Mark Steel

Commentator and stand-up comedian Mark Steel has presented several radio and television programmes, and appeared on Have I Got News for You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. In 2006 he published Vive La Revolution: A Stand-up History of the French Revolution, and in 2000 stood as a candidate in the London Assembly elections.

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Mark Steel: It's Blair I feel really sorry for

Isn't it marvellous that all these governments are determined to do "something" about Colonel Gaddafi? For example Hillary Clinton said she supported military action once the Arab League – made up of countries such as Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia – backed the air strikes. And it is encouraging that the policy of not tolerating a dictator has the backing of so many dictators.

Recently by Mark Steel

Mark Steel: We need the spirit of Wisconsin

Thursday, 17 March 2011

It must be part of the Coalition agreement that every day every member of the Government has to do the speech full of weird facts about how much debt we're in. So they explain they have to implement cuts like this: "Let me give you some idea of the problem we face. Because Labour overspent, Britain now owes £4 for every molecule in the country. We owe more than the value of Venus, indeed if the deficit was a bee it could sting the whole of Spain. If Jesus came back to Earth he would need seven separate miracles to get rid of the debt, and if the deficit was a cabbage it would be no less than nine cabbages."

Mark Steel: I know, let's sell weapons to a lunatic

Wednesday, 9 March 2011

The Western leaders now condemning Colonel Gaddafi as a madman must be perplexed as to what's gone wrong with him, because up until a month ago they obviously thought he was perfectly sane and well-balanced – otherwise they wouldn't have sold him all those tanks. They must wonder if the stress of being a dictator has got to him, and if he'd had a fortnight off and started yoga all this trouble could have been avoided.

Mark Steel: Rulers who still need our sympathy

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

The most worrying side to world events is if Gaddafi and Berlusconi both depart, there'll be hardly any world leaders left to offer Tony and Cherie Blair a free holiday. It only needs Murdoch to be overthrown and the Blairs will have to go to Pontins at Camber Sands.

Mark Steel: Dictators? It's a question of taste

Wednesday, 16 February 2011

One of the joys of Mubarak's demise was watching his Western backers figure out what they were supposed to say. So the US line was: "It's not our place to intervene in a country run by a dictator we've armed and financed for 30 years."

Mark Steel: The caring, sharing way to bad times

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

The first troubling side to the Big Society is no one can explain what it means. You might not agree with them, but at least policy initiatives such as the Five-Year Plan, Thousand-Year Reich or Holy Jihad were clear and got their point across. But ministers explain the Big Society with statements such as, "It's a brave optimism vision that instead of statedom fills a voluntary doingness not interferencing and oooh it will be so BIG and, 'Neighbours, [sings] everybody needs good neighbours', and I'm excited let's deliver more chickens to old people."

Mark Steel: It's people who bring about change

Wednesday, 2 February 2011

All those scenes from Cairo of mass demonstrations look like the perfect expression of the big society. So we can only assume David Cameron wants us to try something similar here. It would certainly encourage more people to take an interest in politics. Instead of complaining that kids show no interest in the political process when they are asked to study details of local government boundary changes, teachers could say: "Today we're going to find out how new governments are formed" and get the class to stand on a tank in Trafalgar Square.

Mark Steel: Grant Shapps: at last – a man to really annoy us

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

One government post that always takes a while to fill after an election is the job of minister who more than any other makes you feel sick as soon as you see their face, often for reasons you can't quite put your finger on.

Mark Steel: Gallstones? NHS choice will cure you

Wednesday, 19 January 2011

You can see why they've announced this plan to change the health service, because it looks similar to the way they transformed the railways into competing units, and that's been such a success who wouldn't want to use a similar system to deal with triple by-passes and liver transplants?

We owe it to bankers to feel their pain

Wednesday, 12 January 2011

Mark Steel: Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, who himself has to suffer the trauma of an �8m bonus, said yesterday that the bankers' "period of remorse and apology should be over".

Mark Steel: VAT: can't they lie any better than this?

Wednesday, 5 January 2011

This might sound smug, but I've done marvellously at sticking to my New Year's Resolution. I resolved to call George Osborne a string of rude sweary names every morning as soon as I get up and so far I've managed with hardly any trouble at all.

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