HENRY DEEDES watches the Health Secretary at the Downing Street press conference 

Blimey, Del Boy Hancock has struck it lucky again. He’s scored a whole bunch of testing kits off some outfit called Surescreen. A sun lotion firm? Don’t be a plonker, Rodders. Nah, they’re a top-class healthcare firm in Derby. Cushty. And the Health Sec had only gone and scored 20million of the things. Lovely jubbly! … Read more

Council punch-up star tells HENRY DEEDES how she won a very parochial Game Of Thrones

There was shouting, lewd language and more boisterous behaviour than a rugby club on a Saturday night: a scene of such squabbling it was like the Bash Street Kids rather than a meeting of upstanding members of a local community. We may think of parish councillors as benign folk concerned with little more than the … Read more

HENRY DEEDES: Biden drops the flag on Trumpism… but will the U.S. let him?

The view across Washington’s National Mall this week is as beautiful as it is poignant. All along the sun-dappled turf, some 200,000 American flags have been arranged with military precision, creating an oasis of tranquillity in a city riven by hatred and fear. At night the flags create a fluttering carpet of many colours stretching … Read more

HENRY DEEDES sees the Home Secretary talking tough about lockdown rule-breakers 

Enter The Enforcer. Priti Patel slowly click-clacked into yesterday’s Downing Street press conference, lower jaw out, forearms bared, camera lens fixed with her best ‘let’s be ‘avin’ ya’ glare. She had come to lay down the law. Too many people were flouting lockdown rules. Or, as she put it, ‘breachin’ regulations’. So once again the … Read more

HENRY DEEDES watches as the Chancellor loses his bonhomie

Doe-eyed Rishi Sunak axed the fluffy bunny act: HENRY DEEDES watches as the Chancellor loses his bonhomie By Henry Deedes for the Daily Mail Published: 23:27 GMT, 11 January 2021 | Updated: 23:36 GMT, 11 January 2021 Usually when Rishi Sunak announces he’s adding another couple of noughts to the country’s spiralling debt, he puts … Read more

HENRY DEEDES: What a moment! With Ursula’s ink barely dry, Boris’s toothy grin said… WE. ARE. OUT.

HENRY DEEDES: What a moment! With Ursula’s ink barely dry, Boris’s toothy grin said… WE. ARE. OUT. By Henry Deedes for the Daily Mail Published: 22:00 GMT, 30 December 2020 | Updated: 22:10 GMT, 30 December 2020 Boris Johnson has signed the deal that will allow Britain to break free of the EU, declaring it … Read more

HENRY DEEDES sees an uneasy Labour leader beam in from home for PMQs

As with most members of the legal profession, Sir Keir Starmer would crawl through an open sewer to hear the sound of his own voice. No topic is too obscure, too arcane, on which he would happily hold court.  Weighty matters of Human Rights jurisprudence, for example, or the finer points of the Equality Act. … Read more

HENRY DEEDES watches as Matt Hancock cries on live TV

Gwyneth at the 1999 Oscars. Gazza at Italia 90. To that list of lip- wobbling blubberers, we can now add the name of Matthew Hancock. With the arrival of the coronavirus vaccine, the Health Secretary was on Good Morning Britain yesterday to witness the first inoculations take place live on air. Of course he was! … Read more

A croak, a cough, then hot tears of joy… HENRY DEEDES watches the Health Secretary weep on live TV

Gwyneth at the 1999 Oscars. Gazza at Italia 90. To that list of lip- wobbling blubberers, we can now add the name of Matthew Hancock. With the arrival of the coronavirus vaccine, the Health Secretary was on Good Morning Britain yesterday to witness the first inoculations take place live on air. Of course he was! … Read more