Steerpike

Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

Zia Yusuf hits back over ‘burka ban’

There’s trouble in paradise, it seems. Perhaps the most eye-catching moment at yesterday’s PMQs came when Sarah Pochin, Reform’s newest MP, stood up to grill Keir Starmer for the first time. The moment was heavily trailed by deputy leader Richard Tice, who promised it would be ‘interesting’ in a video on X. Pochin duly rose

Cleverly splits from Kemi on climate

Tree-hugging isn’t just for the Greens, it seems – as former Tory leadership contender James Cleverly will insist this evening. At a London event tonight, the ex-Foreign Secretary will make the case that Conservatives should care about the climate and urge his colleagues to reject ‘both the luddite Left and the luddite Right’ on green

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Watch: White House attacks BBC over Hamas coverage

As ever, these days the Beeb is better at becoming the news than making it. Now the White House has taken a pop at the corporation, with President Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt accusing the BBC of having to correct its reporting from Gaza about aid distribution – and of taking Hamas’s word as

Listen: Healey flails over defence plan costs

Dear oh dear. Mr S offers his condolences to anyone who tuned into Defence Secretary John Healey’s car crash interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari this morning. The Labour man stumbled his way through a rather excruciating conversation, in which Ferrari took him to task over his defence plan’s figures. Starting on submarines, the LBC host

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Fact check: top policewoman’s grooming gangs claim

To BBC Newsnight, where Deputy Chief Constable Becky Riggs – the national policing lead on child protection and abuse investigations – has hit back at claims by shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick about grooming gangs. Speaking on the programme last night, Riggs said it was ‘not true’ that these types of crimes are committed predominately

Watch: Speaker slams Sir Keir over defence review leaks

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot are in the bad books with Speaker Lindsay Hoyle after details of the government’s Strategic Defence Review mysteriously appeared in several newspapers before the Prime Minister’s speech this morning. The Speaker was rather unimpressed with the whole thing – given he has had to remind Starmer’s army on multiple occasions

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First Labour councillor defects to Reform

It’s all go in Scotland today. Nigel Farage made a quick stop in Aberdeen to announce his latest Tory defector before hopping in a helicopter to Hamilton to reveal his party’s first Labour defector: Renfrewshire councillor Jamie McGuire. The 24-year-old has represented the Renfrew North and Braehead ward on the Renfrewshire council for just over

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Farage gains another Tory councillor in Scotland

To Scotland, where Nigel Farage is visiting for the first time in six years. It’s a day of firsts for Reform UK, it seems, as the party announced this morning it had recruited ex-Tory councillor Duncan Massey – the first local councillor in Granite City to join Farage’s crowd. Massey is the 14th councillor to

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Union chief in second home hypocrisy row

Well, well, well. The general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress has found herself at the centre of a rather embarrassing scandal. It transpires that Roz Foyer – who has repeatedly blasted second home ownership – owns a total of, er, five homes, including a flat in Spain as well as a £100,000 plot

Ash Regan’s prostitution blunder

To Scotland, where once Britain’s greatest schools were found. These days, sadly, that can no longer be said, thanks to the SNP’s mismanagement over the past 18 years in office. One of those who served as a minister in its wretched regime was Ash Regan, who held the Scottish Government’s Community Safety brief from 2018

Did No. 10 clear Lord Hermer’s ‘Nazi jibe’ speech?

Another day, another bit of bad press for the Labour party. Attorney General Lord Hermer sparked outrage when he compared political threats to leave the ECHR to the Nazis during a speech to the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RUSI) defence think tank on Thursday – and has since acknowledged, rather begrudgingly, that his ‘choice of

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Hermer admits Nazi comments were ‘clumsy’

As if the Attorney General hadn’t proven his ability for conjuring up negative headlines enough, Lord Hermer took it upon himself on Thursday to compare political threats to leave the ECHR to the Nazis. Speaking to the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RUSI) defence think tank, Hermer earnestly told his audience: ‘The claim that international law

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Labour ministers averaging a union meeting a day

Whatever happened to that £22bn black hole, eh? As yet more pay rises are dolled out to workers across the country this month, Mr S has been scouring the government’s transparency data to take a closer look at just how many times ministers have met with union barons. The conclusion? Quite a lot. In fact, in just six

Ex-Royal Marine charged over Liverpool crash

To Liverpool, where former Royal Marine Paul Doyle has been charged over the car crash that injured almost 80 people on Monday. Police announced they had taken a 53-year-old white British man into custody within hours of the attack and this afternoon, officers announced at a presser that Doyle had been charged with two counts

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Watch: Jenrick confronts lawbreakers in dig at Khan

To shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick. The onetime Tory leadership contender has taken to Twitter to make a dig at Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan over TfL’s fee-dodgers. ‘Sadiq Khan is driving a proud city into the ground,’ Jenrick wrote furiously. ‘Lawbreaking is out of control. He’s not acting. So I did.’ What follows is

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NHS Fife refuse to reveal costs of trans tribunal

To NHS Fife, which is once again making headlines for all the wrong reasons. The Scottish health board has been slammed by the country’s information tsar for failing to publish its spend on an ongoing employment tribunal brought against it by nurse Sandie Peggie. Whatever happened to transparency, eh? After nurse Peggie questioned a transgender

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National Liberal Club distances itself from Farage

Egad! Uproar in clubland. The reason? Nigel Farage. Yes, it seems that the veteran Brexiteer is still capable of causing a fuss among t’great and t’good – even when he is pledging to, er, lift the two child benefit cap. The Reform UK leader gave a big speech on Tuesday in Whitehall, talking about his

NHS trust offers support sessions over Supreme Court ruling

The National Health Service is struggling under increasing patient demand to provide quick appointments, A&E support or hospital beds – yet its managers have still found the time to issue a memo to staff struggling to cope with, er, the Supreme Court’s trans ruling. As if its staff didn’t have more pressing problems to deal

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Met chief: release ethnicity data even if it ’emboldens’ racists

To the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who is now calling on forces to routinely release information on suspects’ ethnicities – even if it ’emboldens’ racists. In the wake of a recent attack in Liverpool, Sir Mark Rowley has urged police to be ‘realistic’ about handling information surrounding a crime and has made the case for earlier