5 h. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Prof Powell was so tickled by her own remarks, she bared her gnashers like an Aintree winner

QUENTIN LETTS: A couple of days after Nasa 's stranded astronauts returned to Earth it fell to Lucy Powell, Leader of the Commons, to make an allusion to space travel.

Politics

29 h. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Words are used like cheap marge in supermarket sandwiches. No one means what they say

QUENTIN LETTS: Sir Keir Starmer called Israel's latest attacks on Gaza 'truly shocking'. When Sir Keir says 'shocking', which he does quite often, he keeps his lips rigid like a ventriloquist.

Politics

54 h. ago QUENTIN LETTS: I didn't hear one word of concern for the poor devils whose taxes pay for these benefits

QUENTIN LETTS: Savings could have been several billions more but the Government crumbled with concessions. Tony Blair would not have caved in like that.

Economics

3 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Liz Kendall clutched her Marje Proops specs and did a bit of shouting at the Tories. But she was meant to be whackin' her OWN side!

Field Marshal Grigory Potemkin (d.1791) was the toyboy of Catherine the Great who allegedly tried to impress his empress by erecting house facades on the banks of the River Dnieper.

Politics

7 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS on Keir Starmer's quango reform speech: As the blinky old sausage deserted his Centrist

Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney arranged for the Prime Minister to deliver his speech at a Hull firm that makes disinfectant and condoms.

Politics

8 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: Starmer looks less the startled bog

A PM active in international diplomacy may feel, on re-entering the Commons, that the national legislature is no longer sufficient for his grandeur.

Politics

9 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: The new Jenrick has been on Ozempic and now boasts a Russian model's cheekbones. And he's driving Labour ministers crazy!

Mr Jenrick, runner-up in last year's Conservative leadership election, is now the shadow justice secretary and yesterday spent a profitable morning baiting his opposite number.

Politics

1 week ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: Scary Bridget is good at only one thing

You can understand that the Kremlin might, at initial glance, mistake Ms Phillipson for a tough. 'Scary Bridget' does look and sound terrifying. Her upper lip curls like a piglet's tail.

Politics

2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Like the Leyland Sherpa van in The Spy Who Loved Me, Jonathan Powell seems indestructible

QUENTIN LETTS: Parliament at its best: that's what Sir Keir Starmer keeps saying about Westminster's response to the Trump crisis.

Politics

2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS on PMQs: Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch clung to each other like two shipwreck survivors

QUENTIN LETTS: Water has stopped lapping against the bows. Westminster is becalmed. Thanks to Trump no one knows what to think, what to say, whom to attack.

Events

2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: As chief stooge in this drama, JD Vance plays Smee to Trump's Captain Hook

At this rate we may need more smelling salts. Urgent signal to quartermasters: sal volatile stocks dangerously low, please resupply soonest.

Politics

2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: Jutting out his Buzz Lightyear jaw, Keir Starmer got louder cheers from the Tories than his own side

Twenty-two years ago some of us watched Tony Blair being cheered more by the Tories than by his own MPs as he lured us to war in Iraq .

Politics

3 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Kemi's good wishes for Starmer's US visit were the sort of thing you say to a 2nd XI gladiator off to face the Circus Maximus lions

Poor old Starmer was plainly dreading his trip to Washington to see Dr Strangelove and chums. He began PMQs by honking 'this afternoon, of course, I will travel to the US'.

Politics

3 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: From Kinshasa to Bogota, bosses of Mercedes dealerships and the better sort of brothel were inconsolable!

The penny has dropped. Actually, make that 600billion pennies. Sir Keir Starmer came to the Commons before lunch to say he was chopping overseas aid almost in half.

Economics