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
The Sussexes’ self-promotional tour is up and running: interviews with Tom Bradby and Anderson Cooper for Harry this weekend, ahead of the official release date on Tuesday. And there’s no sign of the circus slowing down any time soon, with three further books for the happy couple in the pipeline plus their Netflix commitments and
In his new memoir, Prince Harry claims that he regarded the 25 Taliban fighters he killed as ‘chess pieces’ not human beings. Yet Mr Steerpike can’t help but wonder if the young soldier prince didn’t learn something useful from his adversaries in war – the art of suicide-bombing. At least, in a literary sense, that
It’s safe to say that most Conservative MPs will want to forget about 2022: three Prime Ministers, four Chancellors and nose-diving polls to boot. But for one MP at least, it wasn’t all bad. The Tories’ fortunes may have taken a drubbing, but unlike her party, Theresa May had a pretty successful year. Accounts published
Oh dear. The stage was all set this morning for Sir Keir’s big speech, responding to yesterday’s Blairite tribute by Rishi Sunak. His sleeves were rolled up, the podium looked reassuringly solid and the factory backdrop was suitably metaphorical. But then came the technical issues: the curse of any aspirant Prime Minister hoping to show
It’s Rishi Sunak’s big day today. All of Westminster is eagerly awaiting his first major speech since taking office in October. The Prime Minister is expected to set out his plans this afternoon to encourage pupils to study maths until the age of 18. But ahead of Sunak’s address, the hoary issue of Channel 4
Is 2023 going to be the year of Boris? Much of the commentariat seems to think it’s possible, with the supremely-connected Paul Goodman writing this week in the Times that Johnson’s return to No. 10 ‘has a certain plausibility to his Westminster supporters.’ And now that same august paper of record has published another intriguing
They say you can’t keep a good man down. Geordie Greig, one of the finest networkers in British journalism, has returned to Fleet Street after a brief 13-month hiatus away. The Old Etonian was axed as the Daily Mail editor in a power struggle in November 2021 and since then he’s kept a low profile,
It’s not been the best few years for Sino-British relations, what with Huawei, Hong Kong and the whole Covid thing. So it was no surprise when, last month, Tower Hamlets council voted to block China’s new ‘super-embassy,’ with councillors citing security fears and the concerns of local residents. The borough of Tower Hamlets is more
It’s a new year but Lord Cruddas is not giving up an old causes. The onetime milkman turned billionaire led the campaign last summer to put Boris Johnson back on the ballot after the latter was forced out of No. 10. After that failed, Cruddas suggested he would stop funding the Conservatives unless it rewrote
They say time can be a great healer. And, in the case of Leo Varadkar, it seems that even the most festering of wounds can be fixed by a brief stint away from the premiership. Varadkar, who became Taoiseach again in December, was one of the great antagonists in the Brexit battles during his first
And you thought we’d seen the last of them in 2022. The new year kicks off with some old score-settling: for next week will see the publication of Prince Harry’s pithily-titled memoir Spare (or Going Spare, quips one royal insider). As the title suggests, the book is expected to focus on the fraternal frictions between
Four Chancellors, three Prime Ministers, two monarchs – one hell of a year. We said that it would be difficult to top the Covid craziness of 2021: we were wrong. Partygate, Pinchergate, porngate, beergate, queuegate – the greatest hits kept on coming as Boris Johnson was washed away in a sea of sleaze and scandal.
These days it seems that nobody can ever get through to their doctors’ practice. But one GP surgery left their patients wishing that was still the case this week after accidentally texting them to inform that they had aggressive lung cancer – instead of wishing them a merry Christmas. Askern Medical Practice in Doncaster sent
A new year beckons but old habits die hard. So it’s no surprise then that the SNP have opted to begin 2023 by welcoming one of their disgraced brethren back into the fold. Patrick Grady, the party’s former chief whip, has this morning had the SNP whip restored at Westminster – despite being found to
And you thought 2021 was crazy. It’s been another remarkable 12 months in British politics: three Prime Ministers, the death of the Queen, a year that began with Covid that ends with a cost of living crisis. Abroad, there’s been Putin’s war in Ukraine, China’s rumblings over Taiwan, the Qatari World Cup and soaring inflation
Boxing Day: a time for gifts, shopping and fox hunting – traditionally on horse back, unless you’re Jolyon Maugham KC. These days of course, the actual hunt is nothing more than trail hunting, with hounds following a scent-based trail rather than live animals. But for some in Keir Starmer’s new-fangled Labour party, even that goes
Happy Christmas Gillian Keegan. It’s not been the easiest of weeks for the Education Secretary. She has faced media criticism for her comments about teachers’ salaries and for wearing a £10,000 Rolex while urging public sector pay restraint. And now things have got even worse for the Chichester MP: she has had her Twitter account
Many institutions were left counting the cost of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-Budget. And nowhere more so, it seems, than on Horse Guards Road, where those much-loathed guardians of Treasury orthodoxy were forced to work overtime to deal with the resulting market fallout. Staff earned an extra £89,771 for their work. Kerching! New
It was a little over a week ago that Steerpike wrote of Labour’s Rother Valley selection. The constituency party there had chosen local councillor Dominic Beck as their parliamentary candidate. He was forced to quit Rotherham Council’s cabinet seven years ago when a report by Dame Louise Casey made damning findings of the authority. A
Sir Keir Starmer has tried to make great play recently of his reforming credentials, pledging earlier this month to abolish the House of Lords. So it was some irony then that Starmer’s own nominee Tom Watson entered that very chamber yesterday as perhaps one of the most controversial new life peers created in recent years.
