Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams has written a column for The Independent since 2005. A key figures in the satire boom of the 1960s, he helped found Private Eye and edited it for 23 years. In 1992 he founded The Oldie, which he has edited since. Vintage humorist, scourge of the pompous and the power-hungry, Ingrams brings a unique perspective to bear on the political foibles of the age and on a culture in thrall to celebrity.

Richard Ingrams' Week: The Archbishop puts our 'envoy' to shame in Gaza

After spending three days in Gaza, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 76, launched a fierce attack on the international community for its "silence and complicity" over the long Israeli blockade of that area. "The entire situation is abominable," he thundered.

Recently by Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams' Week: 'Bear with us' while we mess up the trains again

Saturday, 24 May 2008

The privatised railways have invented a whole new vocabulary of customer care-speak. Trains have become "services" which terminate or are "delayed" (never late) and passengers are "customers" who must be endlessly apologised to or who may be thanked for travelling with a particular company, when in fact they have no alternative.

Richard Ingrams' Week: This is where a dodgy grasp of history gets you

Saturday, 17 May 2008

When Lord Levy was first taken on by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister told him: "I want you to be my Lord Goodman figure."

Richard Ingrams' Week: 'Institutional failure' is the curse of our times

Saturday, 10 May 2008

It is unfortunate that Ant and Dec, about whom I wrote last week, should now find themselves involved in yet another unseemly controversy involving their television show.

Richard Ingrams' Week: The perils and pitfalls facing today's historians

Saturday, 3 May 2008

The story of Martin Allen, the self-styled "eminent historian" who published a book in 2005 accusing my father of assassinating Heinrich Himmler on the orders of Winston Churchill, was revived last week in The Financial Times.

Richard Ingrams' Week: Blair's Babes were hardly battleaxes – more's the pity

Saturday, 26 April 2008

Pictures of Spain's Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero surrounded by members of his 90 per cent female cabinet call to mind similar pictures of Tony Blair surrounded by his newly elected female MPs, the so-called Blair Babes.

Richard Ingrams' Week: God forbid that religion is part of religious studies

Saturday, 19 April 2008

Further confirmation that we live in a mad world came this week with the announcement that in future, the GCSE syllabus for religious studies will include the study of humanism.

Richard Ingrams' Week: Our distorted priorities are ruining the economy

Saturday, 12 April 2008

The price of food is rocketing up while the price of housing is beginning to rocket down. The strange thing is that both the up and the down are considered to be serious cause for concern.

Richard Ingrams' Week: I'd prefer a bookie to a clergyman in Number Ten

Saturday, 5 April 2008

Malcolm Muggeridge used to divide prime ministers into two categories – bookies and clergymen (Attlee a clergyman, Wilson a bookie, etc). I was reminded of this by Thursday's pictures of Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair taken at the time of the Northern Ireland peace negotiations.

Richard Ingrams' Week: We all need a lesson in morals, or so it seems

Saturday, 29 March 2008

Britain is heading off the cliff, says the cover of this week's Spectator in big, black letters. It refers to an article in the current issue of the magazine by Mr David Selbourne, lamenting the decline of Britain and the "moral cowardice" that now reigns in the corridors of power.

Richard Ingrams' Week: Is this the diagnosis for the condition called 'Blair'?

Saturday, 22 March 2008

An observant doctor watching Tony Blair on TV noticed how at one point his hairline appeared to have moved forward but then later seemed to move back again.

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