It’s not big and it’s not clever, and I know it’s not nice politics, and I know it’s taken out of context, but who couldn’t love his manic contrived attempts to appear human. I present, for your use, the Prime Mentalist. To give you an idea of how odd this smile is, consider the sentence [...]

I never thought I’d say this, but I feel very sorry for Brown right now. Yes he’s a hoon, yes he’s a moron, yes he’s a dreadful Prime Minister, but imagine how that laughter would have felt. In our desire for red meat, we run something of a risk of dehumanising this increasingly frail, increasingly [...]

At the end of Prime Minister’s Questions today, the Speaker called upon an MP to speak who was not on his feet, and who, when called, was clearly heard to say ‘that’s a surprise’. The question he asked was clearly a plant, and obviously a party-political question. Speaker Martin is a disgrace to his office, [...]

I was always warned about people with bogus smiles as a child.  Whoever’s coaching Gordon Brown on how to look more human is clearly implicated in some elaborate practical joke; Brown smiles at precisely the wrong points throughout, and what is with the crazy slalom action at the start?  If I was this uncomfortable in [...]