The Barker Gallery will return in the New Year

The BBC’s Politics Show will return after the Christmas break and with it new weekly cartoons from yours truly in the Barker Gallery

Brown vetoes EU-Africa Summit and shames the devil

Gordon Brown has stayed away from the EU-Africa Summit, refusing to attend because of Mugabe’s presence.

The EU bowed to pressure from other African nations who threatened to veto the Conference themselves if Mugabe was prevented from attending.

Mugabe is the subject of a Europe wide ban and I find it more than a little hypocritical that EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso felt at liberty to crticise Gordon Brown for his refusal to attend, saying that ‘leaders sometimes have to meet people they disapprove of’. To me his comment smacks more of his own personal embarrassment at being forced into a very public climb down on Mugabe.

I personally think Gordon Brown was right in this instance and shameless Tories such as Esther McVey who try to make political gain by criticising his stance merely show their true shameless colours. You may recall the Tories supported the Apartheid regime in South Africa through the 80s and in doing so surely sowed the seeds that enabled Mugabe to successfully level the argument that all the criticism of him stemmed from a British racist colonial attitude. 

The Political Cartoon of the Year Awards 2007

I attended my first Political Cartoon Awards, organised by Tim Benson and held at The Guardian offices on Farringdon Road. Ken Clarke presented the awards and gave an amusing speech. However I had to take issue with his point about internet cartoon publishing, as at present I only publish on the Net for the BBC. The standard of cartoons was impressive and I have to say I did not attend with any expectation of winning anything, which was of course for the best. Steve Bell won the Cartoonist of the Year Award, Martin Rowson won Political Cartoon of the Year, Morten Morland was runner-up and Dave Brown got an honourable mention for his body of work.

Ken Clarke did however make one controversial point i.e. that the Internet, as yet, has no home for the political cartoon and that he considered this to be because no one had thought of a way to present the work through this medium. I have to say I strongly disagree with this, as all of my current work is only published on the Net and that the obvious problem is raising awareness of such sites to people who may well be very interested in them.

It was an enjoyable experience chatting with people who not only care about the world but also what happens to it and in it, which sadly is not as common an experience as it should be.

This was my entry for Political Cartoon of the Year:

My Slide Show

This is a selection of my work from the BBC Barker Gallery and other sources.