Sign up and I’ll email you when the sketches appear

What with Twitter being increasingly unreliable, I’m setting up a Substack so that people who like my parliamentary sketches can get an email when they appear. People who don’t like the sketches can sign up too, but they should make sure the emails go straight to their bin.

I’m not, you’ll be relieved to hear, planning a journal of my thoughts and feelings.

That’s it, really: if you’d like to know when one of my sometimes-quite-popular dollops of on-the-day political satire has dropped, sign up, and I’ll tell you.

Infrequently asked questions

Who are you?

I’m Robert Hutton. For a long time I was Bloomberg’s lead reporter on UK politics. Now I write sketches for The Critic. This is more fun.

What’s a sketch?

It’s a light-hearted bit of reporting on Parliament or politics, trying to catch a flavour of events, rather than just report the words. Sometimes, though, I just take the mick.

How often do you sketch?

I do three a week for The Critic when Parliament is sitting and during conference season. If the prime minister is resigning again, they wake me up and I do extra ones.

Have you written books that I might enjoy?

Yes, as a matter of fact I have. My first two books were about “journalese” - the language of newspapers - and how politicians mislead. Agent Jack was the true story of the British people who wanted to help Hitler win World War, and the MI5 agent who fooled them into thinking he was a Nazi spy. My latest book, The Illusionist, is another true story, this time of an eccentric British army officer who used magic and deception to fool the Nazis. You can read the opening chapter here.

Do you have a podcast about war movies?

Funny you should ask. War Movie Theatre is where the economist/historian Duncan Weldon and I watch old war movies and talk to celebrity guests about why we love them. If you can’t imagine why anyone would want to listen to that, it’s not for you. If you know that the best way to take a bridge is both ends at once, and hope to see Berlin from the ground and the air before the war is over, give it a listen.

Do you take freelance commissions?

Absolutely. In the last couple of years I’ve also written for The Times, The Sunday Times, The House, Prospect and WW2 Magazine.

Are you available for talks and things?

Yes, especially if there’s money in it. Drop me a line.