My Top Ten Toons of All Time

A Personal Selection of Britain's Best Satire

With press freedom more threatened than ever, this is a good moment to remind the world of the long, noble, and vitally important tradition of holding our leaders to account through satire. So, in a personal selection, I offer you a rundown of my top ten British cartoons from the ages.

You’ll notice there’s a preponderance of 18th-century caricaturists here, because I consider the Georgian period the golden age for this art-form. And I’ve skipped over the prudish Victorians and what a wise man once called their “dull decorum”. Also, some of the cartoons are not so much about the image itself as they are about the people who created them, and their legacies.

So, without further preamble, and in chronological order…