The Archbishop of Canterbury on… Marjorie Taylor Greene, mad as a bag of racists

28th March 2025

WAKING up with a hangover whose energy, if harnessed, could provide light and electricity for a small Scottish village for six months, I reflect on the past few days and my most recent holy initiative.

Appalled at the government’s plans for benefit cuts, as opposed to taxing the super-rich, I issue a press statement in which I vow that unless these cuts are reversed, I shall henceforth appear in public attired only in my mitre, staff and socks. Otherwise, naked.

There is a certain amount of scoffing at this protest but I am as good as my word. Myself fully exposed is a purple and not at all pretty sight. The BBC tries to suppress footage of me conducting mass in the nuddie at Westminster Abbey but it goes viral nonetheless.

Within days the government is in contact, alarmed at the gross breach of decorum, and also, they admit, suffering crippling feelings of nausea. They will reverse the cuts and impose a wealth tax, so long as I agree to wear pants again.

I may or may not accede. It has been a bracing experience, marred only by parishioners leaving the Abbey doors open, creating a draught which forces me to gently chastise them with the words: ‘Shut that fucking door, the fucking wind went right up my fucking sphincter!’

Otherwise satisfied, I take a light breakfast and peruse a periodical. Therein, I read that US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, questioned by a Sky News reporter about the leaked war plans scandal, replied: ‘Which country are you from? The UK? Okay, we don’t give a crap about your opinion and your reporting. Why don’t you go back to your country? What about all the women in the UK being raped by migrants?’

Slap my cock on a garden table and focus a magnifying glass on it this sunny day, how the fuck did someone as mad as a bag of bats/cats/frogs get to be ‘representative’ of anyone or anything? All you fucking represent is America losing its collective mind and collapsing into a sea of fucking fascism! You’re basically the woman who goes viral on Twitter thanks to footage of you screeching at a traffic warden and throwing your shoes at him after getting a parking ticket! As for telling people to ‘go back’ – everyone’s fucking delighted to leave America while hatstanders like you are running rampant!

Harry Redknapp, former manager of most football teams, has been recorded at an event describing current England manager Thomas Tuchel as a ‘German spy’ and following up his remarks by delivering a Nazi salute.

Well, the rise of the far-right has been a fucking boon for you, hasn’t it? Normally this would have seen you buried alive in the same tomb as fucking Ron Atkinson, but this is 2025, so it’s a career opportunity. Harry Redknapp, the only man brave enough to Sieg Heil it like it fucking is! Your fucking moron generation can’t die out fast enough, you desperately ugly piece of fuck!

Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury, came under fire after he compared the government’s welfare squeeze to cutting his children’s pocket money by £10 per week but urging them to get a Saturday job.

Jesus H Cunt, you desperate, chinless fucking wonk, who’s almost certainly never had an actual job in their wonky fucking lives, have you any idea how this sort of liquefied dogshit sounds when you blurt it out? It’s patronising, fatuous shite like this that makes it more likely Farage will win the next election. Actually forget Farage, let’s go full twat and have Harry Redknapp as the next fucking PM!

Finally, Donald Trump has been musing on the subject of autism. ‘Something happened,’ he said. ‘If you go back 20 years, autism, think of it – one in 20,000 children. Think of that. You see it all over. One in 20,000 children. Now, it’s one in 36 children. Now, what the hell is that all about? There’s something out there and we’ve gotta find it.’

Fuck my tethered goat, you know what? Leaving aside the fact that you’ve pulled those stats out of your disgusting orange arse and you can’t distinguish between an epidemic and improved diagnosis, I’m kind of glad the incontinent organ that passes for your brain is churning out stuff like this. Because you could be doing much worse things with it, like making actual plans to annex Canada! Just keep burbling away, day in, day out, and maybe we’ll see the end of the dark age of your presidency as it fizzles out due to your endless, pointless fucking brain farts!

You'd think they'd be too busy blowing each other up to make dinner: The gammon food critic's Middle Eastern experience

27th March 2025

Restaurant reviews by Justin Tanner, our retired food critic who might have voted for Starmer if he’d known he’d be so much like Maggie.

FUNNY lot, the Arabs. Always killing each other and living in tents in the desert because they’re too lazy to build proper houses. Nothing wrong with camping, but you can take things too far.

I confess I know very little about their food despite being so knowledgeable about their culture. I’m amazed they find time for cooking anyway when they’re busy doing jihads on anyone who worships the wrong pretend man in the sky.

But there’s a place in town I’ve heard people banging on about, so being an open-minded chap, I’ve booked myself a table for one. Let’s just hope it’s not a front for a terrorist cell.

There’s a selection of titbits to start with, served with pitta bread. Obviously they got that from the classic British doner kebab, but I don’t mind a bit of fusion cuisine.

There’s also the staple of every leftie vegan dinner, hummus. It’s heavy on the garlic, so I don’t touch more than a mouthful. And falafel, which they insist is made of ground chickpeas, but for all I know could be deep-fried camel’s bollocks.

It comes with labneh, which is strained yogurt. I do enough straining if I eat yogurt anyway, but that’s what you get for ignoring a lactose intolerance. Bungs me up so much you’d think my arse was on strike.

Moving on to mains, I briefly consider the shakshuka, eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce, but then I come to my senses and remember there’s only two ways to eat eggs: fried as part of the Great British breakfast, or boiled with soldiers to dip in them. They’re probably not too keen on British soldiers round here though.

I recoil in horror when I see ‘chicken cooked in smen’, which I assume is a typo. They assure me it’s their name for clarified butter, but I’m not taking the risk.

I decide on the fatteh makdous, baby aubergines stuffed with minced lamb in a tomato and tahini sauce. The sauce has a disturbing gloopy consistency, which they tell me is the tahini paste. Not so sure myself. Maybe they do have a penchant for knocking one out in the food. Wouldn’t surprise me. They’ve never forgiven us for running Egypt properly.

It’s served with couscous, which is like eating f**king sand. I suppose needs must when everywhere around you is desert.

Onto pud, and I eschew the tahini cheesecake – not getting caught out by that again – and opt for baklava, which I always thought was Greek, but they insist originated in the Middle East. No wonder they’re always having wars if they can’t even agree where their afters came from.

It’s rich in butter and syrup, and tastes okay as well as being really filling. Which is just as well since I’ve only been able to eat a few mouthfuls of my previous courses.

With my stomach at least sufficiently lined to soak up a few post-meal pints, I pay up and leave. Would I return? Not in a month of Ramadans. But I gave it a try and nobody strapped a suicide vest on me, so I’ve broadened my cultural horizons again.