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Tom Peck

@tompeck

Tom Peck is The Independent's Political Sketch Writer. He has also worked as a Political Correspondent, Sports Writer and Olympics Correspondent.

<p>The former prime minister made a dramatic return to frontline politics as Rishi Sunak tried to reset his government before the general election expected next year</p>
Voices

Am I dreaming – or was that really David Cameron, back at No 10?

<p>The King took 11 and a half minutes to read the speech at this year’s state opening of Parliament </p>
Voices

My government won’t deny homeless people a tent after all…

<p>Steve Baker, Northern Ireland minister and Brexit purist</p>
Voices

Clueless confessions of a ridiculous Brexit fanatic

<p>Protesters holding Free Palestine placards during a March for Palestine rally in London</p>
Politics Explained

How can police deal with ‘jihad’ protests over the Israel-Gaza war?

<p>No slouch: Jacob Rees-Mogg has received almost £17,000 compensation for a ministerial role he was in for just 49 days </p>
Voices

Hold on… why are we paying Jacob Rees-Mogg £17k in compensation?

<p>Put ’em up: Greg Hands, chairman of the Conservative Party, mounted a spirited defence of landmark by-election losses</p>
Voices

Greg Hands’ journey to nowhere makes a wasp at my window seem brave

<p>Shoulder to shoulder: Rishi Sunak with Benjamin Netanyahu </p>
Voices

How Sunak passed the Netanyahu test (for all the good it will do)

<p>Disney+’s ‘Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story’ </p>
Voices

Wagatha Christie’s big reveal? Wayne Rooney’s a genius

<p>First minister Humza Yousaf announced a freeze in council tax for Scots next year as he closed the SNP conference in Aberdeen</p>
Voices

Humza Yousaf was the future once. Now he is the SNP’s night watchman

Voices

Liz Truss has an idea for the Budget! How well that went last time...

<p>Keir Starmer said several times in 2017 and 2019 that Jeremy Corbyn would make ‘a good prime minister’ – did he really mean it? </p>
Voices

Why Keir Starmer still can’t answer the Corbyn Question

<p>Was the glittering of Keir Starmer the work of some kind of climate activist – or a bit of ambush marketing for hobbycraft? </p>
Voices

OK, UK, you’ve had your fun – now Dad’s here to drive you home

<p>Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, that ‘nice, genial, competent but ultimately somewhat dull person you’d expect to bump into the business centre of an airport hotel’ </p>
Voices

The Rachel Revolution, where the less you say, the more they love you

Voices

The Rachel Revolution, where the less you say, the more they love you

<p>Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, that ‘nice, genial, competent but ultimately somewhat dull person you’d expect to bump into the business centre of an airport hotel’ </p>
<p>Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, who ‘looked a million dollars – just don’t ask where they’re domiciled’</p>
Voices

Sunak killed HS2, A-levels and smoking – and set fire to his future

<p>Claire Coutinho, a ‘rising star’ of the Conservative Party, declared that Labour will introduce a ‘meat tax’</p>
Voices

Heard the one about Labour’s meat tax? The Tories really hope you have

<p>The tagline for Liz Truss’s conference rally was ‘Make Britain Grow Again’ </p>
Voices

Liz Truss’s latest big idea? Convincing us she never existed

<p>Rishi Sunak, petrolhead </p>
Voices

The PM prefers helicopters – but for now, he is a driven man

<p>Rishi Sunak, petrolhead </p>
Voices

The PM prefers helicopters – but for now, he is a driven man

<p>Fixing potholes, Sunak said, is what people really care about</p>
Voices

Sunak’s desperate dodging of the HS2 question tells us everything

<p>New York’s attorney general believes Donald Trump has repeatedly exaggerated how rich he is</p>
Voices

Has Trump’s Scottish golf course blown a hole in his defence?

<p>When the cameras pulled out, Suella Braverman appeared to be addressing an empty hotel business centre </p>
Voices

The moment Suella Braverman became a global laughing stock

<p>Olympic medallist James Cracknell will be the Tory candidate in Colchester</p>
Voices

If James Cracknell can handle Ben Fogle, Westminster will be a breeze

<p>Is it possible to feel sorry for Rishi Sunak?</p>
Voices

‘No We Can’t’: Rishi Sunak launches his election campaign

<p>Former Liverpool forward Jermaine Pennant did the deed, somewhere in the jungle in North Vietnam, in a sparring match on <em>Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins</em></p>
Voices

Ever wanted to plant one on Matt Hancock? Here’s the next best thing

<p>The PM has weakened a host of net zero pledges</p>
Voices

Meat Tax? Seven different bins? Scrapped (before they even existed...)

Voices

Is Keir Starmer really about to start renegotiating Brexit?

<p>Former Liverpool forward Jermaine Pennant did the deed, somewhere in the jungle in North Vietnam, in a sparring match on <em>Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins</em></p>
Voices

Ever wanted to plant one on Matt Hancock? Here’s the next best thing

<p>The PM has weakened a host of net zero pledges</p>
Voices

Meat Tax? Seven different bins? Scrapped (before they even existed...)

Voices

Is Keir Starmer really about to start renegotiating Brexit?

<p>Queen Elizabeth II welcoming the newly-elected leader of the Conservative party Boris Johnson during an audience in Buckingham Palace</p>
Voices

No 10 asked the Queen to save us from Boris. But what about Truss?

Voices

No 10 asked the Queen to save us from Boris. But what about Truss?

<p>Queen Elizabeth II welcoming the newly-elected leader of the Conservative party Boris Johnson during an audience in Buckingham Palace</p>
<p>Peas in a pod: Balls and Osborne’s banter is surprisingly predictable </p>
Voices

It’s the Balls and Osborne show. Talk about plunging interest rates…

<p>The former health secretary find himself in a dubious position, and not for the first time </p>
Voices

Change the channel, Matt Hancock – we’ve seen this one before

<p>A scene from 'Team America: World Police' the 2004 puppet satire that lampooned Kim Jong-il, father of North Korea’s current leader</p>
Voices

Lobsters, smiles and missiles: the ludicrous leaders strut their stuff

<p>Truss has already spent her time out of office, jetting around on a kind of self-exculpatory Why I Was Right And Everyone Was Wrong World Tour</p>
Voices

Liz Truss has a deranged plan to ‘save the West’ (who from – herself?)

<p>Truss has already spent her time out of office, jetting around on a kind of self-exculpatory Why I Was Right And Everyone Was Wrong World Tour</p>
Voices

Liz Truss has a deranged plan to ‘save the West’ (who from – herself?)

<p>Keir Starmer visiting the Sydney Russell School in Dagenham on Monday</p>
Politics Explained

Can tactical voting really make a big impact at the next election?

<p>When someone turns the last decade of British politics into a10-part Netflix series — think ‘The Crown’ but a bit more ‘Fawlty Towers’ — it certainly would not be beyond the Conservative party to claim some of the royalties</p>
Voices

It’s prison break — the new must-watch Marvel comic mini-series

<p>Here she was, mouthing the words ‘stupid man’ in Keir Starmer’s direction </p>
Voices

Gillian Keegan has completed a breathtaking hat-trick of abuse

<p>Truss has given no public sign of having learnt anything at all from her experiences</p>
Long Reads

The Truss calamity: 49 deranged days that convulsed Britain

<p>Who needs a balloon full of laughing gas to have a fit of the hysterics when you have the news? </p>
Voices

‘Hot Mic’ Gillian’s dumbest announcement yet

<p>Far from being a ‘hot mic’ incident, Keegan’s is a ‘hot interview’, in which the interviewee somehow forgets they are standing in front of a television camera, giving a television interview, and talking to the news reporter who is interviewing them </p>
Voices

Gillian Keegan’s F*** and an A*** will grade her for life

<p>Shapps’s bizarre digital past is well documented</p>
Voices

We have a defence secretary who used 1,2,3,4 as his pass code…

<p>Penny Mordaunt has launched a new campaign to bring back national service</p>
Voices

National service for the over-65s: now there’s an idea

<p>The England cricket team meet Prime Minister Theresa May after winning the Cricket World Cup in 2019</p>
Voices

The Abuse of Power? Theresa May’s new book is an abuse of reality!

<p>On a quiet bank holiday Monday, the home secretary Suella Braverman announced a bold new plan for the police to actually start investigating crimes again</p>
Voices

If these are the government’s best ideas, they’re better off clueless

<p>Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murty wave as they board a plane (Stefan Rousseau/PA)</p>
Voices

Sunak’s best defence? He’s too rich to bother breaking the rules

Voices

Sunak’s best defence? He’s too rich to bother breaking the rules

<p>Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murty wave as they board a plane (Stefan Rousseau/PA)</p>
<p>Boris Johnson at a lockdown gathering in 10 Downing Street </p>
Voices

Boris is going to star in a Partygate drama. And he’s phoning it in

<p>Chancellor Jeremy Hunt still needs to tackle inflation </p>
Politics Explained

Why tax cuts are still off Jeremy Hunt’s agenda

<p>Rishi Sunak shows his painting of a bee at the Busy Bees nursery in Harrogate on Monday</p>
Politics Explained

There’s a reason voters aren’t thanking Sunak for falling inflation

<p>Just the thought of the pictures: the prime minister and the future king striding out to the spacecraft. What a wasted opportunity </p>
Voices

There’s no good reason for Wills and Rishi to let down the Lionesses

<p>Just the thought of the pictures: the prime minister and the future king striding out to the spacecraft. What a wasted opportunity </p>
Voices

There’s no good reason for Wills and Rishi to let down the Lionesses

<p>Sarina Wiegman, centre, with her players after England’s semi-final win over Australia</p>
Voices

England’s rivalry with Spain is missing one ingredient: sun loungers

<p>For the third summer in a row, England are in the final of a major football tournament</p>
Voices

With one pass, the Lionesses have opened the door to football Narnia

<p>It seems unlikely NHS week will achieve everything that small boats week managed but it has, within hours if not seconds, got off to a truly flying start</p>
Voices

Thought ‘small boats week’ was a disaster? You ain’t seen nothing yet

<p>What is Rishi Sunak if not the Toilet Tsar? Our rivers and seas are awash with sewage, and millions upon millions of people can feel their hopes and dreams being flushed away</p>
Voices

A Lavatory Tsar? Another gimmick that would be utterly self-defeating

<p>Legionnaires’ disease was detected in the onboard water supply of the Bibby Stockholm </p>
Voices

The farce of the Bibby Stockholm should be a lesson to Sunak

<p>Sunak unveiled his five pledges in January this year </p>
Politics Explained

What do the latest figures mean for Rishi Sunak’s five pledges?

<p>If Goldsmith has sussed you out, you might be in even bigger trouble than you realise</p>
Voices

Goldsmith ‘defecting to Labour’ will send chills through their ranks

<p>We have recently learned that the prime minister ‘supports’ Lee Anderson’s comments </p>
Voices

The Tories can’t even win the argument on immigration with themselves

<p>Former prime minister Liz Truss</p>
Voices

Anyone with any sense or shame would run a mile from a Liz Truss gong

<p>There are ways to work toward redemption. Filming yourself singing ‘Barbie’ songs for TikTok is not one of them </p>
Voices

Matt Hancock thinks he can humiliate his way to redemption

<p>Rishi Sunak’s claim over waiting times was challenged by a junior doctor (Daniel Leal/PA)</p>
Voices

It’s silly season and Westminster is making a complete fool of itself

Voices

It’s silly season and Westminster is making a complete fool of itself

<p>Rishi Sunak’s claim over waiting times was challenged by a junior doctor (Daniel Leal/PA)</p>
<p>The Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge at Portland Port in Dorset</p>
Voices

If Bibby Stockholm isn’t a terrible threat, what’s the point of it?

<p>It has been suggested that Johnson simply wanted to ruffle feathers by making Charlotte Owen the youngest life peer in British history</p>
Voices

Boris Johnson’s final act of madness? Making a 30-year-old a baroness

<p>Cruelty is a deliberate and significant part of the government’s asylum policy</p>
Politics Explained

How cruelty cost ministers a defeat over £3 a week for asylum seekers

<p>Thirteen years in to a government feels a tiny bit late for your big plan on housing </p>
Voices

Why Gove’s dream of loft conversions won’t solve the housing crisis

<p>Thirteen years in to a government feels a tiny bit late for your big plan on housing </p>
Voices

Why Gove’s dream of loft conversions won’t solve the housing crisis

<p>Baroness Warsi has been claiming for several years that the party has an issue with Islamophobia </p>
Politics Explained

Does the Conservative Party have an Islamophobia problem?

<p>What a performance </p>
Voices

For Rishi Sunak, two out of three ain’t bad – it’s a disaster

<p>Free speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of what you say</p>
Voices

A private bank has the right to leave Farage off its guestlist

<p>‘Most of our private schools aren’t like Eton or Harrow,’ she said. ‘They’re far smaller and they charge a lot less’ </p>
Voices

Education, education… vacation? For Keegan, it’s one or the other

<p>What even counts as a rip off degree?</p>
Voices

Degrees promote critical thinking – no wonder Rishi wants rid of them

<p>Johnson demonstrates, yet again, that improvement is beyond him</p>
Voices

Locked out of your phone, Boris? Bzzz! Pull the other one

<p>If you were him, would you even bother? </p>
Voices

At least Rishi Sunak’s life is almost as miserable as everyone else’s

<p>Suella Braverman invoked, at least 20 times, the ‘British people’ </p>
Voices

Suella Braverman’s Rwanda plan has gone from dream to undiluted farce

<p>Rishi Sunak has given up, and frankly who can blame him?</p>
Voices

The best weapon Tories have to throw at Labour? A pair of flip flops

<p>As he left the inquiry, victims’ families turned their backs on him</p>
Voices

Matt Hancock’s half-baked apology isn’t going to win him forgiveness

<p>He made a very public show of the fact that he’s been inviting Martin Lewis, Britain’s most trusted public figure by some margin, to Downing Street </p>
Voices

Jeremy Hunt’s nightmare could be worse – he could be Matt Hancock

<p>There are doubts to be found absolutely everywhere, with regard to what Osborne regards as an unassailable truth </p>
Voices

No sleepless nights over austerity for happy-go-lucky George

<p>Boris Johnson is a liar</p>
Voices

Boris Johnson is a liar – there could be no more fitting epitaph

<p>Former prime minister David Cameron giving evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in Paddington, west London, on Monday </p>
Voices

David Cameron has a lot of things to be sorry for – but not Covid-19

<p>Phillip Schofield during his BBC interview</p>
Voices

The internet knew Phillip Schofield’s open secret – why didn’t ITV?

<p>Not waving, but drowning </p>
Voices

Frankly my dear Nadine, Boris never gave a damn

<p>Former prime minister David Cameron giving evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in Paddington, west London, on Monday </p>
Voices

David Cameron has a lot of things to be sorry for – but not Covid-19

<p>Phillip Schofield during his BBC interview</p>
Voices

The internet knew Phillip Schofield’s open secret – why didn’t ITV?

<p>Not waving, but drowning </p>
Voices

Frankly my dear Nadine, Boris never gave a damn

<p>Nadine Dorries said she is quitting as an MP with immediate effect</p>
Voices

So long then, Nadine Dorries – we can’t say you’ll be missed

<p>This was winning something. Actually winning something. Not being promoted, or avoiding relegation, or securing qualification for this, that or the other. But getting to the very end of a competition and being the only team still in it</p>
Voices

Brawls, breathless hedonism and Jarrod Bowen: my night with West Ham

<p>Prince Harry is, almost certainly, one of more than a thousand victims of unlawful information-gathering by the tabloid press</p>
Voices

Prince Harry’s day in court was more ‘bust’ than ‘blockbuster’

<p>The sons of kings tend not to acquaint themselves with the insides of witness boxes in the courts of law</p>
Independent Premium

Gone today, heir tomorrow: Prince Harry skips his first day in court

<p>Electoral politics is making it impossible for most politicians to tell the truth about the EU referendum</p>
Voices

As PM, Keir Starmer should order a full public inquiry ... into Brexit

<p>The faux candour of the last 24 hours carries the nauseating whiff that is the essence of the man</p>
Voices

‘Kamikaze’ Boris sets his sights on Sunak revenge

<p>People said it was a conspiracy theory. And now, what do you know, the intelligence agencies agree with him</p>
Voices

Was Trump’s Covid conspiracy theory right all along?

<p>Boris Johnson is still causing problems for Rishi Sunak</p>
Voices

What’s Boris worried about? His WhatsApps will confirm what we know

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