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
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
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
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
Another day, another bad poll for Sir Keir Starmer’s party. Now YouGov has revealed that Labour has recorded its lowest poll rating since before the 2019 general election, with just over a fifth of Brits saying they would vote for the reds tomorrow, while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK sees its largest lead to date on
Ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe is no stranger to the spotlight. Nigel Farage’s former colleague has made headlines in recent months after he was suspended from the party following a rather unflattering interview he gave to the Daily Mail about Reform’s leadership. It quickly emerged that chairman Zia Yusuf and chief whip Lee Anderson had referred
To Scotland, where in just over a week’s time, the first Holyrood by-election for six years will take place. It’s set to a be a tight race in the constituency of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse and tensions between the political parties in the running are rising. Now Nigel Farage has hit out at Scottish Labour
Nigel Farage has not seen eye-to-eye with his former colleague Rupert Lowe about much lately, but the outrage sparked by the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly has them both on the same page. The wife of a Conservative councillor was jailed last year over an offensive tweet about the riots of last summer – and last
Oh dear. It seems there’s trouble in one couple’s Parisian paradise after French president Emmanuel Macron was caught on camera being shoved in the face by his wife Brigitte as the pair landed in Vietnam. The footage spread furiously across social media – with the Elysée Palace initially denying the images were real before eventually
Oh dear. It seems that all Keir Starmer’s talk of an ‘island of strangers’ really wasn’t worth it. For a new poll for The Spectator by Ipsos shows that faith in the Prime Minister has not improved after his big speech on borders earlier this month. Just 25 per cent of the public now trust
The case of Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Tory councillor who was jailed over an offensive tweet, has sparked outrage across the country – and now even a Labour MP is calling for her release. Mary Glindon, MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend, has put her name to an early day motion
To Netanyahu, who has taken aim at Prime Minister Keir Starmer after the deaths of a young Jewish couple in Washington DC on Thursday. 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez was charged with murder yesterday evening after allegedly killing Israeli embassy staff Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim who planned to get engaged next week in Jerusalem. In
To Aberdeenshire in Scotland, where a fourth Scottish Tory councillor has defected to Reform UK. It transpires that Dominic Lonchay – represents the East Garioch ward on the council – has jumped ship to Nigel Farage’s real army in another blow to the Scottish Tories. Lonchay’s defection makes him the 13th councillor to join Reform
To Kneecap, the Irish republican band under fire over controversial concert footage – which appeared to show one of the band members calling for the deaths of MPs and yelling ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah!’ Now one of the trio, 27-year-old Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying a
Just what is it with Oval Office encounters? Three months after his spat with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump is at it again. The US President ambushed a visiting Cyril Ramaphosa today, playing footage that appeared to show white South Africans being persecuted. Trump ordered aides to dim the lights and play a video showcasing what he
Rupert Lowe may have left Nigel Farage’s Reform party, but he’s certainly keeping himself busy. Now the MP has tabled an early day motion calling for a review of sentencing practices to ensure non-violent social media offenders don’t get locked up – after the wife of a Tory councillor, Lucy Connolly, was imprisoned for posting
To Prime Minister’s Questions, where Sir Keir Starmer has announced that the Labour lot will in fact reverse parts of the controversial winter fuel payment – just weeks after the reds suffered defeat across the country over the policy in the May elections. Addressing the Chamber, Starmer remarked that ‘we want to ensure that as
Back to the case of the fires linked to Sir Keir Starmer. Now a third man has been charged over arson attacks on properties belonging to the Prime Minister. A 34-year-old Ukrainian national, Petro Pochynok, has been charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life. It comes after two other men were
To the Commons, where just after midday Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered a statement on his brand new UK-EU deal. Sir Keir told MPs that the new agreement would ‘strengthen our borders’ and ‘release us from the tired arguments of the past’ on Brexit. But as opposition politicians heckled – ‘tell that to the fishermen!’
In a blast from the past, the UK’s onetime deputy prime minister Nick Clegg popped up again in London today to muse, 15 years on, about his party’s coalition with the Conservatives. But despite this being the purpose of his talk, it didn’t take the arch-Remainer long to get to the subject of the European
Last week, fires at two properties and a vehicle linked to Sir Keir Starmer were being probed by police – and now a second man has been charged in connection with the series of arson attacks on properties owned by the Prime Minister. It transpires that 26-year-old Stanislav Carpiuc, a Romanian national, has been charged