Undated handout photo issued by Mark Harrison/BritBox of Mark Zuckerberg in puppet form for the new series of Spitting Image, which is making a return to the small screen. PA Photo. Issue date: Wednesday March 4, 2020. Programme-makers said that "with the world getting smaller and more turbulent, the time couldn???t be more appropriate for an iconic British satirical take on global events." See PA story SHOWBIZ Image. Photo credit should read: Mark Harrison/BritBox/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder.
If satire is dead, someone didn’t tell the script writers. That the real thing is too outrageous to be sent up is sometimes true, but the idea that there is no role for savage comedy is about to be tested to destruction.
Spitting Image, the world-renowned latex puppet show that started in the 1980s, is being re-launched in the UK.
The show seeks to hone in on the rise of personality-driven politicians, as a contrast to the last generation of blander fare. The challenge is that it must surmount the basic test of putting an original spin on the madness of the moment. So long as it can exploit the personalities as raw material, the role of master satirists beckons.
The show was cancelled in 1996 as a new type of centrist politics took hold across the West. Its founder Roger Law took to living in Sydney and flying to China to nurture an obsession with Chinese ceramics.
Having met him occasionally during that period, I would vouch that Mr Law has the strength of mind equal to the moment of making comedy out of the current crop.
Creators of 'Spitting Image', Peter Fluck, left, and Roger Law, in their London studio in 1986. Getty Images
The photos released of the latest generation of puppets look like great caricatures. In a recent interview, Mr Law was asked about the irony of him as a 79-year-old mocking the septuagenarian contenders for the White House. It is not much fun being old, he said, given that it takes about two hours to get going in the morning. The obvious jokes are out.
In the roughly 25 years between the two Spitting Image shows, there have been many commentators who examined the demise of the satirists' trade.
At its best, satire provides an outlet for the weak to share in a light-hearted stand against the powerful. But when moderates rule politics, there is no overpowering apex that imposes its will on the population. Politicians, instead, rely on so-called "nudge" techniques, which include positing ideas for the public and then developing campaigns around their compliance or uptake. The problem for satirists is that these techniques are antithetical to their art.
Political comedians have resorted to challenging these processes. But while television shows such as Veep, The Thick of It and Twenty Twelve were funny, they dealt primarily in riffs about language and small feud scenes among political staffers.
There has, however, been a cultural shift in recent years.
The British general election in 2015 was won on a slogan that, in hindsight, was ultra-ironic.
The vote was a choice between the Conservatives and five years of chaos with a fairly bumbling opposition leader called Ed Miliband. Mr Miliband did not help himself by carving his mostly unintelligible campaign pledges on a massive stone slab. The launch of the “EdStone” was a scene that the late film director Stanley Kubrick would have gleefully choreographed. But as it turns out, the Labour leader was beaten.
Labour leader Ed Miliband unveils Labour's pledges carved into a stone plinth in Hastings during general election campaigning in 2015. PA Images
And yet, the subsequent five years of Conservative rule have been plenty filled with chaos. The smooth-faced David Cameron was the victor in 2015. But even though he gleefully painted himself as the heir to former prime minister Tony Blair, he was forcefully retired by a referendum electorate just a year later, leading to a process that eventually saw flaxen-haired Boris Johnson rise to power.
In that same year, then US president Barack Obama made a fateful error of riding roughshod over his vice president Joe Biden’s presidential ambitions. Mr Obama wanted to throw his weight behind Hillary Clinton, who went up against Donald Trump, but her bid was shredded in the 2016 election.
Mrs Clinton’s achievements are many but she belonged to the satire-free zone, as did Mr Obama.
Mr Trump and Mr Johnson, on the other hand, are rich and ripe political characters. So, too, is Mr Biden, who is a living embodiment of the Warner Brothers' cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn.
US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson are easier to caricaturise. AFP
For clues on how the new Spitting Image producers and writers plan to pitch their skits, it is perhaps useful to look at the work of the writer Michael Spicer.
In the Room Next Door social media series, he poses as a political aide providing earpiece guidance to leaders during speeches or interviews. The basic premise is Spicer guiding or shaping the message; in other words, he is not coming up with the message but channelling how it is coming across.
As a comedy technique, it rests on inverting the established rules. Even in the set-up, the politicians are, metaphorically speaking, hanging themselves by not following the script writers.
Spicer seized on the British interior minister Priti Patel repeatedly referring to "victims of counterterrorism" as she muddled her department's role in fighting terrorism and overseeing counter-extremism policy. In doing so, Spicer showed that there was still life in approaches that had been neglected since the heyday of Spitting Image, when it was dealing with former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and former US president Ronald Reagan.
In the political mosh pit of the centre, political personalities are lost to sight of all but insiders and close observers. For the current heavyweights, the name of the game is to create their own political landscape. An outsized personality is key to forging these new realities. And it takes humourists, perhaps even rubberised puppets, to be an essential guide to true characters that are leading the way.
Damien McElroy is the London bureau chief of The National
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
The biog
Occupation: Key marker and auto electrician
Hometown: Ghazala, Syria
Date of arrival in Abu Dhabi: May 15, 1978
Family: 11 siblings, a wife, three sons and one daughter
Favourite place in UAE: Abu Dhabi
Favourite hobby: I like to do a mix of things, like listening to poetry for example.
Favourite Syrian artist: Sabah Fakhri, a tenor from Aleppo
Favourite food: fresh fish
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
Tamkeen's offering
Option 1: 70% in year 1, 50% in year 2, 30% in year 3
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Sharad Nair recommends three investment apps for UAE residents:
For beginners or people who want to start investing with limited capital, Mr Nair suggests eToro. “The low fees and low minimum balance requirements make the platform more accessible,” he says. “The user interface is straightforward to understand and operate, while its social element may help ease beginners into the idea of investing money by looking to a virtual community.”
If you’re an experienced investor, and have $10,000 or more to invest, consider Saxo Bank. “Saxo Bank offers a more comprehensive trading platform with advanced features and insight for more experienced users. It offers a more personalised approach to opening and operating an account on their platform,” he says.
Finally, StashAway could work for those who want a hands-off approach to their investing. “It removes one of the biggest challenges for novice traders: picking the securities in their portfolio,” Mr Nair says. “A goal-based approach or view towards investing can help motivate residents who may usually shy away from investment platforms.”
The closest international airport for those travelling from the UAE is Denver, Colorado. British Airways (www.ba.com) flies from the UAE via London from Dh3,700 return, including taxes. From there, transfers can be arranged to the ranch or it’s a seven-hour drive. Alternatively, take an internal flight to the counties of Cody, Casper, or Billings
The stay
Red Reflet offers a series of packages, with prices varying depending on season. All meals and activities are included, with prices starting from US$2,218 (Dh7,150) per person for a minimum stay of three nights, including taxes. For more information, visit red-reflet-ranch.net.
Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.
The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?
My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.
The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.
So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.
