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
It seems the days of ex-prime ministers going quietly into the sunset of retirement are well and truly dead. By this point, it will come as no surprise to any readers of Mr Steerpike to learn that, in the six months since Boris Johnson left No. 10, he has been keeping well and truly busy.
How can you tell a political movement is well and truly dead? Easy – the Times newspaper finally drops said movement’s advocates from its opinion pages. It’s a process that can take time, as we’ve witnessed with the painfully slow demise of Britain’s media Blairites. RIP. Steerpike was as sad as anyone to learn last
Talk about a broad church reshuffle. Having appointed the socially liberal London MP Greg Hands as the chairman of the Tory party this morning, this afternoon Rishi Sunak named Red Wall right-winger Lee Anderson as his new deputy too. The move has sparked something of a mixed reaction: his friends in the 2019 intake are
The Tories have been left counting the cost of Nadhim Zahawi for some weeks now. The tax affairs of the axed party chairman have triggered a whole debate around sleaze, standards and transparency. Rishi Sunak is now expected to publish his own tax returns within weeks; polling for The Spectator by Redfield and Wilton shows
Strikes. Inflation. Political instability. It’s been a pretty miserable few months in Britain – but some in government are hoping that the coronation in May changes all that. The bunting will be out and the flags on display, to celebrate our septuagenarian monarch (finally) getting his hands on the Imperial State Crown. But with the
The Tory grassroots are revolting – and they clearly aren’t happy either. This weekend has seen two selection battles engulf different Conservatives associations. Local Tories are currently picking their prospective parliamentary candidates, ahead of the expected general election next year. For incumbent MPs, reselection is normally a formality: the sitting member is proposed and re-adopted
To the Hurlingham Club, that seat of sporting privilege. Where better to host the 1922 committee’s centenary dinner? Tory grandees, MPs and donors piled in last night to raise a glass to King and cause. ‘In the 100 years of the ‘22’s existence,’ remarked Rishi Sunak, ‘we have had Conservative prime ministers for two-thirds of
The writer Michael Lewis once told Mr Steerpike that the American equivalent of Boris Johnson wasn’t Donald Trump. It was Tucker Carlson. Carlson is, like Johnson, a journalist by training. Both men are brilliant and funny stylists who made a habit of infuriating their country’s media class by turning themselves into successful conservatives. That was
Labour are all too keen to present themselves as a completely new party these days. So Keir Starmer must be pretty annoyed at one of his more hard-of-thinking MPs for reminding voters that there are plenty of Corbynistas still sat on the Opposition benches. At Prime Ministers’ Questions today, Kim Johnson – one of a
To Kensington, where the masters of Fleet Street now ply their trade. Just a mile away from Northcliffe House – home of the Mail newspaper empire – the hard-working hacks who staff those papers gathered last night at the Royal Geographical Society. They were there to toast the man who started it all – Alfred
The fallout from Scotland’s trans prison debacle continues, raising some awkward questions for Westminster politicians. Many are scrambling to insist that – despite keeping very quiet on the trans issue for years – they were, in fact, never convinced that gender identity should trump biological fact and that women’s rights are paramount. Even if they didn’t
The 2024 race for the White House is on. Donald Trump is in, Nikki Haley is getting ready, Joe Biden is preparing to fend off intra-party foes – and now, Steerpike has learned of another possible entrant: former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. One of Steerpike’s Spectator colleagues in America caught up with the ex-PM
Happy Brexit day! It is three years today that Britain left the EU. And a useful reminder of just why that happened was offered this morning in the form of Guy Verhofstadt, the arch-Eurocrat and lifelong federalist. The former Belgian Prime Minister popped up in LBC to eulogise the supra-national institutions to which he has
It seems that maths isn’t Matt Hancock’s strong suit. Appearing on Good Morning Britain today, the onetime Paymaster General was asked about the £320,000 fee he received for appearing on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… late last year. Hancock told Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley that he did not appear on the programme ‘primarily’ for the
Some Tories are losing faith these days – but there was no sign of it in parliament last week. Jacob Rees-Mogg kicked off the launch of ‘Catholics in the Conservative party’ on Wednesday night, to a packed room bedecked in Union Jacks and Vatican flags. The likes of former Cabinet ministers Damian Hinds and Sir
Oh dear. It seems that Nicola Sturgeon seems to have got her progressive causes in a muddle. The First Minister is having a tricky time trying to work out if she’s a feminist first or an LGBT ally in light of her government’s U-turn on trans prisoners. On Sunday, a ‘pause’ was placed on the
Ding, ding, ding! In the red corner, it’s the menacing goons of Moscow’s Red Square. And in the blue corner, it’s Boris Johnson, the garrulous, gung-ho, onetime Tory premier. Johnson has done an interview for a BBC documentary being released tonight, in which he reveals that Putin threatened to kill him over the UK’s support
Rishi Sunak intended the firing of Nadhim Zahawi to draw a line under the affair. Yet there are already questions being asked in Tory circles about whether the report rushed out this morning exaggerated the case against him. In his resignation letter, Mr S notices that Zahawi makes no confession of guilt. It suggests that Zahawi could
One man’s loss is another man’s gain and few know that maxim better than Conservative MPs. Members of the parliamentary party have already quietly begun discussing who will replace Nadhim Zahawi as their Tory chairman. And while no appointment is expected today, some names are already doing the rounds as to which MP is likely
So. Farewell then. Nadhim Zahawi. It’s been quite the six months for the onetime favourite to succeed Boris Johnson. He accepted the Chancellorship in July, before turning on Johnson 36 hours later. He crashed out of the leadership race to replace Johnson within days, before being demoted to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster after