18.11 Mud that sticks

here is one person above

all others who has been

the focus of Peter Brookes’

ever critical eye this year:

the prime minister.

The award-winning

Times political cartoonist

makes no apology for his

relentless mocking of the

No 10 incumbent. “Boris Johnson’s an utter

fool,” Brookes says when we meet to discuss

yet another tumultuous year in British politics.

“Of course he is going to be targeted, because

almost everything he does goes wrong. You

can add the fact that, apart from Rishi Sunak,

the chancellor, he’s picked a group of people

to have around him who are not going to

look better than he does.”

While Brookes continues to draw not from

his glass-box office in the Times newsroom

but from his studio at home, his day still

kicks off at dawn, listening to the radio, before

he dials in to the paper’s news conference at

10.30am. Then the clock starts ticking and the

work of concocting the cartoon for the next

day’s paper begins.

There’s a sense of relief, he says, that

this year has been easier than last, when

the coronavirus consumed the news agenda

almost entirely.

“There has definitely been a return to

some semblance of normality,” he says. “At

last, at least in my mind, there has been the

possibility to get other things out of the

news. It’s changed to, if not politics as normal,

certainly politics of the new normal.”

Diversions from Covid this year have

included Trump-endorsed rioting in the US,

Harry and Meghan’s stateside adventures, the

fall of Kabul, the Cop26 climate summit, the

migrant crisis, supply chain shortages, David

Cameron’s lobbying and, in recent weeks, the

Tory sleaze scandal engulfing the party.

By mid-afternoon, Brookes is sketching

and painting. Once the last of his watercolour

strokes dry, he scans the cartoon and fires it

over to the paper’s imaging team, who prepare

it to go onto the page and off to press.

“There have been one or two hairy

moments with the technology,” he says. “I’ve

always got in the back of mind, if it comes to

seven o’clock, ‘What is the last time I could

catch the train at my local station and get to

the office in London Bridge in time?’ ”

As yet, disaster has been avoided. “I’m

just waiting for a power cut,” he says with

a slightly nervous laugh. “That really would

bugger me up.” n

T

4 The Times Magazine