ALAN SIMPSON

If Conservative MPs can spare a moment from watching porn in the House of Commons chamber they will find lots more ‘hot stuff’ calling for their attention in the world outside. A vast swathe of South East Asia faces the hottest conditions they have experienced in over 100 years. Hot babes, hot kids, hot adults,…

In these scary times it is hard to think much beyond the tragedy that is Ukraine. Bombed hospitals sit badly in anyone’s books. Flood tides of refugees shame us all. But if any good is to be salvaged it must come from a bigger political stock-take, not from token gestures. Everything in this process is…

2022 is not going to be the year I turn into a film critic. But if you haven’t seen the film ‘Don’t Look Up’, do so now. This isn’t just because the film offers a terrific satire on the conflicting political influences of science and spin, or because there really is a meteorite heading Earth’s…

Forget the shenanigans about Tory Party partying, something far more insidious it taking place; something eating away at the foundations of British democracy. Socialised distraction is just a cover for doing so. As Boris Johnson knows all too well, insecurity is the handmaiden of authoritarianism. Create it and you erode public confidence in an array…

Don’t blame them; the sherpas, the civil servants and Ministers. They did their best, struggling to get commitments (rather than conditional brackets) out of COP26 negotiations. Surviving on caffeine and little sleep, they genuinely tried to get something meaningful past fossil fuel lobbyists and national vetoes. In the end, everyone had something to grumble about.…

“Don’t choose extinction”. This was the simple advice offered by a dinosaur in the UN’s CGI video message to global leaders. The question is whether any have the sense to heed it. The chaotic upheavals surrounding Glasgow’s COP26 gathering suggest the message is not getting through fast enough. To be fair, there were hopeful signs.…