Mark Liam Piggott

"No-one should be forced to move just because their circumstances have changed, but many tenants would like to downsize to escape the effects of the bedroom tax yet are unable to do so, because of draconian regulations on 'under-occupation'..." Read the rest of my latest feature for The Independent here PS Yes, I know I'm incredibly lucky, and yes, I know it's a Peabody house not a council house... thanks for pointing it out!

"Liberal luvvies reacted with outrage when a journalist had the temerity to suggest that casting black actor Leo Wringer as a 17th-century English squire was misjudged. 'Was Mr Wringer cast because he is black?' he wrote. 'If so, the RSC's clunking approach to politically-correct casting has again weakened its stage product...'" Read the rest of my provocative comment on why Hank Azaria is the true voice of Apu, Idris Elba should be the next Bond and Kathleen Turner is a tran

I might have turned 50 a year ago, but I wasn't quite ready to admit I was an oldie. However today I can finally call myself one because my first piece, "employers who don't reply," has been published in the May 2018 issue of... The Oldie!

"In the past week, two very different stories have highlighted our innate desire to generalise people, to raise them up as heroes, ciphers for the things we believe in, then bring them crashing down when they no longer keep to those high standards we probably don’t reach ourselves. "There can’t be many compassionate people who haven’t been saddened by the news about Brendan Cox, husband of murdered MP Jo Cox. Whatever happened at Harvard back in 2015 – and it must have been f

"I’ve worked in several warehouses unloading stock and I’ve also worked in supermarkets stacking shelves. I’d have to say the latter is marginally harder. Not that there’s much in it: both are physically hard, mentally untaxing, and probably undervalued – but then, don’t we all feel undervalued at work? "Warehouse jobs are more of a laugh. When unloading boxes that all looked the same, some were much heavier than others. If you were on the van you’d make out the heavy ones we

"Reading Melanie Phillips in this morning’s Times made me really cross. Nothing unusual in that – except I’m cross because I agreed with every word she had to say about free speech, and the lunatic attacks on Canadian academic Jordan Peterson by activists who have the gall to call themselves progressive. Peterson, in case you didn’t know, has argued against proposals that Canada introduce new laws insisting personal pronouns be changed to ze and zir at the request of the addr

“It’s just a few metres from Bartholomew Court, EC1, where a young man was one of four stabbed to death over the New Year, to trendy Hoxton, famous for its cereal bars and hirsute hipsters. It would be easy to say these two worlds – those of the trendy media types lampooned by ‘Nathan Barley’ and ‘Its Grim up North London’ and the large nearby estates – are separated by an unbridgeable gulf, but it would also be inaccurate. Areas like Hoxton became popular in part because of

“How would you feel if a gang of fabulously wealthy twenty-somethings kept appearing in your young daughter’s bedroom, telling her she’s really special but then badgering her to send messages and money? If, like my 13-year-old daughter, she’s been taken in (and not yet spat out) by the YouTube phenomenon, it’s happening right now – in a bedroom near you…”

This morning I was on Paddy O’Connell’s “Broadcasting House” to discuss Brexit with The Guardian’s Zoe Williams. Really enjoyed the debate, and hopefully we demonstrated it’s possible to have divergent views about the thorny subject without coming to blows. Which is just as well as Zoe’s bigger than me.

Even though my year of abstinence ended a year ago, I kept my Just Giving page open up to today (17th November 2017) in the hope more people would donate to this incredibly worthy cause. In total, I received donations of approximately £322.30 – thank you so much! As you know, I promised to match all donations up to the first £1,000. Last December I donated £252.30 so I’ve just paid the balance of £70. That means my abstaining from alcohol for a long, long year raised a total

In the last three days I’ve been lucky enough to have two new blogs published at The Spectator. On Sunday I argued that for all his many, MANY faults (!) Kevin Spacey shouldn’t have been dropped by Netflix. Today, why Lloyds Bank’s new charges are nothing short of a tax on the poor.

“My nan turns 96 today (Wednesday 18th October) but it won’t be much of a celebration. I’ll go and see her with my 73-year-old father at the care home where she resides. If she’s having a good day, nan might remember who I am – her only grandchild; I say “good day” because last time dad visited, she asked him if she’d ever had children. Despite being by now somewhat inured to nan’s fading, dad was naturally somewhat stunned, and more shocked when a care worker said nan claime

Yet again I'm indebted to the Royal Literary Fund - this time for providing me with funding to purchase brand new computer equipment! Thank you RLF, I hope I can justify your faith! My dream is to one day be able to repay the RLF for all the funding they have provided and which has come in incredibly useful following the abrupt termination of my contract by the International Business Times back in May. Four years, well over 2,000 articles and countless page hits - and I didn'

Many thanks once again to the Royal Literary Fund for providing me with a very generous grant for the second year running. Means a great deal when such a respected organisation shows such faith in your writing.

"In 1982, aged 15 I boarded my first plane and flew to meet my father and step family in Los Angeles. I never forgot that trip: sleeping in a car in Death Valley, smuggled into motels in LA, walking through Tijuana street markets and squatting in San Francisco when Freddie Laker went bust. Now my wife Lynda and I have decided to take our children – Daughter, 13, and Son, 10 – on an even more epic journey. Already we’ve taken in Toronto and Niagara Falls, watched the Yankees w

"As a freelance journalist, when my main employer of four years called to say they were dispensing with my services without any prior warning, I was shocked but exhilarated. With my skills, I reasoned, it wouldn’t be long before I found a far more attractive job with better conditions and perhaps even holiday and perhaps even sick pay..."

On Tuesday, as I’m inspecting my navel (see past and indeed future blogs), out of the blue I get a call from the head of HR at the company that has been my main employer for almost four years. “Hello Mark, we’re having to make a few savings by cutting back on freelance reporters at the moment so we won’t be requiring your help anymore. We’ll pay you for your next four shifts but you won’t be expected to work them...” Read my latest HuffPost right here...y the way you can read

10 years after it was first accepted by Legend Press, my debut novel Fire Horses is finally available on Kindle. I've slightly revised the text, taking out a few passages that seemed to jar, but the spirit remains true. As a record of recent UK history as seen through the eyes of a degenerate, I think it holds up pretty well. As Joe N

"Daughter, 13, insists on being woken at 6.30am so she can watch Gumball from under blankets for 75 minutes before frantically dressing, filling her schoolbag (which weighs the same as a Stella 18-pack), and finding her phone, ID card and Oyster as I peer furtively through the blind in search of her three friends, who every morning on the dot of eight stand on the corner, waiting: punctual, punctilious. Often they're early – but then, they are only Year Eights..." Read the re

"If you'd asked me at 20 where I expected to be 30 years later, I'd probably have said deep-sea diving on Europa; my friends placed bets on Hendon Crematorium. Instead of either of these eventualities, however, I am here: a mile down the road from the old Archway squat, older, wider, with two books on the shelf, two kids on the verge of adolescence, one remaining friend I barely see, and piles..." Just had the first in what I'm hoping will be a regular blog published by The I