Simon Carr

The Independent's parliamentary sketch writer and columnist since 2000, Simon Carr was described by Tony Blair as "the most vicious sketch writer working in Britain today". "Poison," said Charles Clarke.

In the 1980s he helped launch The Independent, and was a speech writer for the prime minister of New Zealand from 1992 to 1994. His working principle is "Indignation keeps us young."

Simon Carr: Definition of a caretaker leader

Jack Straw's proposition to members of the rising generation is this: "Put me in as a caretaker leader. I will take the party into a general election - which we will lose, and after which I shall resign"

Recently by Simon Carr

Simon Carr: No point pretending Oxbridge isn't best

Monday, 28 July 2008

The obsession with Oxbridge is "mad", a "middle-class obsession". So says one of the luminaries of the Russell Group. Maybe he's trying to detoxify the reputation of these two institutions; to reduce the general level of envy, resentment and hostility towards them.

The Sketch: A government fizzing with ideas? Just ask the people of Iraq

Wednesday, 23 July 2008

Ohhh, I see! It's the climax of an end-of-term communications strategy. All those things they've been doing recently (iPods for voting stands out) have been designed to show a government fizzing with ideas and purpose. They might have said. The crescendo of initiatives and projects and pilots and has come to a rousing climax with the PM coming back from Iraq to announce... hang on, what was it? "It is now right to complete the task we have set ourselves." That's new, is it? He also made a point of saying that Iraqis "must continue to make right long-term decisions". Jolly good, carry on.

The Sketch: When it comes to benefits, mind your language ...

Tuesday, 22 July 2008

"Offensive". Formerly, millions of troops emerging from trenches to run into machine-gun fire. Latterly, describing a morbidly obese woman as "fat".

The Sketch: There are no problems in government. Only issues

Friday, 18 July 2008

Good Government: a fascinating Thursday morning seminar hosted by Tony Wright's committee, and presented by three professors of the political class. A glimpse of the quality of intellect at work: the chairman referred to the problem of competition in running a very large organisation and Sir Richard Mottram KCB, the famously plain-spoken department head, rejected the term "a problem".

The Sketch: PMQs, or the battle of the rudeboy vs the tough nut

Thursday, 17 July 2008

My sister had been watching Prime Minister's Questions from the public gallery, she'd come up from Lincolnshire, and was a little shocked at what she saw. "He's so rude, isn't he?" she said.

The Sketch: Boris doesn't joke about knife crime

Wednesday, 16 July 2008

During Boris's appearance in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee, my mind wandered back to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. That was, if you remember, a right-wing, anti-Semitic forgery purporting to be the secret minutes of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The left aren't above that sort of thing. In the run-up to the mayoral elections The Guardian published articles that might be called The Protocols of the Elders of Eton.

The Sketch: Gordon proves he's tough with a macho karate chop

Tuesday, 15 July 2008

Tough! Tough! Tough! That's the message on knife crime. Gordon revealed his three-pronged strategy. I wrote down PEP to help me remember what each prong was.

The Sketch: No 10 tries to reach right into voters' brains with its YouTube project

Friday, 11 July 2008

Here follows Downing Street's headline promo for Ask the PM. This is a New Media project getting the Government's message out to hard-to-reach and probably digital young people. It's modern, it's interactive, it's run by electricity. It's like a live line, they must have reasoned, directly plugged into voters' brains.

The Sketch: Stand-in Harman beaten by Hague's stand-up skills

Thursday, 10 July 2008

Harriet Harman was standing in for the Prime Minister. He was at the G8, pledging to reduce carbon emissions to zero by the year 3000, along with one-to-one obesity counselling for every African child. Noble aspirations indeed. Well and good. Harriet, however, was left with the heavy lifting in Parliament.

The Sketch: Peers make short work of demolishing 42 days

Wednesday, 9 July 2008

In the Commons, just to remind us how these things work, they were rushing through a Bill to commonly allow anonymous evidence in court. The practice had been introduced as an exception, a rarity; now it's to be routine. Inch by inch they go, in the great game of Grandmother's Footsteps to get by stealth what they'd never achieve in one foul sweep.

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