Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams has written a column for The Independent since 2005. A key figures in the satire boom of the 1960s, he helped found Private Eye and edited it for 23 years. In 1992 he founded The Oldie, which he has edited since. Vintage humorist, scourge of the pompous and the power-hungry, Ingrams brings a unique perspective to bear on the political foibles of the age and on a culture in thrall to celebrity.

Richard Ingrams's Week: Politicians need all the scientific help they can get

The scientific community is still spluttering about the sacking of the Government's drugs adviser Professor David Nutt, and there is plenty of high-falutin' talk about the integrity of scientists and the value of the independent advice they offer to politicians.

Recently by Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams’s Week: We could learn a thing or two from the French

Saturday, 31 October 2009

A schoolboy who recently joined an anti-Scientology demonstration in London had his name taken by the police when he refused to lower a placard which called Scientology a cult. Luckily the case against him was dropped after the human rights organisation Liberty intervened on his behalf.

Richard Ingrams’s Week: We forget our soldiers' legal fears over Iraq

Saturday, 24 October 2009

Having, as I do, what some may consider a perverse inclination to sympathise with anyone subjected to unanimous abuse, I have been struggling to think of something nice to say about Mr Nick Griffin.

Richard Ingrams’s Week: Not all of us are happy with rising house prices

Saturday, 3 October 2009

The good news is that house prices are going up again. For the past two years or so, there has been a steady decline. So a house that might have cost £500,000 two years ago might today be worth only £450,000.

Richard Ingrams’s Week: If Scotland has to go, she will not be missed

Saturday, 26 September 2009

I have a slightly soft spot for Baroness Scotland because I remember how, many years ago, she used to read the pages of Private Eye for libel. As did her husband Mr Richard Mawhinney.

Richard Ingrams’s Week: Crazy new restrictions that must be resisted

Saturday, 19 September 2009

Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Stevenson, now retired, who headed the police investigation into the Soham murders, wrote a newspaper article this week attacking the new regulations affecting all those who work part-time with children. The nation has been gripped by paranoia, he said, instancing what happened to him recently when he took some pictures of his grandson in a village football match.

Richard Ingrams’s Week: I'm sorry, but all these apologies are ridiculous

Saturday, 12 September 2009

Gordon Brown has followed Tony Blair's example and taken to apologising for things that he had nothing to do with. In Blair's case it was the Irish potato famine; with Brown it is the suicide of the brilliant wartime code-breaker Alan Turing, a homosexual who killed himself after being convicted of gross indecency.

Richard Ingrams’s Week: Millions of us live happily in an internet-free Britain

Saturday, 5 September 2009

The government is taking steps to ensure that many more people have easy access to hardcore pornography in their homes. That is a possibly tasteless but nevertheless perfectly valid way of interpreting the current drive to get the bulk of the population linked up to the internet.