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.

Mark Steel: Being honest is no longer official policy

Now Phil Woolas has been banned from parliament for lying on his election leaflets, I suppose the Liberal Democrat MPs who vote for increasing university fees will all be chucked out as well.

Recently by Mark Steel

Mark Steel: Do you have the strength for the 7.57 to Euston?

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

The spokespeople for train operators must enjoy themselves. Yesterday they merrily announced that overcrowding on trains is going to get "much worse" without a glimmer of remorse – the equivalent of the BBC announcing their autumn season by saying, "We've got a right lot of old rubbish on between now and Christmas. Still, there we are."

Mark Steel: Did Obama forget he's in charge?

Wednesday, 3 November 2010

The easy view to adopt would be that we're back to normal, and Americans are just mental. Because the people leading the hatred of Obama are characters such as Glenn Beck, spokesman for the Tea Party. Beck hosts a TV show in which during the last 18 months he's likened Obama to Hitler 349 times.

Mark Steel: Even the Vikings found jobs

Wednesday, 27 October 2010

Where do they get these idiots who come on the radio and television to tell us how to prepare for our pensions? Every day one of them pops up to say we should change our culture to save more for old age rather than spending now, as if most people have a choice, and have fifteen hundred quid spare every month they can't think what to do with. But we're so used to state pensions that instead of using this to provide for later life, we get to 65 and think: "I wish I'd put that two hundred thousand pounds away for an adequate pension, instead of spending it on hiring Beyoncé to clean my kitchen."

Mark Steel: Shamed by our spirit of protest

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Wayne Rooney must look in the papers every morning and think, "How does Vince Cable get away with it? Just like me, a year ago he was a national hero, the embodiment of hope, and now he's a bumbling fool and revealed as a cheat. But he's allowed to carry on as he pleases and isn't even substituted. I want a transfer to the Liberal Democrats."

Mark Steel: My tips on paying for university

Wednesday, 13 October 2010

How are they allowed to suggest this mad scheme where they charge £36,000 for student fees? If you've got three kids heading towards university age it's like hearing on the news there's a report recommending that for the good of the nation your family is bankrupted for three generations. Or that the government is considering easing the pressure on higher-education spending, by forcing all parents of students to spend a year on the game.

Mark Steel: Solving disputes the Boris way

Thursday, 7 October 2010

The marvellous part about a transport strike, such as the one on the London Underground on Monday, is the reports on the news afterwards. This is where we're told that, "one plucky commuter beat the strike by breaking into the Imperial War Museum and stealing a Spitfire, which he used to ferry grateful passengers who'd been left stranded by the union in a swamp with little hope of ever seeing their children again. And an insurance clerk got permission from London Zoo to borrow a leopard, and rode on it to his office in Shoreditch. There was a slight hitch on the Camden one-way system when it mauled a queue for the 159 to Westminster, but he arrived only 10 minutes late, and was able to do plenty of filing."

Mark Steel: Voting how you want? Outrageous!

Wednesday, 29 September 2010

He won the leadership, according to some people, because the unions levered him in with their wily ways. The sneaky trick they used this time was to give their members a vote each, who then acted in their usual selfish fashion by voting for the candidate they preferred. So it must be time for new legislation that compels the unions to be more democratic, by making them vote for the candidate that certain newspapers prefer.

Mark Steel: That's right, it was all a Muslim plot

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

You might think that a plot to blow up the Pope would be news for a while. Popes don't get blown up all that often, and this one's enough of a celebrity that if he fell over drunk at the MTV awards with Kanye West it would be in the papers for a few days, so it's strange that a plot to blow him up was only of interest for one day.

Mark Steel: Let Ryanair run all our services

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

Eventually the Coalition will sell itself off and the country will be run by Ryanair. You realise this if you listen to one of their favourite thinkers, Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, which describes itself as a "free-market think-tank." Yesterday he suggested stopping libraries from receiving public funding, because he doesn't use them, so "why should I pay?" And that is a legitimate economic argument which raises valid social as well as monetary concerns for anyone who's a miserable, wretched, anti-social, smug, selfish bastard.

Mark Steel: Socialists? You've got to be joking

Wednesday, 8 September 2010

Everyone seems to agree that the Labour party is better off having the polite contest taking place now, rather than its old ideological fights. But the result is a series of debates about nothing, with no one daring to say anything, let alone disagree with the nothing someone else has said.

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