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 not just the BBC’s well-paid stars who didn’t like hearing that the licence fee will be abolished. Labour MPs have been spitting feathers at Nadine Dorries’s audacious move to phase out the existing system by 2028, with many standing up in the House of Commons today to proclaim their dismay. Lucy Powell, Dorries’ opposite number, wailed that
Proposals by Nadine Dorries to scrap the BBC licence fee have produced something of a meltdown over at Broadcasting House. The Culture Secretary wants to keep the licence fee flat at £159 a year until April 2024, after which it will rise in line with inflation until 2028 when it will be replaced by an as-yet-unknown funding model.
There’s a fevered atmosphere within Parliament at present as MPs gather to debate Boris Johnson’s future. The triennial game of ‘pass the crown’ is on again as revelations continue to emerge about what went on at Fabric No. 10 throughout the pandemic. Rumours abound as to whether Tory whips have posted sentries to watch Sir Graham Brady’s
It’s easier than ever for Tory MPs to attack the PM. Whereas once media was the preserve of four channels and dominated by a handful of national papers, platforms like Twitter have made it quicker than ever before for Conservative backbenchers to issue stinging criticisms. And indeed many have made the most of such sites in recent weeks, as
Ping! An email lands in Steerpike’s inbox. It’s been a while since we heard from Dominic Grieve, the Francophile Beaconsfield barrister who quit the Tory party in October 2019. Since losing his seat by 15,000 votes at the last election, Grieve has largely contented himself with minor academic sinecures and occasional swipes at his old nemesis
To read some of the coverage of No. 10’s parties, you’d have thought Boris Johnson’s government was a uniquely mendacious, duplicitous and scandalous regime. Fortunately, just north of the border, Nicola Sturgeon’s administration is doing its bit to prove it’s every bit as secretive, flawed and contemptuous of standards. Today’s Scotsman on Saturday reveals that
It’s been a pretty dreadful week for security at the Palace of Westminster. First, there was the admission that a Chinese spy suspect, Christine Lee, had donated thousands of pounds to Barry Gardiner’s office where her son, Daniel Wilkes, was employed as a member of staff. His access to the parliamentary estate was not revoked
It was easy to get the sense in 2020 that the government didn’t want the lockdowns to end. Now we all realise why: everyone in No. 10 was having an absolute whale of a time. Less than 24 hours after the Telegraph revealed No. 10 held two parties the night before Prince Philip’s funeral (classy), the Mirror
It seems that Boris Johnson has adopted something of a curious approach to Covid regulations. No, not the Downing Street parties, but rather his attitude towards self-isolation. For the PM’s official spokesman revealed yesterday that one of Johnson’s relatives — either his wife Carrie or one of the children he has living at Downing Street — has tested positive for
So, how many is that now? ITV have just revealed that Boris Johnson had a 56th birthday bash in the middle of the first lockdown — the latest in a list of illicit parties that have come to light over the past two months. By Steerpike’s count there have been reports of at least *sixteen* parties which allegedly broke Covid restrictions
Oh dear. If you were trying to design a story to offend Tory England, it would be hard to do better than the idea that there was a party held in Downing Street the night before the Queen had to mourn Prince Philip alone at a socially distanced funeral. But that is what the Daily Telegraph
Well, at least someone’s having a worse week than Boris Johnson. For the Queen has announced this afternoon that Prince Andrew has now been stripped of his military affiliations and patronages that meant so much to them both. The news follows a day after an American judge gave the green light for the Duke of York to face a sexual
You have to feel for the Scottish Conservatives. The current No. 10 dramas have placed them all in an invidious position, following Douglas Ross’s call yesterday for Boris Johnson to resign over partygate. Ross of course is the Scottish Conservative leader, with seats in the parliaments of both Westminster and Scotland. This means that every Tory north
As if there wasn’t enough drama in parliament today. Peers and MPs have just been warned that a suspected agent working for the Chinese government has been trying to infiltrate the Palace of Westminster, in a plot that wouldn’t seem out of place in a James Bond film. Talk about The Spy Who Loved Xi. MI5 has now released
Political parties are very much in vogue at the moment so naturally Gina Miller had to get in on the act. Steerpike’s favourite millionaire barrister has launched her long-awaited centrist initiative this morning, hailing the advent of the ‘True and Fair party’ before an audience of just, er, thirteen people – unlucky for some. Mr S
The mood in Westminster this morning is febrile as Tory MPs plot to consider their leader’s future. Facing questions over partygate, plunging polls and mutinous ministers, can anything save Boris Johnson? Well, yes, but perhaps salvation comes in an unlikely form. For in another typically brilliant intervention, Lord Adonis — Britain’s most ironically titled peer — has reminded Boris-doubters what they stand
In this age of social media, it’s live by the tweet and die by the tweet. And when a Tory PM is in peril, such shenanigans take on an importance of semi-constitutional significance as ministers rush (or hesitate) to signal their allegiances. The most ominous sign for Boris Johnson yesterday was how quiet his Cabinet
You know it’s bad when Rees-Mogg does the media round. Ever since his disastrous interview on Grenfell in the 2019 election, Tory party managers have been keen to keep the Old Etonian’s performances on national television to a minimum. But given both the dire straits in which Boris now finds himself and the half-hearted backing of
Peter Bone was up at PMQs today, asking a rare, non-partygate question to our beleaguered Prime Minister on whether he’d abolish the BBC licence fee (answer: no). But not all the Wellingborough backbencher’s maneuverings in Parliament this week seem designed to be so helpful to Boris, as he battles to save his premiership. For Mr S has spotted
BREAKING: Britain is plunging into autocracy. Well, according to the New York Times at least. Steerpike has grown used to the witterings from America’s least reliable news source in recent years, as it seeks to portray the UK as a plague-riddled, rain-drenched fascistic hell-hole on the verge of democratic collapse but where the trains don’t run on