Mar 202014
 
Grant Shapps: Man of the People

by Matt Haynes
Prompted by yesterday’s announcement by Grant Shapps – that things would all be a lot better if we just got on with our drinking and bingo and let them sort out running the country – we look back at our response to a similar initiative from the Evening Standard during the heady last day’s of Ken Livingstone’s mayoralty: a hard-hitting series in which irony did battle with hypocrisy for the soul of Standard editor Veronica Wadley. [read more…]

Mar 132014
 
Magnesium Burns

by Gary Budden
The fourth and final image is simpler, easier to interpret. It gives Andrew more hope than the previous pictures. A solitary young girl clutching a balloon with the spriggan’s face its decoration stands smiling with genuine joy. In the background, the Olympic Park is consumed by hungry flames as tattooed looters ransack a shopping centre. [read more…]

May 302012
 
George Osborne Breasts the Surf

I had a bit of Nadine Dorries moment at the Cutty Sark last week while looking at a display of ships’ figureheads; for George Osborne, it seems, has cocked a snook at all this trendy defogeyfication and had himself immortalised not simply on canvas, but large-as-life in carved and brightly painted wood. [read more…]