3 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: At last, she speaks! So that's what gnomic Whitehall operative Sue Gray sounds like

QUENTIN LETTS: Lady Gray of Tottenham (Lab) is better known as Sue Gray, the gnomic Whitehall operative who torpedoed Boris Johnson with her report on his lockdown birthday cake.

Events

4 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Wrists trembling, Reeves sounded shrivelled as she tried to blame 'the party opposite'...but everyone knows she has brought disaster on herself

The speech lasted 33 minutes, half the time of a real Budget. For all Labour's groans when Tories talked of 'an emergency Budget', this nonetheless felt like a big event.

Events

5 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: One great oddity of the Assisted Dying Bill is that the MP with an undertaker's manner is pro

QUENTIN LETTS: Yesterday saw the Bill's last committee stages, that part of the legislative process when a small group of MPs chews over details of a proposed law.

Events

6 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: In a different life, Heidi could have dreamed of call

QUENTIN LETTS: Despite jokes about the Chancellor being 'Rachel from customer complaints', the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, is a stronger candidate for that role.

Politics

8 d. ago Idleness is rotting Britain. The welfare budget is heading for £100BILLION. That's why it's our moral duty to slash benefits: QUENTIN LETTS

We could have done with Norman Tebbit in the Commons this week, if only for dramatic variety. MPs were discussing welfare cuts that turned out to be soggier than trailed.

Economics

8 d. ago Idleness is rotting Britain. The welfare budget costs £3,000 BILLION. That's why it's our moral duty to slash benefits: QUENTIN LETTS

We could have done with Norman Tebbit in the Commons this week, if only for dramatic variety. MPs were discussing welfare cuts that turned out to be soggier than trailed.

Economics

1 week 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

1 week 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

1 week 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

1 week 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

2 w. 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

2 w. 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

2 w. 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

2 w. 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 Shaun Edwards and his French marauders show how big a reset Ireland will need | Brendan Fanning

Even with talisman Dupont forced out by injury, Les Bleus brought a brutal end to the green party in DublinIt’s never a good sign when the place is crawling with French supporters. They gather in knots along pavements around the stadium, yakking away, disrupting pedestrian traffic, lost in the enjoyment of a sunny Six Nations day in Dublin. Worse still is when you climb to the dizzy height of the press box in the Aviva Stadium and survey a scene where there is lots of blue. Then they start to sing. Not good.Some of the darkest days in Ireland’s rugby history came with the away leg in this fixture. When on one occasion the front page of L’Équipe read “Le Massacre du Printemps” we learned to associate sunshine in Paris with pain and recrimination. That was the preview, not the match report. Continue reading...

Events

3 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

3 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

3 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

3 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