The Christmas Irritant List 2018

Unfortunately, having removed themselves beyond the pale, several contenders have rendered themselves ineligible this year.  The usual suspects are no longer laughable irritants but have graduated to full-time fifth columnists, at least as far as the 2016 Referendum is concerned.  So, farewell then to Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen, Dominic Grieve, Tony Blair, John Major, Lord Heseltine, Alastair Campbell, Amber Rudd and a host more fellow travellers.  Equally, the serial concealers of balanced debate and general upholders of declared virtue from the BBC and C4 have disqualified themselves on the grounds of persistent institutional bias and groupthink which, although plainly wrong, can be readily squelched with the remote control.

Even so, it would take something really special to dislodge Lewis Hamilton from the podium who heads my list and who should give the Dom Perignon a good shake before showering the following, in rough ranking of rankling:

Matthew Parris

Stephen Fry

Sadiq Kahn

Gary Lineker

Raheem Sterling

Jeremy Hardy

Darren Fletcher

Lord Adonis

David Hockney

The Archbishop of Canterbury

Happy Christmas from Yorkshire Mushroom