th August
Shooting the messenger - Why are the British and US governments saying the leak of military documents about Afghanistan has "put our soldiers at risk?" It's us who's been kept hidden from this information, not the Taliban - 28th July
Not all their careers will end in failure - It looks like the next stage of the New Labour project is for the leaders to become proper celebrities - 21st July
Even in Greenland, passions run deep - The population of a packed Old Trafford is 11,000 more than the whole of Greenland - 13th July
Who needs schools anyway? - Michael Gove has already made two announcements this week, declaring that schools should revive the art of "deep thought", and cancelling £700m worth of school building projects - 7th July
It's that old decline and fall again - How long does it take for a nation that once had an empire to realise it's no longer as important as it was? - 30th June
If only we were all in it together - There's already been one positive outcome of the Budget, which is the pleasure of watching Liberal Democrats squirm as they try to justify the stuff that a few weeks ago they screamed would be a disaster - 24th June
They reckon we've never had it so bad - How long will this government keep their trick going? - 16th June
World Cup obsession is healthy. It's the people who don't care that are strange - Fans' Eye View - 12th June
The name's the game in football - One of the joys of a World Cup, is watching every single business on the planet trying to get in on it, no matter how distant they are from football - 9th June
Of course, they were asking for it - It's time the Israeli government's PR team made the most of its talents, and became available for hire. Then whenever a nutcase marched into a shopping mall in somewhere like Wisconsin and gunned down a selection of passers-by, they could be on hand to tell the world's press "The gunman regrets the loss of life but did all he could to avoid violence." - 2nd June
Labour's leadership candidates are all against the war now - There's an honourable tradition in the Labour Party of bravely standing against an unjust war – as long as the war ended several years ago - 26th May
BA strike - a complete load of ballots - At last, someone's come up with a clean, decisive system for holding elections - 19th May
Don't be fooled. This is Tory rule - Right – who knows a way of making "Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition out out out" scan properly? - 13th May
Farewell to the Labour Party - Oh this is painful. The anticipation is probably worse than the event itself - 5th May
A glimpse of the chaos to come - It is getting harder for Cameron to hide how he sees victory as his entitlement - 29th April
Who's run off with the inheritance? - Suddenly this election is hilarious - 21st April
If only marriage were that wholesome - Maybe a tax break for elderly people could help them to remember stuff - 14th April
The Vatican should thank Rowan Williams - The assumption is that, if someone's a religious leader, they're wholesome - 7th April
Labour must want to lose the election - It's hard to find any other reason for insulting Joanna Lumley - 31st March
London 2012 is a mess already, but they could still make it fun - Bit by bit, the promises of the organisers are becoming cloudier - 24th March
The anti-union brigade are just a bunch of hypocrites - The rage against the unions takes some spledidly imaginative forms - 17th March
Obama, throw away the kid gloves - A third of American health employees are in marketing - 10th March
It's time we put Ashcroft's money to better use - And this from a Tory party whose slogan is 'We're all in it together.' - 3rd March
You can teach birth control but you'll end in hell if you do it - There's no other subject schools can teach with their version of the truth - 24th February
No escape from the curse of 'easy-listening' radio - Someone has decided that this rot is popular, but it isn't - 17th February
They believed what suited them, and ignored what didn't - Iraq evidence was collected only to back a decision already made - 10th February
Just who do you vote for given this appalling choice? - The moment you think of voting Labour, up pops the unregretful Blair - 3rd February
The viewers' right to Andy Murray - An NBC stunt showed me what getting rid of the BBC could mean - 27th January
Consider the risks before you send cash to Haiti - All of us must wonder if we'll ever get our 50 quid back - 20th January
Here is the news: a snowflake has fallen in High Wycombe... - Even the financial news has been about the weather's impact on - 13th January
Here's one soldier who told truth about this war - L/Cpl Glenton's crime was to say we were making matters worse - 6th January

Articles: 2009

The best way to enjoy your New Year's Eve is to scrap it - This festival of weirdness is made worse by being so close to Christmas - 30th December
Where next in the battle against the establishment? - The Christmas number one shows that the people are not powerless - 23rd December
Sussex will be desert before the climate deniers accept reality - Many prominent sceptics seem to be in the pay of the energy industry - 16th December
Help save Christmas from the dreaded X Factor - What makes music powerful is being systematically removed - 9th December
Things can happen when you travel on a Virgin train - It seems that it is being run by philosophers from the 13th century - 2nd December
Come rain or revo- lution, it's money they want - Haven't the 20th anniversary celebrations of the overthrow of communism been miserable? - 25th November
PM can't stick to his nonsense on Afghanistan - As with Iraq, the reasons for staying are sliding slowly into gibberish - 18th November
You almost have to feel sorry for Gordon Brown - If she isn't careful the 'Sun' will tie Mrs Janes in a deal like a record company - 11th November
Why should I be pressured into wearing a poppy? - The plan must be to honour the dead of past wars by starting new ones - 4th November
Just when you thought it was safe to come out again - This is what Blair does: he wrecks a place, then gets the job of uniting it - 28th October
Royal Mail is to blame for our broken society (obviously) - We can already see the 'modernisation' the Government wants from posties - 21st October
We're all in this together (except when times are good) - The idea of shared responsibility only seems to apply during a recession - 14th October
Learning the lessons of the turnip-dumping war of 1352 - I wonder if one day you'll be able to opt out of paying for war you don't like - 7th October
Iranian missiles and a PR triumph - Ahmadinejad uses these tests to look powerful to his own population - 30th September
Cut this nonsense about whose cuts are most 'savage' - Suddenly, no party thinks it can be serious unless it pledges to cut - 24th September
So has anyone really been 'Islamified' against their will? - The most effective opposition comes when people refuse to be intimidated - 16th September
The Poles might be leaving but the prejudice remains - There is an almost artistic level of irrationality about immigration panics - 9th September
People would play golf if it wasn't so snobbish - Dress codes ban denim and inist on jackets and ties in the bar - 15th July
The danse macabre of Jackson's death - One reporter told us the news from LA was 'truly a JFK moment' - 1st July
You can't bath with one jug of water? - A vital commodity will soon only be available to the privileged few - 24th June
Why not hold all trials in private? - They'd have put Cherie Blair on the inquiry, only she'd have charged a fee - 17th June
So this is New Labour's legacy... - They sacrificed all to get elected and now can't get elected to anything - 10th June
Turn left (and then left again) - It's as if the left has a self-destruct button, and can't stand being popular - 3rd June
The proof that class still rules - Labour can't blame thieving aristos when they deny class still exists - 27th May
Perhaps it would be better if all MPs were sponsored... - They will sit in the 'Cornhill Insurance Parliament' and swig on Lucozade - 20th May
Here's what filthy rich really means - One MP will have claimed for panda food, another for a Rembrandt - 13th May
They're so clueless it's almost heartbreaking - You can imagine Ed Balls crying out: ‘Let’s get Harriet on Britain’s Got Talent - 6th May
If you can avoid tax, why bother to leave? - Bank robbers don't declare what they have done so let's not make it illegal - 29th April
Criminals can learn from the police - This is more than an issue about some 'hot-headed' individuals - 22nd April
No place for arrogance any more - There's supposed to be an art to fiddling at work - 2nd April
Nationalise railways – not banks - Inflated prices, extraordinary profits – that is the private utilities for you - 25th March
The significance of a concrete hippo in Walsall - In a desire to retain their identities, towns are reaching for new symbols - 18th March
So Karl Marx was right after all - Maybe the Mail will be yelling, ‘Smash the bosses, get the worker’s Mail - 4th March
The youth of today – they just don’t show no disrespect - What is striking is that university officials are now backing down - 18th February
New Labour encouraged this avarice - The people who couldn't see what was obvious are allowed to carry on - 11th February
Snowmen are costing Britain billions - It's fine to skip work to play in the snow. But strike, and you wreck the country - 4th February
Now we've all seen through the Israeli excuses - If the Hamas rockets are so lethal, why doesn't Israel swap an F-16 for some? - 21st January
There is one crisis we've ignored... - ... the demise of snooker - 14th January
What creationists really hate is that we emerged by accident - If all species were designed, it was hardly by someone intelligent - 7th January

Articles: 2008

So what have the Palestinians got to complain about? - To portray this as a conflict between equals requires some imagination - 31st December 2008
To George Bush, his critics are just lone difficult schoolboys - It's impossible for the President to acknowledge his failure in Iraq - 17th December 2008
The Tories fight against the filth - All of a sudden, Tory MPs sound like radical students from the 1970s - 10th December 2008
Never mind the baby, just get back to work - The next thing will be an exciting new scheme known as the 'workhouse' - 3rd December 2008
Please stop jazzing up our history - Next we'll have a group of lesbians coming into Cromwell's tent - 26th November 2008
Why do people cling to the myth of the nuclear family? - We look back to the Stone Age and think it embodied 'traditional' values - 19th November 2008
The losers who hate to love Obama - Now he has won, Republican spokesmen are saying it's great - 12th November 2008
It's not about great men, but those who put them there - Millions now believe that their actions can change the world - 5th November 2008
I'm frozen with fear – could Obama still lose the election? - The Republicans have had the worst campaign possible. It should be all over - 29th October 2008
It's all poor people's fault, isn't it? - All economists know that banking crashes are caused by Somalian fishermen - 22nd October 2008
Workers unite! And turn Balmoral into an allotment - Someone should have been reading Marx... - 15th October 2008
The curse of these demonic call centres - An aspect of modern society that sums up the contempt in which the mass of humanity is held by thieving executives - 8th October 2008
Quick! These bankers need rescuing - 1st October 2008
At least the City doesn't go on strike - 24th September 2008
Bankers should bail themselves out - 17th September 2008
Don't die of hypothermia until March - 10th September 2008
Labour and a bout of mutual loathing - One of the main reasons for the founding of "New Labour", its supporters insisted, was to ensure there would never be a return to the days when Labour was forever rowing with itself, over issues such as nuclear weapons or the unions - 3rd September 2008
If you don't like sport, you're wrong - 20th August 2008
Let's make a virtue of being useless - 13th August 2008
A reactionary called Solzhenitsyn - 6th August 2008
Why do the unions keep handing over their money? - 30th July 2008
How to take on an arms manufacturer – and win - 23rd July 2008
Barack Obama has nothing to fear but himself - 16th July 2008
Wife-beating? That's fine – unless you're a Muslim - 9th July 2008
If only Andy Murray came from the Home Counties - 2nd July 2008
If the poor of Africa are hungry, send them arms - 18th June 2008
Beware – the rail companies are out to get you - 11th June 2008
You want children to learn? Here's how to do it - 4th June 2008
Our MPs are out of touch and over-compensated - 28th May 2008
Premier League or proper football? It's no contest - 14th May 2008
Has the real Gordon been replaced by a robot? - 7th May 2008
There was more to 1968 than hippies and festivals - 30th April 2008
Sorry, but Prezza's bulimia is just a trifling matter - 23rd April 2008
Sorry, Gordon, but you aren't a game-show host - 16th April 2008
So did Neolithic settlers have estate agents? - 9th April 2008
You couldn't make it up (unless you're Hillary, that is) - 2nd April 2008
So Tibetans have been brainwashed by a rogue... - 26th March 2008
How dare these soldiers go round getting wounded? - 19th March 2008
Let's be modern and swear an oath to the monarchy - 12th March 2008
Sixties nostalgia that hid the horrors of Jersey - 5th March 2008
I'm starting to feel sorry for Ken Livingstone - 27th February 2008
So, farewell, Fidel – but please don't give a speech - 20th February 2008
A taxing problem: should the rich pay for cheese? - 13th February 2008
Change. Hope. America. Vote for Bob the Builder... - 6th February 2008
Not a shopping spree, just a taste of freedom: 'My goodness, have you seen the spring collection in the Sinai branch of Debenhams?' - 30th January 2008
How did the share dealers get to be so important? - 23rd January 2008
If you think Islam is medieval, look at Catholicism - 16th January 2008
A few tears won't make Hillary more electable - 9th January 2008
And all my son wanted was a bacon sandwich - Bombarded with questions, reduced to mere objects, today's consumers enter the retailworld at their peril - 2nd January 2008

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