Gareth Roberts is a TV scriptwriter and novelist who has worked on Doctor Who and Coronation Street
Arguing about the last night of the Proms is as much of an annual tradition as the music itself. Usually this hubbub has something to do with it being the very last place, or occasion, where people sing along with a straight face to ‘Rule, Britannia’. This year though the storm revolves around EU flags
We are now governed by people who were left-wing students in the 1980s and early 90s. This is one of those facts that you try to forget, like getting older in general, but which – occasionally, suddenly – hits you in the mush. It’s fine in the normal run of things but every so often
Are Conservative politicians ‘weird’? A series of focus groups carried out by More in Common suggests that voters – particularly in seats won by the Lib Dems – find elected Tories increasingly strange. It’s hard to disagree, but this isn’t the party’s only problem. Who cares if a politician is weird? As the Tories battle
Carol Vorderman has given a speech to the Edinburgh Television Festival, in which she complains that the TV industry is too middle class. This is a bit like rocking up at an Elvis convention and saying that Elvis was overrated rubbish. But she still got a standing ovation. Vorderman has merely reoriented herself to where the money is –
I have to confess that, like many other commentators, I thought that the coming of the Labour government would mean – at least for a bit – that things might get a little quieter, at least on social media. I was quite looking forward to that. But it all seems to have got even madder.
The horrific murders in Southport earlier this month were followed by horrific riots and horrific counter-riots. But fear not. Because then the official account of Paddington Bear tweeted, ‘Perhaps it’s time for a little more kindness’. At times of wickedness, disorder and the worst of humanity, what do we 21st century moderns look for to
Does His Majesty’s Government have a policy on civil servants wearing fetish clothing in the workplace? It’s not the sort of question you’d expect to find in the rather mind-numbing list of written inquiries asked by members of the House of Lords. But Baroness Jenkin, who is still waiting for her answer to that question,
Just Stop Oil isn’t what it was. When a handful of protestors from the environmental group tried to block a departure gate at Gatwick Airport this week, they failed miserably. It wasn’t much of a protest: they just plonked themselves down and adopted the traditional JSO expression: a stance of neutrality aimed at looking noble
‘Do I really sound like that?’ is how people invariably respond when they hear a recording of their own voice. Or they used to, anyway. Your own voice was something you heard a lot but never actually heard from the outside. But in the age of voice memos, podcasts and TikToks, we are much more
The 2012 British opening ceremony has sadly become a shorthand for nostalgic Remainy twee. But la grande débâcle in Paris last night brought back with a jolt how magnificent it was. The creators of Paris’s opening ceremony were faced with a challenge: how to convey, in capsule form, the history and culture of France, a comparatively small nation
In 1987, when I was 19, I started at my first ‘proper’ adult job. This was as a lowly civil service clerk, or administrative officer – filing, basically. It was a post within the Lord Chancellor’s Department – as it was known then – but which today is called the Ministry of Justice, which doesn’t
The first few days of a totally new government are disorientating. Nobody knows quite how to react. The electoral dust is still settling. We are still in the process of recalibrating well-worn reflexes: rolling your eyes and tutting about Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron is no longer a thing, for they are no longer things.
Sexy time at the cinema is becoming a thing of the past. That’s according to research on the prevalence of vices in top live-action films from film maven Stephen Follows. His study shows that drug taking and violence are as popular on screen as ever in the 21st century. Profanity has dipped only slightly, but
And now the end is near. Barring a polling error of galactic proportions, we are hours away from the final nemesis of the Tory government. It is 14 years since Cameron and Clegg invited the press into the Downing Street garden to reveal that the coalition would ‘give our country the strong, stable and decisive
We’re going to be lumbered with them for at least five years, so I think it’s time to have a good look at the incoming Labour cabinet. Not the ones we know and love of old – Thornberry, Lammy or Miliband – or Starmer and Rayner, who may still be fresh-ish, but are very well
How would you define ‘working people’? You’d think that ‘people who work’ would be a pretty safe bet. But Keir Starmer seems to have a different definition, telling LBC earlier this week that working people are ‘people who earn their living, rely on our services and don’t really have the ability to write a cheque
The ghost of 1997 haunts the 2024 election. The defining image of this year’s contest, barring any major upsets over the next fortnight, is already clear: Rishi Sunak drenched like a drowned chipmunk outside 10 Downing Street as he called the snap election. ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, Labour’s ’97 campaign anthem, was blasted out
We’re now about halfway through the election campaign. I don’t know how we’re going to keep our excitement from bubbling over if this level of stimulation keeps up in the second half. The staggering mediocrity and dullness of Sunak and Starmer has lent this contest – despite its inevitably very different final outcome – the
‘Elections are won from the centre ground,’ the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said. Perhaps he should have a word with his own party. The Conservatives have been in power for 14 years and, while they are nominally centre-right, many of the party’s policies and positions will hardly strike the average voter as sensible and centrist.
Unlike Brenda from Bristol, I usually love elections – but not this one. Theresa May’s self-destruction in 2017 was one of the most fascinating events I’ve ever seen. The high-stakes tension of Boris vs. Corbyn in 2019 had me gripped to the TV. Even as a child, I couldn’t get enough of the high drama
