Mark Liam Piggott

Just been a guest on Radio 4 with the fabulous Carolyne Wyatt and fellow guest Sophia Money Coutts talking about my article on class in yesterday’s Times. Listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00161lz

“About chuffing time, you la-di-da southern Jessies. Such was my reaction on learning the BBC is to employ more horny-handed sons of toil like me, finally defining working class as a protected characteristic — like race. The trouble being, in our post-industrial era, it’s harder to identify someone’s class than their ethnicity, as the following example demonstrates…” Read the rest of my latest Times “Thunderer” here (paywall).

“Let’s begin by acknowledging that the Jamaicans who greeted William and Kate with demands for reparations have a point. The trans-Atlantic slave trade was one of the greatest crimes against humanity. Tens of millions died, were displaced, had families and communities ripped apart, all in the name of profit…” Read the rest of my latest Times Thunderer here (paywall).

“I doubt there’s anywhere drearier to be than Rochdale on a rainy night in 1982. Having missed the bus and facing a 14-mile walk, me and my friend pass shuttered shops and shutdown mills. Suddenly we hear the sound of gruff voices: “Left! Right! Left! Right!” Round the corner they march, skinheads, in braces and Ben Shermans. Seeing us — two out-of-town punks, with bleached hair and scabrous leathers — one points, shouts: “Get them!” We run in fear for our lives, the skins cl

“Sunday was fairly typical. The police picked up Mum, 73, wandering in distress near Halifax bus station, cold, disorientated and lost. Son, 15, was walking with a friend in north London when two older boys stopped them and demanded to know if they were dealing drugs before scrolling through their phones to check. Daughter, 18 was determined to go see her boyfriend despite feeling ill and Dad, 77, sat in a pub on the Yorkshire Moors nursing a pint of ale and a failing heart…”

“Last Saturday evening I was foolish enough to allow 50 London teenagers into my home and treat it as they wished. My daughter’s 18th birthday fell on the Sunday, and due to the impossibility of hiring a hall, club, disco bus or marquee for such an occasion, we resigned ourselves to her favoured option – a house party…” Read the rest of my latest Indie comment on why the kids are alright here.

“Norman Mailer and I don’t have much in common. Aged 22, Mailer was fighting in the Pacific, whereas I was working in Harrods’ warehouse. By 25, Mailer had published The Naked and the Dead, his staggering novel drawing on his wartime experiences; I was raving the night away on ecstasy, returning home in the early hours to trip over rejected manuscripts…” Read the rest of my latest Times Thunderer here (£)

In the cold hard winter of 1983, I was an angry, skint 16-year-old sharing a room with a mate, having been booted out of home a few months before. It was a desperate time, but there were chinks of light, and for reasons then unclear, one night I put pen to paper and wrote a poem. 37 years later it was published in an anthology. In the new issue of The Author, I write about my feelings at seeing my old poem in print, ruminating on why we write, and for whom. Above all else, I

"In this, the strangest of years, I’ve even changed my Christmas song. Usually it’s Fairytale of New York on Boombox repeat, but this year it’s Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Read the rest of my latest Telegraph column here

“One of the most striking things about the Moonie-eyed, cultish imbeciles gluing themselves to our nation’s arterial highways is their age. Alongside the pronoun-sensitive, Corbynist students found at all BLM/XR protests, at least half seem too old to have a job — if they ever had one, apart from cultivating facial hair and stewing mung beans — and seem astonished that anyone else would want one. The look on their collective faces as irate van drivers for whom time is always

“Next time you’re rummaging through the charity shop racks in search of a moth-eaten cardie and matching corduroys, do pause for a moment to check your privilege. Wearing second-hand clothing, you see, marks you out as in need of re-education — if you are white. If you are any other colour, you are sure to be judged by white shoppers as poor, illiterate and in possession of bad morals.” Read the rest of my latest Times Thunderer here (paywall).

“I wish I could get Mum to understand how lucky she is to be part of that gilded generation of baby boomers who had a “free” education, a perfect NHS, cheap housing and who now sit in their mortgage-free piles laughing at the plight of the young. Unfortunately, she has no idea. This is perhaps related to the fact that she has early-onset Alzheimer’s, meaning most of her private pension goes on her care and a substantial amount of her state pension is swallowed by the service

"As keen travellers in our former lives, my wife and I didn’t see why a little thing like parenthood should stop us. We’d already done Trips Down Under, the US and Canada, most of Europe… then came Covid. Last year all we managed was a desultory few nights on a leaking tub with a leaking potty on the Broads; this year, we swore, would be different. After all, Daughter, 17, rarely wishes to be seen in our company; this could be our last big family holiday, ever (I do have a te

“England needed this. Of course, other nations have endured a harrowing, horrible 18 months too; but sometimes it has felt like our country was being singled out for a unique form of suffering…” Read the rest of my latest Express comment here.

“One can only hope that the profound political thinkers of Extinction Rebellion took care not to dump cow manure on the wrong steps when they descended en masse to Kensington this week. According to the group, which used the somewhat confusing ‘#Freethepress’ slogan, the target of their protest was Northcliffe House, home of the Daily Mail. Annoyingly for the eco-warriors though, the paper is based in the same building as the Independent, which unfortunately shares pretty sim

When a small US publisher accepted my first book for young adults, 'Crosstrack', it wasn't long before things went pear shaped. The novel follows two teenage athletes, one a middle class American, the other a young Syrian refugee. Apart from cycling ability, they have another thing in common: both are trans. I’d anticipated a backlash at having the temerity to describe someone outside my own experience, and expected it to involve the Middle Eastern migrant (a la Jeanine Cummi

“On a grey January morning, at a small, sparsely attended ceremony in a chapel in North London, we said goodbye to my granddad, one more statistic in this vile pandemic. Jack Brown grew up in poverty in Ipswich and performed heroically in the Navy during world war two; twice-sunk, once by an enemy torpedo, once by a collision with an Allied boat (the family joke is that Uncle Albert from Only Fools was based on his experiences). He went on to father six children, and had a 40

“Three days into 2021, an aunt texts to inform that my grandfather has died. In November he was admitted to hospital after a fall at the London flat where he has lived alone since the death of my grandmother in 2008. Just before New Year’s Eve he was tested for Covid-19 then sent home, only to be urgently readmitted when the test came back positive. By then my aunt and her husband had been in contact and were urged to isolate, causing a huge knock-on effect for the family…” R

“In this, the strangest of years, I’ve even changed my Christmas song. Usually it’s Fairytale of New York on Boombox repeat; but this year it’s the Clash number, Should I Stay or Should I go? If I stay in London with my wife and children, there will be trouble in the form of my mum and dad, both in ill health in Yorkshire and desperate to see their grandchildren; if I go there will be double, in that our visit – potentially bearing gifts in the form of a new strain of Covid-1

“Were Millwall fans wrong to boo players who knelt in support of Black Lives Matter? Yes, according to the assembled pundits who are paid a fortune to talk about football…” Read the rest of my latest Spectator comment here.