Robert Hutton

@roberthutton

Author, parliamentary sketchwriter and co-host of classic cinema love-in War Movie Theatre. Books about chaotic detectives, sneaky spies, and misleading words.

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Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

Yesterday's SKETCH was filed before we got the Cabinet appointments, but there were already hints of the weirdest thing about the Coming of Burnham: the self-congratulation of the Labour Party at its defeat of its ancient enemy, the Labour Party. thecritic.co.uk/burn...

As the Burnhams climbed out of the car, there was a huge cheer. The hated Labour government had been overthrown, and a new era of peace and prosperity was being ushered in with a bright, fresh Labour administration!

Our new leader made his way up the street, shaking hands in triumph. Looking at the pictures, it was easy to forget that his presence there owed far more to the last guy’s failure than to anything Burnham had actually done. His victory was the result of Labour grabbing him out of desperation, rather than any massive public endorsement.

Perhaps that was why TV talking heads were talking about pressure for an early election. It’s not clear where this pressure is supposed to be coming from. Labour MPs certainly don’t want one, and neither do the Conservatives. Of all the new prime ministers we’ve had — and we’ve had a few lately — Burnham must be the only one to be greeted with a leader of the opposition begging him not to go to the country.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

I went to bed and therefore missed last night's magnificent grace note: "Maybe the problem with Keir's government was that he didn't give enough responsibility for important things to Lisa."

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

thecritic.co.uk/bring-back-d...

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

I'm open to the possibility that we have our first satirical Cabinet.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

I like to think he's done this to make political journalists look stupid, and honestly I admire it.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

Meet the new boss... different from the old boss? My SKETCH of goings and comings in Downing Street. thecritic.co.uk/burn...

As Keir Starmer walked out of Number 10 for the last time, he was greeted by a huge cheering crowd. Wow, this guy is popular! He should consider running for office. “My work is done,” he told us, offering possibly the most misguided example of marking your own homework since George W Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” six weeks after invading Iraq. Although we shouldn’t be harsh: Liz Truss listed leading the nation in mourning the late Queen as her big achievement in office.

Starmer’s, as he pointed out yet again, was winning the election. The list of things done since then was slightly more vague. But again, Boris Johnson’s departing speech claimed credit for a high-speed train line to Manchester and a number of hospitals that still do not, as such, exist. At least Starmer could truthfully say that he was leaving “with a smile”. Was he also, as he claimed, going “with good grace”? Well, unlike Johnson, he managed to get through the speech without attacking the people who forced hi

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

I'm not sorry. thecritic.co.uk/burnhams-beg...

With that, he was off to Buckingham Palace, where the band was playing a medley of Bon Jovi songs. Shot through the heart, and only himself to blame, he gave Labour a bad name.

But if Starmer was going out in a blaze of inglory, the rest of us were only halfway there. While the King conducted his exit interview in the Palace’s Chinese Dining Room (imagine having a different space to eat every takeaway) we had to hold on, ready or not, through the hour in which we were without a prime minister and living, as it were, on a prayer.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

Although - sorry Steve - this is very much not what he'll be remembered for by farmers.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

Steve Reed delivers an amazing couple of drive-bys at Andy Burnham as he leaves government.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

HE DID THE MEME!

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 22d

Britain: obsessed with social class, terrible at judging it. www.economist.com/britain/2026...

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 23d

Tee-hee, silly old BBC, getting wound up about a bit of sex trafficking.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 26d

It fell to Matt Goodwin to explain who the West needed to be Saved from. thecritic.co.uk/the-revoluti...

But compared to some of the speakers who followed, Young was Plato rolled into Demosthenes. Representative of the American contingent was Jack Posobiec, who had come to tell us about the stories the media doesn’t tell us about. In his case, it turns out the media hasn’t told him anything about life or politics in the UK. Watching him deliver lines that clearly get big rounds of applause stateside to total silence in London was fascinating. “I believe God has a plan for Donald Trump!” he declared. “It is only by turning to God that we can save the West,” he said, looking baffled at the silence that greeted him.

That wasn’t a problem for Matt Goodwin. He was described as a “veteran” of the Gorton and Denton by-election, which is a funny way to spell “loser”. Goodwin’s theme was that the British political class hates the British people. This would explain why he was so keen to get into parliament, because few people seem to hate Britain more than Goodwin. His speech attacked our police, our foreign policy, our schools and universities, and quite a lot of our people.

Which people? Well, as he closed, he told us what he wanted to see: “a nation that looks and feels like something we know and something our ancestors built.” That might have been a complaint about modern architecture, but is it possible there’s some other thing about the way that the nation looks which Goodwin doesn’t like? It did feel like we were getting to the heart of who we’re Saving The West from.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 26d

The Revolution Will Be Half-Empty - my SKETCH of CPAC-GB, the weird import from America that's going to save us from... well, from who, exactly? thecritic.co.uk/the-...

Nothing seems to become prime ministers like the way they leave the job. Margaret Thatcher’s final Prime Minister’s Questions saw her delighting in a final moment of combat. Tony Blair’s featured political insight and a nice turn of phrase. Boris Johnson’s was full of bitterness that his MPs had rejected his brilliance. And Keir Starmer’s? Much like the man himself, it was long-winded but good-natured, dignified but self-satisfied.

He was greeted by such a roar of approval that you might have thought Labour MPs liked him. Let’s just say they have all felt more warmly since he announced he was off. The event had the air of a retirement party where people have realised there’s no longer any need to complain about the way he keeps putting the wrong paper in the photocopier.

Even Kemi Badenoch was generous, something that doesn’t come naturally. “I wanted to make sure I got the tone right today,” she opened, in what I’m choosing to take as a knowing acknowledgement that this isn’t her s

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 27d

So farewell then, Keir Starmer... my SKETCH of a friendly final PMQs. thecritic.co.uk/two-...

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 27d

Danny Kruger's PMQs question on the Clacton by-election in picture form.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· 28d

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 10

thecritic.co.uk/tunbridge-we...

What is Kemi Badenoch’s theory of Tunbridge Wells? In one of her many lengthy podcast appearances last week (we listen so you don’t have to), she laughed at the idea that the Liberal Democrats had cost her party the election. Her view remains the one she set out during the leadership campaign, that voters rejected the Tories because they had “talked right but governed left”.

It’s easy to see why this was a winning message in a party leadership contest: we just need to be truer to ourselves! Our ideas were good ones, but we were let down by wicked lefties Boris and Rishi! But it really doesn’t explain the swathe of Lib Dem seats in the Home Counties: half the constituencies in Surrey now have Lib Dem MPs.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 9

"I'm just going to interrupt you there Chris, because we're hearing there's a result in from Tunbridge Wells, and... as expected, that's a Lib Dem Hold."

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 9

"Actually the people who are laughing about all this are the joyless ones, because of their lanyards. Work with me here..."

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 7

thecritic.co.uk/populism-in-...

“I have done nothing wrong,” Farage said. “I have not broken the law in any way at all.” The second statement, close observers will note, does not mean quite the same thing as the first. Had he broken Parliament’s rules? “The code applies to members in all aspects of their public life. It does not seek to regulate what members do in their purely personal lives.” Perhaps he is going to argue that you can take what you like from someone, so long as they call you “Daddy”.

That, for readers who haven’t been keeping up, is how George Cottrell, known around the Reform office as “Posh George”, refers to Farage. Cottrell is an extremely rich young man who served a jail term for wire fraud after meeting undercover FBI officers pretending to be drug dealers who needed help laundering money. If Cottrell’s name rings a bell, it might be because he has a new book out, the snappily titled How To Launder Money.

It was a report about undeclared gifts from Cottrell that sparked the latest round of questions about who exactly is paying for all the Reform leader’s champagne and houses. “The new attack from the media is that somehow I am a crook,” Farage said, in a clip that was in no way a hostage to fortune. “I am dishonest.” Look, that’s what he said. I just write it down.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 7

Populism in its Purest Form: my SKETCH of Nigel Farage's demand that the people of Clacton back his quest to keep his sources of cash secret. thecritic.co.uk/popu...

He’s off again! I feel like I’ve spent most of my life covering Nigel Farage’s departures from parts of public life, and yet every time I turn around, he’s popped back up, complaining about the unfairness of it all. Tuesday’s resignation from Parliament wasn’t even a real one: he’s leaving to fight a by-election on the great national issue of our time: should Nigel Farage have to explain who’s paying him?

We should be clear that the question isn’t whether the Reform leader should be allowed to accept millions of pounds in gifts, work for a TV channel, promote financial investments or take tens of thousands in speaking fees around the world. All of that is completely allowed. The only question is whether he should have to tell the rest of us about it. For some reason, this wasn’t exactly how he put it.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 7

He's announcing a new cryptocurrency.

Farage says he'll make "a statement on my future in public life" at 2pm.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 7

The harassment of my family over a few completely within-the-rules gifts from friends has gone in long enough! thecritic.co.uk/from...

All of this is, as I say, the kind of quite normal thing that any friend would do for another. Hutton might toss Oiky Ben a book he’s finished reading, and Oiky Ben might rent a five-storey house in Belgravia from which Hutton could work. Who keeps track of such things?

Far too much has been made of Ben’s habit of referring to Hutton by an affectionate nickname. After all, what could be more normal than one adult man calling another, to whom he is not related, “Daddy”? I assure you, such things happened all the time in the gulags where I spent my adolescence.

Then there is the matter of Oiky Ben’s so-called “conviction”. It is a sad thing when simply pleading guilty to fraud and going to jail is enough to see someone treated as a criminal. Which of us, after all, can honestly say we have not offered money laundering advice to undercover FBI agents? If a youthful mistake like that is enough to stop someone being able to buy things for a friend, then our public life will be a great dea

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 6

A statement from the proprietor of The Critic about the allegations concerning our so-called sketchwriter and the man known as "Oiky Ben". thecritic.co.uk/from...

Readers will doubtless be aware that, following the “Cash-for-Quips” scandal of the 1990s, in which it emerged that a small number of humourists had managed to make a living out of writing jokes, political satire has been subject to a tight system of regulation, with gagmeisters required to declare all relevant gifts and donations. Over the weekend, the irresponsible gutter muckrakers of the Sunday Times published a deeply irresponsible report into Hutton’s relationship with a younger colleague known to all of us simply as “Oiky Ben”.

It has been suggested by some that Oiky Ben is a member of The Critic’s staff, pumping out “hot takes” on the nature of modern Conservatism and attacks on Rory Stewart from a hide-out somewhere in Eastern Europe. But following an extensive shredding operation, I can confirm that although Oiky Ben is often seen at Critic events, he is simply an enthusiastic supporter of the magazine’s mission of taking Britain back to a more civilised age of gentlemen wea

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 4

*not_another_one.gif*

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 4

On the one hand, Sheffield University's journalism school newsrooms are incredibly impressive. On the other, I fear they may be creating unrealistic expectations about what it will be like working from @jim.londoncentric.media's spare room.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 4

Great job, political journalists. You tried to find out what Andy Burnham might be like as prime minister, and now he's crying.

Robert Hutton@roberthutton· Jul 3

Duncan considers wistfully whether he will ever see the Bonaparte empire restored.