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
With Truss and Sunak tearing chunks out of each other, inflation soaring and a cost-of-living crisis looming, you might have thought Labour would have the next election in the bag. But you can always trust the party to pull defeat from the jaws of victory, as the events of the past day have just shown
Having failed to muster enough support for a leadership bid, Priti Patel is currently enjoying what are likely to be her final weeks in charge at the Home Office. The Witham MP has held the post for more than three years but despite her reputation as a hang ’em and flog ’em hardliner, there’s precious
The Bank of England forecasts are out and they make for grim reading. The experts on Threadneedle Street predict that inflation will soar to 13 per cent, with Britain expected to undergo five consecutive quarters of recession. Interest rates are being hiked to 1.75 per cent – the biggest jump in 27 years – and
With a Liz Truss victory now looking increasingly likely, Tory MPs are playing the oldest game of all: trying to bag the best possible jobs for themselves. In terms of endorsements, it’s been one-way traffic in recent days with Ben Wallace, Tom Tugendhat, Brandon Lewis, Nadhim Zahawi, Penny Mordaunt and Sajid Javid all coming out
In the Tory leadership race both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been keen to talk tough on China. Truss has pledged a ‘crack down’ on Tiktok and announced a ‘New Commonwealth Deal’ to unite nations against Beijing. Sunak wants a ‘new Nato-style alliance’, an end to Confucius Institutes at UK universities and has dubbed
Dodgy donors, crumbling conventions, crooked kickbacks and sexual shenanigans – it’s a tough old time for decency in public life. So it’s a good thing then that we have Chris Bryant, the honourable member for Rhondda, to act as a one-man sleaze buster, battling heroically against those dastardly Tory tyrants. Everywhere Mr S looks, Bryant
Dirty tricks, planted stories and anonymous briefings – they’re all part and parcel of a party leadership contest. But now the bigwigs over at Conservative Central Headquarters (CCHQ) have brought in some experts to stop anyone hacking Tory members’ ballots: namely experts from the National Cyber Security Centre, which works closely with GCHQ’s finest in
Things are tough these days at the BBC: stars are leaving, budgets are tight and the licence fee future looking uncertain. Still, in their desperation to plug some holes, it seems the Beeb has developed some questionable new corporate partnerships. One of them is with Huawei, the Chinese tech giant which was sanctioned by the
Oh dear. It seems that Liz Truss’s winning run has come to an end. After a week of riding high, the Foreign Secretary’s campaign for leader has hit a bit of a bump in the road. Her campaign last night sent out a press release declaring: ‘Truss: I’ll wage a war on Whitehall waste to
‘Mermaids must fall next.’ That was the response of Professor Kathleen Stock to the news that last week that the NHS was closing its Tavistock gender identity clinic for children. Stock, who quit Sussex University over what she called a trans rights ‘witch-hunt’, added that it was now time for ‘a no-holds barred journalistic dive’
The sound of screeching gears could be heard across Westminster this morning as Team Truss executed a dramatic U-turn from their headquarters in Lord North Street. A midday press statement confirmed that the Foreign Secretary has now dropped her policy adopted, er, just last night, to introduce regional pay boards. The move would have seen
If a week is a long time in politics, then a fortnight is an eternity. Two weeks ago, Penny Mordaunt was the bookies’ favourite to be our next Prime Minister, riding high in the polls and second among MPs. Now, after a bruising campaign, the vanquished candidate has opted to back the woman who defeated
With most signs pointing to a Liz Truss triumph, team Sunak have been pulling out all the stops in a bid to make up lost ground. Tory membership ballots go out this week and although the rules technically allow members to vote a second time online if they change their mind, neither camp expects this
It’s time for another round of crackpot Russian sanctions. Still smarting from the latest package of western measures, Moscow has retaliated by hitting us where it hurts: banning our best and brightest from visiting Vlad’s kleptocratic empire. In April it was Nadine Dorries and Grant Shapps: this month it’s Huw Edwards and Robert Peston. Bemused
Given the Scottish political establishment’s misty-eyed myth-making about Scottish nationalism — it’s civic! Joyous! Inclusive! — Mr Steerpike admires the commitment of the grassroots to saying the quiet part out loud. The National has published a missive on its letters page this morning that calls for the English to be banned from owning land in
Amid all her remarks about tax cuts, freedom and, er, Don Revie, some of Liz Truss’s comments were overlooked on Thursday evening. Speaking at the LBC hustings, the Foreign Secretary was asked by Nick Ferrari as to what she had learned from her four years at Shell. Truss paused and then replied: What I learned
Steerpike’s favourite cabinet minister is at it again. In her vindictive rage to try to avenge Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries has turned the full force of her rage against Rishi Sunak. She’s accused him of leading a ‘ruthless coup’ against the Prime Minister, being the ‘chatty rat’ behind the lockdown leak, of ‘not working hard’,
The Tory leadership races is a tale of two approaches: Liz Truss appears to be campaigning to win the party membership, but Rishi Sunak is is campaigning to win a general election. And its’ Truss’s approach that appears to be working, given YouGov’s survey of the Tory grassroots which shows her leading by 20 points.
Yesterday it was Ben Wallace who backed Liz Truss: tonight it’s Tom Tugendhat. All the big-name endorsements are coming out and at the moment there’s only one candidate they’re supporting. In a piece for the Times, Tugendhat praised Truss’s economic policies, writing that her plans to cut taxes were ‘founded on true Conservative principles.’ The
One of the more amusing aspects of the Tory leadership race has been various reminders of Liz Truss’s misspent youth. Whether it was leafleting for the Liberal Democrats, running for the party’s student executive or causing trouble at the university, Truss certainly had something of a political journey before opting for a conventional route into