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
Is Downing Street planning to sue for a story suggesting that Boris Johnson has ‘buyers’ remorse’ over his marriage? That’s the question asked at today’s lobby meeting after the New European ran a story alleging that the Prime Minister had said this at a Telegraph leader writers’ reunion at the Garrick Club. The original story met
Well, it’s official: Britain is facing a mass migration crisis. On a trip to Washington Priti Patel used the term yesterday as she turned her guns from the French to the EU’s system of open borders instead as ‘they do not have border controls and border checks’. She told reporters there: There is a mass migration
As the race for the Elysée hots up, presidential candidates are busy courting voters and raising funds. And with Macron’s poll ratings flatlining in Paris, all eyes are on Eric Zemmour, the right-wing talkshow host who is still yet to declare but is nevertheless third in the polls. So Mr S was intrigued to learn that Zemmour
Cricketer Azeem Rafiq shocked the political word on Tuesday with his revelations about the abuse he suffered while a young player at Yorkshire Cricket Club. But Mr S has now been sent social media posts which show Rafiq himself was no stranger to using racist language when young, with a leaked message revealing the former
Taxes are rising, inflation is climbing, sleaze is everywhere and the Tories are divided. With Labour ahead in the polls for the first time since January, can anything stop the party’s return to power? Enter Zarah Sultana, Coventry’s answer to Citizen Smith. The baby-faced bolshevik – designed in a CCHQ lab as a walking Tory recruitment advert
Sir Keir Starmer has become accustomed to Labour in-fighting since he became leader 18 months ago. But as the former DPP battles to drag his party into some kind of vaguely electable shape, has he been neglecting matters closer to home? For in northwest London, on Keir Starmer’s doorstep, a vicious party battle has broken out
It seems that the fruits of high office haven’t changed Nadine Dorries. The Culture Secretary, who took up her brief eight weeks ago, last night hit out at Laura Kuenssberg on Twitter after the BBC’s political editor reported receiving a text from a Tory MP at the 1922 committee which said Boris Johnson ‘looked weak and sounded weak’
It’s all change at Mail towers. In shock news on Fleet Street, Geordie Greig, the well-connected editor of the Daily Mail since 2018, is to step down from his current post at the end of this week. Ted Verity, the current editor of the Mail on Sunday, will instead be Editor of Mail newspapers, a position that will
John Bercow may have gone but his successor is faring little better with the government. Relations between No. 10 and Lindsay Hoyle have been decidedly frosty in recent months, thanks in part to the Speaker’s mounting irritation with ministers continually making announcements to the press before Parliament. Now the row over Owen Paterson and the humiliating u-turn
It looks like a winter lockdown has come early for some. Nine Insulate Britain members have been jailed at the High Court today, after breaching injunctions designed to prevent disruptive protests. Despite the eco-activists’ protests – with one tearfully telling LBC that ‘I’m crapping myself this morning and I feel like crying’ – judge Dame Victoria Sharp said there was no
After the farrago of the past fortnight, it’s damage control time in No. 10. Within the parliamentary party there’s a palpable sense of divide between the ‘oiks’ and ‘toffs,’ ‘officers’ and ‘infantry,’ old guard versus new. Some younger, newer members feel neglected and ignored, having repeatedly followed orders to go over the top, only for the whips to
As MPs spent the afternoon debating second jobs, a former colleague who knows all about the subject was holding court elsewhere. George Osborne, the part time banker and full time mischief-maker, was unveiling a plaque in Piccadilly to the legendary caricaturist James Gillray – a satirist who would no doubt have had great fun with the former Chancellor.
The faults in the Tory party were on show for all to see today, as MPs were forced to debate No 10’s efforts to block Owen Paterson’s suspension from the Commons. Ministers had hoped to quietly u-turn on their efforts to overhaul the standards system but following Sir Chris Chope’s last minute intervention, a very
Can anything stop the irresistible rise of Liz Truss? The power-dressing insta lover reinvented herself at International Trade, becoming the darling of the Tory faithful and rising to the top of the ConservativeHome ministerial rankings, where she sits 15 points ahead of her nearest rival. Having served at the top table of Tory politics since 2014,
You’d have thought certain Tory grandees would be chastened after the past fortnight. But while most Conservatives on the green benches now admit the decision to try to overrule the standards committee’s recommendations on Owen Paterson was a mistake, it seems that one diehard remains unbowed. Step forward Sir Christopher Chope, the veteran MP for Christchurch, and no stranger
Democracy is in crisis, faith in institutions is at an all-time low. The public’s trust in our leaders has collapsed; cynicism is all around. Which pillar of integrity can save us from the morass and rescue our crumbling polity? Step forward erstwhile aristo Prince Harry, the hereditary hedonist reborn as a fearless fighter of fake news.
For centrists of a certain age, few names are more likely to tug the heartstrings than Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier. In the halcyon days of 2017, the two Frenchman seemed the epitome of all that was chic, calm and above all rational: the former a fresh-faced Élysée outsider who made moderation great again; the latter
Oh dear. It appears the Rejoiner movement has gone a bit People’s Front of Judea. Andrew Adonis, the rampant Remainiac, has today been rapped by the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards over an undeclared directorship he failed to disclose on his Register of Interests. But who was the sharp-eyed snitch who tipped off the watchdog?
Far from being a ‘storm in a teacup’ – in the famous last words of George Eustice – the Westminster sleaze scandal shows no sign of abating. As day 13 rolls around, Cabinet members Jacob Rees-Mogg and Grant Shapps are respectively facing questions about £6 million of undeclared loans and, er, spending taxpayers’ money on lobbyists fighting
And so COP26 ended, not so much with a bang, but rather a whimper. Alok Sharma’s tears aside, there was a muted feel to the unveiling of Saturday’s Glasgow protocol, at which countries agreed merely to ‘phase down’ rather than ‘phase out’ coal. That sense of anticlimax was only enhanced by yet more strike action at
