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."

The Sketch: A decent debut, but then again he was up against Jack Straw

It wasn't very long ago that Nick Clegg was a nice young man with pointless good looks and a brain like a lucky bran tub. You'd pull something out and it might have been supertax or zero tax, one as likely as the other. Later, as leader, he stood so far down the benches you couldn't hear what he was saying, but it didn't matter because he was a parliamentarily pointless Liberal Democrat.

Recently by Simon Carr

The Sketch: I have made a study of Sir Alan Budd and can make some forecasts

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Alan Budd may be an inexact science but it's worth observing some of his characteristics and seeing if we can make useful predictions from the mass of raw material he provides.

Simon Carr: Ed Balls did a Gordon Brown impression – minus the light touch

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

Sketch: The two-tier system he fears could only be an improvement on the multiple tiers of deprivation and failure we currently have

The Sketch: A parliamentary constitutional helps while away hours

Friday, 16 July 2010

Rain dancers don't dance to make it rain but to become better dancers. Graham Allen's constitutional dancers appeared for the first time yesterday, congratulating themselves on the speed at which they'd got the disco going.

The Sketch: Dave gives Labour a dose of the Blair medicine they loved

Thursday, 15 July 2010

The last two weeks before the recess, the dog days are on us. The place is full of chihuahuas.

The Sketch: Economists can't even report the past, let alone predict the future

Wednesday, 14 July 2010

The Office of Budget Responsibility has one of those names we used to laugh at the Chinese for favouring. Sincere Trading Company. Honest Hose and Tool Suppliers. They project the core values of the company through the name, you see.

Simon Carr: Gove's performance is less than satisfactory

Tuesday, 13 July 2010

Sketch: Michael Gove is one of the leading Tory amateurs, one of the laughing Cavaliers

The Sketch: Everything he touched turned to ordure: now he's got his just deserts

Friday, 9 July 2010

Simon Carr: Thus yesterday, to the House of Lords to see the butt-crack, the builder's bum of the Labour Party, being dignified, elevated, made noble

The Sketch: Cameron's dark arts have even won over opposition MPs

Thursday, 8 July 2010

You might be getting sick of hearing what a character David Cameron cuts in the Commons, but there can be no compromise with the readership.

The Sketch: Miliband turns cartoon villain as things get a bit too close for comfort

Wednesday, 7 July 2010

The clue was in the personnel – the judge and the members of the torture inquiry team. None are temperamentally inclined to cause trouble; all would be sympathetic to the idea that security officers do a dangerous, self-sacrificing job. In the House, only Mark Durkan declined to join in "the canonisation of the security services". David Winnick sang a line to that. But Cameron is master and commander of the security services and he is therefore in their power.