17 August 2016 'The left case for Brexit was an interesting exercise, a bit like a Marxist review of The Very Hungry Caterpillar or one of those games where you work out whether it would be better to have no arms or no legs'

11 April 2016 'After winning an open contest with massive support, Corbyn has been accused of "seizing power"...'

20 February 2016 'Nuclear weapons cannot be seen purely as a source of jobs'

1 December 2015 'Not many people would stand by and watch someone drown if they had the chance to rescue them, but that is what Europe’s governments are doing'

1 September 2015 'The highlight began when it looked as though Corbyn could win, and continued thereafter'

8 June 2015 'No, it’s not time to rehabilitate Tony Blair.'

1 April 2015 'Coalition is not a box on the ballot paper. No one elected the last one'

1 February 2015 'I am reasonably confident that my attitude to my Englishness is quite healthy, so let me share it'

19 December 2013 'The thing that surprises me is not that Westminster politics are found to be boring, but rather that so many journalists find them so interesting'

15 November 2013 'The thing we should know by now is that unpicking their motives doesn’t really help to demolish their case'

6 September 2013 'Not the state we like, which is about schools and hospitals, but the other one'

4 July 2013 'Most people are not cold-blooded and are quite shocked when they learn how low benefits actually are'

7 May 2013 'We’d all say a person has a right to a home, but we wouldn’t say their home has rights.'

20 February 2013 'Well might we muse upon the entitlement of a chancellor who, upon his father’s passing, will be titled'

7 December 2012 'Conservatives have never truly been convinced by this country’s experiment with universal suffrage'

31 October 2012 'Did sibling rivalry make you happy? Would you like to be treated by a more competitive doctor?'

20 August 2012 'In a market-driven society, it is a tribute to human decency that anyone behaves with any morals at all'

24 June 2012 'The fact the country is not overrun with lynching parties must mean not all readers take the papers seriously'

30 May 2012 'Do we really want the bother of an elected president? Isn’t a Windsor a familiar and convenient alternative?'

14 April 2012 'I have no wish to speak ill of the dead, even when they are still alive'

11 December 2011 'Millions of people have mind-numbing and soul-destroying jobs manufacturing crap we don’t need'

4 August 2011 'The reason he’s terrified is that he knows in his heart that capitalism doesn’t work'

30 May 2011 The Tories have taken on human form, which is when they’re at their most dangerous

1 April 2011 We are all products of our environment, unless you believe everything is hereditary, which I suppose you do if you’re a prince

4 February 2011 Last spring, they loved Nick Clegg. Now they think he’s a scumbag

30 November 2010 Are our political opinions in the blood?

1 October 2010 I’ve seen those criminals, bent double over the fields of Kent, up to no good

1 August 2010 As a young boy, I was an avid militarist, partly because I thought we were still at war with Germany for most of the 1960s