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The Sketch: When goodbye seems to be the longest word

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

What a long goodbye it is. There are six months to go but the committee has started its farewells. They've had over a decade together and now they await the deluge. Some will be standing down, others put down. Some will be promoted, others discarded. Meanwhile, we are entering the pre-election period of nothing happening.

Simon Carr: Of course we're bad – but at least we admit it

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

I feel I've gone over to the dark side. When MPs talk about Kelly – and they do so in terms varying from the Corinthian to the cuneiform – my head starts nodding in a sympathetic, bedside way. No doubt it all had to happen and it should never have come to this but the cure may yet prove to be worse than the disease.

The Sketch: The joys of financial ignorance

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

These billions and those trillions, who's keeping track any more? How? Does the money matter, now that we're printing it? If overspending got us into this mess, how does overspending get us out? Who knows? Most of us are so ignorant we don't know that we don't know.

Simon Carr: Johnson sparkles as Brown crumbles

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Alan Johnson has become so energised by sacking that drugs official that he's become quite electable. He bounces. He punches. His eyes sparkle. And what are people saying?

Simon Carr: The kids were all right (and knew as much as our MPs)

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

When they walked in, the members of the UK Youth Parliament, my younger colleagues in the Gallery became wonderfully blimpish.

The Sketch: All he wanted was proper advice...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

In Parliamentary terms Tony McNulty is an overweight bully with the mentality of a thug. Yes, yes, it takes one to know one.

The Sketch: Twenty-two wrongs don't make a right

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

I've been counting how many times the Prime Minister is right and the Tories are wrong. That is, how many times he says so. That is, how many times he actually uses the very words.

The Sketch: It's a climate of confusion, for sure

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Things are so complicated it's a wonder anyone knows what's going on. But then, no one does. No one can. There's too much to know. Not that Lord Turner of Ecchinswell put it like that. He's climate change. It's his job to project omniscience in the face of the unknowable.

Simon Carr: Nothing is as it seems in the elliptical world of immigration

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Home Office questions. It must be said that Alan Johnson doesn't look as hopeless as he keeps saying he is. "Vote for me! I haven't got the desire, the talent, the confidence for the job!" Maybe it's a more cunning plan than we think.

Simon Carr: The State doesn't own our children. Yet

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

So, we were in conversation, my Muslim friend and I, over the Tories' "free schools" policy. She said it was dangerous because Islamicists could set up their own schools to indoctrinate children into West-hating ways, and I said that yes, that might happen, but it was the parents' responsibility. She replied that the State not only had a duty to prevent it, but that we had to get away from the idea that parents owned their children. How's that again? The State rightfully had "partial ownership" of its citizen's children, she said.

The Sketch: A racially inclusive constitution is the BNP's Clause 4 moment

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:01:00 GMT

A torpor has settled on Parliament. A siesta. What a long goodbye it is. They’re leaving early and arriving late and very often not turning up at all.

Simon Carr: Is Party support draining from a deflated PM?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:41:15 GMT

The Sketch

It’s not so much a premiership as a medical condition. The poor fellow is sick. Look at him, he’s ill. It’s a self-inflicted illness but nonetheless deserving of sympathy. He was prepared to take the risk, he fought to take it, now he suffers the consequence of a wasting illness that saps his strength, his energy, his pleasure in life. He’s a brave heart, he’s a fighter, but the power of positive thinking is just prolonging the agony.

The Sketch: Words, words, words: tragic Gordon blusters on

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

I'm not sure Gordon's doing the right thing agreeing to these TV debates. There's too much he can't say. "That's a particular problem for my party," as Cameron put it yesterday. Gordon couldn't say that – the words would come out as: "That isn't a particular problem for my party." If he tried to say, as Cameron said, "I don't have the answer to that", it would emerge as, "the answer to that is, as I have said before, and I was right to say".

Simon Carr: It really does take Balls to do the right thing

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Ed Balls took us into his confidence. "I did the right thing," he said. He repeated it more than once. It was the right thing he had done, and he would do the right thing again, whatever the cost to himself. It was his morals, I think, and integrity. Decency too, he left that out but its hard to think decency wasn't involved.

The Sketch: There's a new order – and Harriet will run it

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The swan will not fly. The sunfish will not swim. Harriet Harman will not run for Labour leader. The natural world is running on new rules. Maybe it's global warming.

The Sketch: A solemn list as Gordon went on manoeuvres around the Hindu Kush

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Thirty-seven soldiers dead. He read out their names. People have been arrested for doing that in Westminster, without permission from the police.

The Sketch: So what if Gordon had his flat done six times a week? He's messy

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

There was Elliot Morley in the cafe queue looking as cheerful as always. No mean feat, what with those claims he was making for a mortgage he didn't have and the subsequent investigations into it, and them and him. "Had your letter, Elliott? Anything in it?"

Simon Carr: Who'd want to be an MP? Certainly not them

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

As this rich diet of the expenses scandal comes back again (and again) how's the appetite? Are we full, or can we manage a little more? Or do you suffer from reflux? Maybe this is reflux.

Simon Carr: Disney's role in a boy's awakening

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

At my age you won't be surprised to know I haven't seen a naked woman for years. But the news that Marge Simpson is doing next month's Playboy centrefold took me off to the internet to see how the magazine has changed. It hasn't changed at all. There are naked women – actually, nude women – at every click. And they're all up to things that we'd rather not see Marge Simpson doing.

Simon Carr: Cameron makes it harder to see point of Brown

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:36:17 GMT

There were a hundred yards of hubbub in the conference centre as party members queued to get into the hall. Three years (and a week) ago they would have been Labour members crushing in to the same hall to hear Tony Blair’s magnificent valedictory speech.

The Sketch: Sadly for Grayling, he's more angry rabbit than Tebbit

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Wednesday's the extra day, the dustbin day, when they shovel in all the platform speakers who can't make platform speeches.

The Sketch: Applause for the hard-hitting Ballad of Squeaky George

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The rain was tipping down over Manchester but inside the conference hall the sun still shone, fluffy clouds floated round the auditorium. See what happens when you cast aside cynicism? It brings spring to October, and the joy of perpetual day. Ah, the noble calling.

Simon Carr: The last day of Labour

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:29:08 GMT

The last day of Labour. The violin string sounded round the hall like a mournful battlefield track, the camera panning across the remnants of the army. Every main speech had ended with the word "We will fight! To win!" But the ragged singing of the Red Flag told a different story.

Simon Carr: Politics is returning to type

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:35:49 GMT

It's starting to work on me, politics is returning to type. The values they are taking about are good old Labour. Equality. Social justice. Elimination of poverty. Insane law-making. The core vote strategy is back. It worked brilliantly for Labour last time, but then it was Iain Duncan Smith doing it.

Simon Carr: politics is returning to type

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:35:49 GMT