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 Christmas over, the turkey consumed and Maughamtide been and gone, the eyes of an anxious nation have turned once more to No.10. Boris Johnson deferred the re-introduction of restrictions last week but met with Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance today to discuss the latest Covid data. Fortunately, current indications are that no such measures
Evgeny Lebedev is a man of many talents. Since taking up the reins as Evening Standard proprietor in 2009, he’s turned his hand to everything from newspapers and restaurants to philanthropy and property. Theatre buff, elephant lover, a man who collects famous friends like his Francis Bacon paintings: is there anything this Russian renaissance man can’t
Christmas is a time for tradition and nowhere embraces it quite like Westminster. If you work in a building that looks like Hogwarts, it’s no surprise that MPs and ministers are keen to celebrate the festive customs, be that spending quality time with your (ever-growing) family like Boris or hanging out the £8 Big Ben decorations on
Ah student politics: is there anything quite like it? The strange creatures it attracts, the passions it unleashes, the adolescent ambition and the glorious pettiness of it all; so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. Such an ignoble tradition has spawned many of our lords and masters – Boris Johnson was an unabashed Union hack
Merseyside – the home of Roger McGough, Willy Russell and the Beatles. But it seems that despite the area’s reputation as a hotbed of the arts, not all Liverpool’s institutions of higher learning are too keen on resisting the tide of iconoclasm sweeping through Britain’s universities. For in the aftermath of the protests which followed George Floyd’s
During their four years running the Labour party, most of the protagonists in the Corbyn project became well-known faces to the British public. There was the hapless Richard Burgon and the sinister John McDonnell; the flailing Diane Abbott and the unctuous Barry Gardiner. Even backroom boys like the gum-chewing spin doctor Seumas Milne briefly became minor celebrities,
Parliament has packed up for the holidays, with MPs and peers spending their final days in SW1 desperately dodging the omnipresent Omicron variant. But Mr S was intrigued to see an interesting intervention in the Lords on the day that recess was declared. Crossbench peer Baroness Finlay popped up to grill Foreign Office minister Lord Ahmad about
Nicola Sturgeon is continuing her crusade against the Scottish press. Just yesterday, Mr S was pointing out the First Minister’s habit of criticising journalists who question her Covid policies, only for her government to then abruptly U-turn a few days later. Shortly after the article was published, Sturgeon took to Twitter to boast about her latest ‘media-free volunteering session’
The shenanigans at Northcliffe House have given Mr S much to write about in recent months. Whether it’s Geordie Greig’s sudden fall from grace, Ted Verity’s promotion or Lord Rothermere’s designs on DMGT, it appears that the Daily Mail creates as much drama as it reports. Unfortunately it seems that the shock return of Paul Dacre last
Nationalism, grievance politics and a refusal to accept results which don’t go your way are not the only things Nicola Sturgeon has in common with Donald Trump. For Scotland’s First Minister has launched something of a war on the press in recent weeks, repeatedly rubbishing reporters and outlets which dare to question her handling of Covid. Unfortunately
It’s always difficult to know what to get a politics-mad relative at Christmas. Another Private Eye annual perhaps? Tickets to see Matt Forde’s stand-up tour? A Blu Ray box set of The Thick Of It? Or yet another ‘hilarious’ satirically themed book like ‘Five on Brexit Island‘ or ‘The Illustrated Tweets of Donald Trump.‘ Fortunately for those
As the year draws to a close, it’s worth reflecting on which of our national institutions came out of 2021 in the worst shape. There’s the Foreign Office of course, whose failure to anticipate or prepare for the fall of Kabul was so brutally exposed by its top mandarin’s testimony earlier this month. There’s the Church
Not many people here in Westminster have a good word to say about the Theresa May years. But down in tiny San Marino, all that appears to be very different. For the landlocked republic recently chose to lavish two of its most prestigious honours on May and her Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, with both flying there in
Oh dear. It appears that Boris Johnson’s love-in with the great British public appears to have well and truly concluded. Let’s hope that in the wake of ‘Partygate’, Omicron and various scandals, our under-fire Prime Minister didn’t turn on the darts last night for some much-needed respite. For there, on primetime television, the crowd at
‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…’ Or it certainly was until Omicron intervened. For the latest Covid variant has raised fears the government will be forced into a Groundhog Day style re-run of the awful events of last December, when Boris Johnson ‘cancelled Christmas’ less than a week before the big day. What followed was
Whitehall has never been known to be at the cutting edge of technology. The mandarin masters of SW1 have had more than their fair share of tech blunders over the years, from accidentally uploading data about the nuclear subs to the failed NHS ‘super computer.’ And it seems that, for all the numerous headline-grabbing cock-ups,
Throughout the pandemic there have been frequent demands for more investment in the NHS. In October, Rishi Sunak was forced to announce further investment of almost £6 billion to tackle England’s record NHS waiting list. Between 2010 and 2025, the health budget is expected to have increased by 42 per cent; with NHS England’s resource budget set to rise to
Authority forgets a dying king. And with all of Boris Johnson’s current woes, it’s no surprise to read reports of would-be successors already on maneuvers. While few Tories think a leadership challenge is imminent, it’s no surprise that members of the Cabinet have been building up war chests that could come in handy were one to arise.
Gosh. It seems like it was only yesterday Mr S was in the Manchester conference hall hearing Lord Frost telling attendees how he planned to make Brexit a success. Just ten days ago he enraptured the Adam Smith Institute with his small-state calls for a ‘bit less social distancing and a bit more socialist distancing.’ Now he’s
George Osborne hasn’t been shy to take the occasional pop at Boris Johnson’s government and now the reason why seems clear. His family firm Osborne & Little’s annual accounts up until 31 March have just been published and they don’t make for entirely happy reading. The leading wallpaper manufacturer has been forced to report a pre-tax loss