Sunday 7 December 2008

The very last BBC Politics Show Barker Gallery political cartoon



So here it is the last one and now it's time for me stand down to help pay to keep the fat cats in the type of jollies they're accustomed to. Thank you and good night.

Monday 24 November 2008

Opinions Please..

I will be going to the PCS Political Cartoon Awards in a week or so and have to send my entry for 'political cartoon of the year' and would be grateful if people would let me know which are their favourites, from say the last dozen or so i.e. from the 'Who's Dithering Now?' cartoon and since.

Many thanks.

G

Sunday 23 November 2008

Time for a Little Fiscal Stimulation

We're coming to the end of the current run of the Politics Show and I would be grateful if people who enjoy my stuff would please click this link and have quick look through my cartoons there:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/politics_show/7611880.stm

This will help ensure the cartoons continue to be produced. Thanks.

Sunday 16 November 2008

The War on Tax Havens




http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/04/obama-tax-haven-crackdown

Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown target offshore tax havens, but Obama perhaps sees the UK as a tax haven too, considering the amoral levels of tax the mega-rich are allowed to avoud in the UK.

Sunday 2 November 2008

And We All Know What Happened Next..



Congratulation to all in the US. It's nice to see someone responsible, intelligent and able back in charge after so long, thank goodness.

Wednesday 22 October 2008

Saturday 11 October 2008

Whoops Apocalypse!

So Bush has ended nuclear sanctions against India, so they can now expand their nuclear capacity, without signing the non-porliferation treaty. And the double whammy is he has taken North Korea off his naughty boy nation list, even though international inspectors found the agreed seals on nuclear installations had been broken. So not only has Bush delivered economic armageddon to the world but he has tried his best to bring the physical version too.

Let's be honest, how many of us said that he'd bring the world to it's knees the day he stole the original US Presidential election? I know I did.

Sunday 5 October 2008

US Republican Party: They Fail and We All Pay

I find it utterly staggering that the party which dictated to the world the ideology which has now brought the planet to the verge of total economic collapse i.e. unregulated free market economics, should try to pretend that this great big mess isn't their fault. The banks operate under the laws of the jungle, it's their nature, but it is the right wing parties of the world who have let them do as they please through their refusal to regulate their bheaviour. Make no mistake - this mess has been isn't only the Republican's fault, but it was certainly led by them and then followed blindly by the right wing parties of 'New' Labour in the UK and the 'Christian' Democrats across Western Europe. Well here's news to all the right wingers who hide behind so-called Christian values - Christ most certainly would not have been a right winger and real Christian values are just about as far removed from what you stand for as you can get.

Wednesday 1 October 2008

EDF Buy Out of British Energy: Yet More Free Market Folly




I have to say in these days of supposed concerns over the security of energy supply I find it incredible that no one should question the wisdom of selling a major essential service provider in effect to a foreign power i.e. the sale of British Energy to EDF - the nationalised French power organisation. Even as an avid Francophile I have to say it makes me a little uncomfortable to think of the leverage that this could give the French government when our two nations may have our occasional ideological differences. The thing I find most amazing about all of this is the British as a nation have so willingly been spoonfed and then swallowed the idea that free market market economics are the universal elixir that there should be no mention whatever voicing these concerns in the UK Press across their whole spectrum from the right to ultra right.

Sunday 28 September 2008

Conference Season Reveals Voters’ “Option”..


Let’s face it - whichever party we get in power they will put the fat cats, who caused the economic crisis and who pull their strings, before the people and the country.

Saturday 27 September 2008

Paul Newman dies


My favourite actor and a very great human being. The world cannot afford to lose people like Paul Newman.

"Economy Crashes" cartoon in this month's Prospect magazine

Wednesday 24 September 2008

Robert De Niro

The ultimate outsider for me - Travis Bickle, repulsed and alienated by the society and environment he was an invisible part. The everyman who hit back.

Monday 22 September 2008

Who's Dithering Now?


John Prescott and Charles Clarke were on the show this week representing the pro and anti Gordon Brown lobby respectively.

Saturday 13 September 2008

As you sew, so shall you reap

So the brave souls who want rid of Gordon Brown are finally crawling out from under their rocks. In the good old days, when the Labour Party was still a slightly left of centre party, they may not have had the greatest record in national elections, but they did at least they have loyalty and belief in what they stood for, and most crucially they gave people like me representation. New Labour and it's strident march to the right removed all of that as they adopted 'as the wind blows' policies. Now Gordon Brown, as one of the leading proud architects of New Labour, is suffering the side effects of creating a party with no ideals, nor aims, apart from amoral personal survival. So he now faces the the army of cockroaches creeping out of the crumbling cracks of the New Labour movement, intent on devouring themselves and the rest of the amoral shower who stole my party. New Labour disenfranchised me and millions of others when they simply continued the slash and burn polcies of the previous Tory government. For me the creation of the loathesome NICE (the government's manditory euthanasia orgnisation) sums up all the evils that we have all simply taken in our stride as far right politics become the norm for us all.

Sunday 7 September 2008

"What I Did On My Summer Holidays"

The Politics Show returns next Sunday (14th September). I have been working on another series of sketches entitled "What I (Gordon Brown) Did On My Summer Holidays" for the show which will be televised next week. I hope you like them.

Thursday 4 September 2008

Michael Caine



I’m a big fan of Len Deighton and I love the 60s Harry Palmer films. Michael Caine was the ultimate in understated cool in the role and a great icon for the times. The Ipcress File is supposedly the best but I think Funeral in Berlin beats it hands down.

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Art Deco in the Sun



This is an example of my illustration work. This time a vector image that I think plays particularly well with bright art deco imaging.

Sunday 24 August 2008

Mr Roggoo



The President of the IOC Jacques Rogge tells us the Chinese have delivered everything the IOC could want in the Beijing Olympics. So the promise to hold the Chinese government to account on human rights issues has just been forgotten has it Mr Rogge? Personally I think he should have spent less time criticising Usain Bolt’s celebrations and more time concentrating on what he had promised the world he would do. So it seemed very fitting for me to draw him with reference to that other famous mypoic character Mr Magoo.

Thursday 21 August 2008

Capello - Another Flash in the Pan


It looks like another false dawn for England fans. Have we really lost so much ground on the rest of the world that we cannot find 11 decent players to pull on the shirt or are they just over-paid primadonnas who couldn’t care less because they know win lose or draw for their country they’ll still get their huge paychecks from their clubs at the end of it. Or is it that the creation of the Premiership and the lure of big money to the foreign players has meant we no longer bring home-grown talent through. All I know for sure is that I haven’t seen a half decent England team play since they demolished the Dutch in Euro ‘96 and we’ll be lucky to qualify for the World Cup let alone do anything if we get there.

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Friday 8 August 2008

Amy Winehouse


Amy Winehouse is a great talent. Here's hoping she's around for a long time.

I tried a different approach for this one - keeping it simple in a kind of updating of the Aubrey Beardlsey style/tattoo, which I think suits Amy's bohemian attitude.

Wednesday 30 July 2008

Moonlit Bear illustration




I decided to post this one to show a little more diversity in what I do and after The Clowns I thought it might be nice to show a lighter side.

Monday 28 July 2008

The Clowns - Strip 1

The resolution doesn't appear to be that good on this image - for a better look click on the pic to enlarge.

The Clowns - comic strip

The Clowns

The Clowns is a new comic strip I’m working on. They are they clowns who blight all our lives, you know the ones who have a devastating effect wherever they go and whatever they do. I hope they make you laugh.

Saturday 19 July 2008

Brad and Angelina


Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie the current golden couple of Hollywood.

Thursday 17 July 2008

Paul Newman


Paul Newman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors to ever appear on film. He has never put in a bad performance (but that's not to say all of the films he has been in have deserved his presence). Personal favourites of mine are The Verdict where his performance as the washed up ambulance-chaser was surely the one he deserved the Oscar for, Absence of Malice with it's brilliant finale and Nobody's Fool which is just a great humanist performance. None of these are amongst his best known films and they are all examples of the mature actor. His earlier, more testosterone charged performances, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Hud were also brilliant. Newman is a great humanitarian and his generous efforts for charity are second to none. To me he encapsulates everything that is good about America. So I was very sad to hear of his illness recently and I for one wish him a speedy recovery.

House - Hugh Laurie



It occurred to me only after I had finisjed this caricature of Hugh that his haunted expression reminds me of Munch's The Scream. I wonder if the casters of House had this in mind when they approached Laurie for the role?

Wednesday 16 July 2008

Bruce



Bruce Willis action hero, everyman. One of a series of caricatures I've recently created.

Sunday 13 July 2008

Let Them Eat Caviar



The staggering hypocrisy of the G8 leaders supposedly discussing global poverty and food shortages, while sitting down to eat 16 course meals of the most expensive and scarce foodstuffs. No wonder so many of us have lost all faith in our politicians. To emphasize the point I used four endangered species as the main courses (which upset my other half so much she couldn't look at it). I originally wanted to put 'let them eat McDonald's', to make the point that the globalisation agenda favoured by the more right wing nations at the table was indeed part of the problem, but unfortunately this was judged as too litigious. Personally I find it very worrying we can say almost anything we like (as cartoonists) about our elected political representatives who we have at least some power over, but we cannot make even the mildest of criticisms of the multinationals who we have absolutely no power over what so ever.