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
At last, the longest running West End drama since The Mousetrap has come to a close. Dark horse candidate Chris Mason was this afternoon named as the BBC’s new political editor to take over from Laura Kuenssberg after a rollercoaster recruitment ride lasting nearly four months. Mason had originally ruled himself out of the running, saying
Oh, those rotten Tories. You’ve got a PM being fined for parties, a Home Secretary making a mess of our borders and a Culture Secretary who can’t even spell the name of the Channel 4 star she’s berating. Sleaze is rife, inflation is back: it’s like the nineties without the hope. What could be worse? Well, there’s always
This evening the Johnsons have apologised for the fines dished out by the Metropolitan police earlier today. First up was Carrie Johnson who it appears organised the infamous birthday party in June 2020 that led to her husband and next-door neighbour both being fined. Whoops! A spokesperson for the First Lady of Downing Street said that: ‘Mrs Johnson
Well, that’s that then. This afternoon the Metropolitan Police fined the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of Exchequer for breaking lockdown laws. It follows an investigation into alleged Covid law-breaking at 12 gatherings in Whitehall and Downing Street. Both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have maintained their innocence right up until this week. Below are six of
Westminster’s favourite millionaire environmentalists are it again. It seems that one or other of the Goldsmith brothers can’t go three months without sticking their foot in it. Today it’s the turn of Ben, the less prominent but no less gaffe-prone millionaire, who is one of the non-executive directors in Defra – the environment department in which
Crispin Blunt has had quite the 24 hours. The Tory MP yesterday made an extraordinary intervention in the case of Imran Ahmad Khan, the Wakefield backbencher found guilty of the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy. Blunt decided to release a highly unusual and hyberbolic statement which lambasted the conviction as a ‘dreadful miscarriage of justice’ incited by ‘lazy
Independent MP Imran Ahmad Khan has today decided to stand down from the Commons – three days after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. Elected in December 2019 for the ‘Red Wall’ seat of Wakefield, the backbencher had the Conservative whip removed in June 2021 after he was charged for the offence. The outgoing MP has
Oh dear. Just last week, on the day that Boris Johnson raised National Insurance, it was pointed out to the bright young things at Tory high command that they might want to remove from their website his, er, manifesto pledge to not hike the tax. It’s still proudly displayed there online as part of six manifesto commitments, adorned
After the Derek Mackay scandal, you’d have thought the SNP would want to distance itself from 16 year-olds. Far from it, it seems, for the bairns of tomorrow are central to Nicola Sturgeon’s ambitions today. Support for independence is flagging. The public sector services are creaking. Calls for an investigation into the ferries fiasco are growing.
Who’s out to get Rishi? That’s the question allies of the Chancellor are asking after a week of revelations about the Richmond MP. They include the non-domiciled tax status of his wife, Akshata Murthy, Sunak’s decision to hold a US green card and pay tax in America for his first 18 months in No. 11 and his own alleged links to
It seems that taking gratuitous swipes at J.K. Rowling has become something of a competition for liberal broadsheets on both sides of the pond. First, the New York Times took a potshot at the Harry Potter creator for its new marketing campaign trumpeting ‘independent journalism.’ And now the Guardian – keen to prove that, it too, is
What with partygate and Ukraine, it was easy to miss some of the movements in February’s mini-reshuffle. Among them was the bovine Mark Spencer being shuffled out of the Whips’ Office into a safer berth as Leader of the Commons, following accusations of Islamophobia. His replacement, Chris Heaton-Harris, is a man largely unknown outside SW1 but who,
Four weeks ago, Rishi Sunak was riding high, Boris Johnson was on the slide and the Chancellor’s daughter was proudly telling the women’s lobby drinks that she too wants to be a reporter. Now, after a fortnight of damning media coverage, her ambition might have been changed. Lambasted over his spring statement, mocked over his
The Ukraine crisis claims another victim. Step forward George Galloway, the mystic Myrtle who bet in February that the country would not be invaded by Moscow. The journeyman politician is in something of a strop at present, after Twitter took the step of labelling his account as ‘Russia state-affiliated media’ following a series of bizarre takes on
What price, solidarity? That’s the question Europe’s leaders have been asking since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. The answer, it turns out is: not too high, a price, thanks. One German SDP politician, Florian Post, went viral last weekend after complaining that: I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m starting to find
The Matt Hancock comeback tour continues at pace. After the mothballed memoir, the Serpentine stunt and the UN embarrassment, you might think that the Casanova of the Commons has run out of ideas for retrospective rehabilitation. Far from it: alongside doing endless media rounds to defend Boris Johnson’s latest blunder, Hancock has reinvented himself as a champion
It’s tough at the top in Westminster. You’ve climbed the greasy pole in British politics only to be buried in red boxes, urgent questions and endless morning media rounds. But there are some perks to being a government frontbencher: as the latest release of ministerial gifts makes clear. Released just before the current recess, they
Roll up, roll up! The great Channel 4 sell-off is now on. The Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, is pushing ahead with plans to privatise the broadcaster after 40 years in public ownership. Ministers hope to raise around £1 billion, with the proceeds potentially being used to fund the levelling up agenda. Inevitably, such a plan has sparked the
Westminster is in recess but many of its finest are out and about, knocking up doors in their local constituencies. Council elections are just five weeks away and while some struggle to muster enthusiasm for such contests, the result will invariably be seen as a referendum on the two main party leaders. But amid all
It’s 15 months since President Biden swept into the White House, where, judging by his current poll ratings, his tenure might not be a long one. Of course, many in his party never thought the 79 year-old would run again in 2024: the problem for Democrats is that his deputy Kamala Harris is even more unpopular.