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’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.
It’s the best comedy the BBC has made in years. The twists and turns of the race to be the corporation’s next political editor have kept all of Westminster agog for months. Now, after a three month recruitment process whittled down the candidates to two outsiders, BBC bosses have decided that, er, that their preferred candidate
Sunday: a day of rest, church and more headlines about Tory MPs misbehaving. Today’s unfortunate backbencher is David Warburton, who faces the unholy trinity of allegations about sex, drugs and undeclared Russian loans. The Somerset MP has now had the party whip withdrawn, following claims he took cocaine and was sexually inappropriate towards three women. He
There’s a spectre haunting the Scottish Government: the spectre of Alex Salmond. Like Banquo at the feast, the former First Minister has returned once more to unsettle his successor and onetime protege, Nicola Sturgeon. For the Sunday Mail has today revealed that lawyers are probing claims that perjury was committed in the former First Minister’s trial for sexual
Oh dear. Following the spring statement, Labour have been keen to make political capital in recent days, touting their credentials as responsible guardians of the nation’s finances. Not for them, the financial mismanagement and sleaze of Boris Johnson’s Tories: Labour have been reborn as the party of fiscal probity. So it must have been with some
Given the Tories’ current woes with everything from parties to ferries, surely now is the chance for the long-awaited Labour revival? Keir Starmer has been talking a good game recently but polls still show the two main parties in close contention. To aid his chances in the upcoming local elections, the Labour leader has unveiled
Inflation. Energy spikes. Tax hikes. Low growth. It’s a tough time for hard-pressed Britons at present. The cost of living crisis has begun to bite and millions are starting to suffer. But not to worry: in these dark times, one man has emerged to champion the destitute and the needy. Step forward, Ian Blackford, the doughty defender
Susan Aitken, we meet again. The worst council leader in Britain is back in the news. What, pray, is it this time? Has Aitken finally fixed the rats which ran riot before COP26? Are Glasgow’s finances now back in order? Will the 500 taxi trips on expenses be refunded now? Good God, no. For Aitken
Jamie Wallis has had an eventful time at Westminster since joining the Commons two-and-a-half years ago. Within weeks of being elected, Wallis faced accusations of being the co-owner of a ‘sugar daddy’ dating website. Then last year, Wallis was arrested on suspicion of driving while unfit after a collided with a lamppost in Llanblethian, Vale of Glamorgan. Now the
Labour has been indulging in a ritual bout of moralising over the Tories’ Russian connections. Having first tried to exploit the issue of wealthy British Russians donating to the party, now the opposition has turned its guns on a new target instead. Step forward ‘friend of the stars’ Evgeny Lebedev, the bearded proprietor of the Evening Standard
As the Met begins dishing out fines for partygate, the new regime in No. 10 is focusing on the future. Boris Johnson’s Oxford chum Guto Harri was brought in at the beginning of last month to steady the ship as Director of Communications. His early interventions proved a little unorthodox: giving an interview on his appointment, retweeting
There’s a mutiny underway in Westminster. After years of revelations about the conditions of Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province, momentum is building behind plans to stop the government buying health goods made in the region. On Wednesday, MPs will vote on an amendment to the health and social care bill, tabled by former Tory
Ding, ding, ding! It’s fight club time in the Tory party. In the blue corner it’s Simon Hoare. And in the, er, other blue corner it’s Dehenna Davison and Sir Iain Duncan Smith. The subject of today’s rumble in the Westminster jungle is Will Smith’s jab at Chris Rock at last night’s Academy Awards ceremony. Well, they
Goodbye and good riddance: that’s the message from City Hall to Cressida Dick. The Metropolitan police Commissioner was unceremoniously deposed last month by Sadiq Khan after five scandal-filled years in post. Following a protracted dispute over her exit package, the Home Secretary has today confirmed that Dick will be leaving her job in April months before
Partygate is back in the news after a month of headlines about Ukraine. The Met Police has begun interviewing key witnesses, with more than 100 questionnaires distributed to unlucky staff in Whitehall and No. 10. Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and even the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case have been told to submit evidence for the Met’s investigation:
It is now just six weeks until the first post-partygate test for Boris Johnson’s Tories, with campaigning for the local elections already well underway. Labour under Keir Starmer are feeling confident: ahead in the polls, they know that the cost-of-living crisis will begin to eat away at the respite afforded to Johnson by Ukraine. Indeed there are even
Ping! An email lands in Steerpike’s inbox. ‘Will you join me?’ reads the email line. Gosh. Who was this damsel in distress, this online agoniser in search of aid? Step forward none other than Mr S’s favourite student politician, Zarah Sultana. It seems that Coventry’s answer to Citizen Smith is in a bit of a
Ah, the Standards Committee. Where would we be without the parliamentary watchdog? The 14 men and women who sit on this panel have a noble task: policing behaviour within the Commons by overseeing the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner, Kathryn Stone. Half the committee are lay members, who cannot ever have been members of either
The best dramas in British broadcasting are only found on one channel these days. Parliament TV has hosted its fair share of unsavoury characters over the years but today a new villain joined the rogues’ gallery. Step forward P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite, who joins the likes of Philip Green, Fred Goodwin and Mike Ashley in being hauled
The sound of chinking glasses and merry laughter greeted Steerpike yesterday as he made his way through the Westminster village. Rishi Sunak might have placed an edict on Treasury staff holding their traditional office drinking session while watching him deliver his spring statement but clearly some just decamped to SW1’s watering holes instead. What better