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
On Saturday it was the seventh anniversary of the Scottish vote on independence – how time flies. That contest saw a decisive ten point majority against separation; not that you’d know it from the way Nicola Sturgeon conducts her affairs. The SNP First Minister succeeded Alex Salmond in the post just weeks after the plebiscite
The last few months have been a period of change for SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford. The waistcoat-wearing MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber placed one of his two Skye homes on sales for £400,000 and quit his £39,000-a-year directorship of Golden Charter – the investment firm which gets its money from pre-paid funeral plans. The company caused Blackford a
It’s been a tough pandemic for all of us here in Britain. Lockdowns, supply shortages, over-zealous policemen and Matt Hancock’s gurning face – there’s been a shortage of joy these past 18 months. But now Mr S is delighted to discover there is light at the end of the tunnel: a forthcoming book bonanza by
Ping! No, not the latest sound of the dreaded test and trace app. An email has arrived in Steerpike’s inbox, subject line: ‘HANVEY CALLS FOR “UNITED FRONT” TO DEFEAT DRACONIAN POWERS.’ It is of course the latest dispatch from Scotland’s little-loved sixth party, Alba, Holyrood’s home for the dispossessed and the never-possessed. Intrigued, Mr S
Justin Trudeau’s snap election has just gone from bad to worse. The incumbent Canadian Prime Minister decided last month to call a snap election to improve his parliamentary standing. It was a contest no-one wanted (or expected) and the move seems to have backfired spectacularly. Hectored by anti-vaxxers, lambasted for his Covid record and lampooned as ‘UnCanadian’ for
It is four days since the US, UK and Australia announced their historic security pact in the Asia-Pacific but there are few signs of anger abating from the usual suspects. The deal will let Australia build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time, using technology provided by America. Cyber ability and undersea technologies will also be shared in the pact,
The Tory party has had a difficult relationship with China in recent years. David Cameron and George Osborne’s ‘Golden era’ of Sino-UK diplomacy foundered on the rock of Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang while Boris Johnson’s backbenchers have consistently urged a tougher line on tech companies like Huawei. The G7 summit in June illustrated the
Fear has been the watchword of Westminster this week, as nervy ministers check to see whether they have survived the cull. Their civil servants meanwhile have had no such troubles, able to wait in their Whitehall offices to comfort, console or congratulate their political masters and listen to yet more interminable farewell speeches from those unceremoniously
Politics is all about priorities and the new Cabinet has certainly shown that. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is hunting among hacks for a new media special adviser, keen to conscript a lieutenant to fight the Tory culture wars. Liz Truss and Dominic Raab are divided over who gets to use the Foreign Office home Chevening –
There were many fine speeches made in last month’s emergency debate on Afghanistan. Peers and MPs queued up to deliver their musings on the Taliban takeover, in spite of twenty years of blood and treasure. From rising stars to extinct volcanos, backwoodsmen to bootlickers, the tributes poured fourth with liberal mentions aplenty of Vietnam and betrayal.
It’s not been a great week for Humza Yousaf. The under-fire SNP health secretary has been a fixture of newspaper headlines this week over ambulance waiting times after telling long-suffering Scots to ‘think twice’ about ordering one amid pressure on the country’s health service. Humiliatingly, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has today been forced to call in
It’s been quite the few months for Michael Gove. The Tory party’s answer to Angela Rayner yesterday bagged himself another new title: Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government with added cross-government responsibility for levelling up and retaining ministerial responsibility for the Union and elections. This comes after a summer where he announced his forthcoming divorce with
After six hours of speculation, most in SW1 seem ready to re-shuffle off their mortal coil. As the hacks and hangers-on picks over who’s up and who’s down, attention has focused on the newly-appointed Culture Secretary. Former nurse and part-time novelist Nadine Dorries succeeds Oliver Dowden in the post, having served two years in the health
It’s still some months until awards season gears up but Mr S is happy to announce this year’s winner of the Steerpike ‘Slurp Prize for Sycophancy.’ In a tough field, full of the usual deferential dross, slimy pseudo-babble and glutinous grovelling, one entry has today blown away all competition to clinch the gong, with an entry so obsequious
It’s amazing what the collapse of a caliphate will do to a girl. Shamima Begum popped up on GMB this morning sporting a Nike baseball cap, pink nail varnish and a sleeveless top to ask the British public for forgiveness. The former London schoolgirl who ran away to Syria in 2015 has spent the past two years, err, trying to
The BBC has been plunged into a fair few impartiality controversies recently. But while such rows can often be a matter of subjectivity and taste, you would hope that Corporation staff would draw the line at promoting a convicted arsonist accused of orchestrating a ‘terrorist campaign’ against Oxford University. Yikes. This latest BBC East drama
Oh dear. It was less than a week ago that Nicola Sturgeon mixed up two of her SNP backbenchers in the Holyrood chamber and gave pre-emptive answers to their questions, thus appearing to be clairvoyant. Now the same thing has happened again today. Asked by one of her MSPs for an update on the establishment of a Covid-19 inquiry,
George Osborne might be famous for collecting jobs but is he having any success with them? Since leaving the Treasury in July 2016, the onetime master of British politics seems to have acquired a reverse Midas touch. Having quit as an MP at the 2017 election – when Theresa May’s setbacks meant he could have
New York may have the Met Gala but London has Parlioke. As global fashionistas last night crammed into their garish garbs, here in Westminster our political masters were having an evening soirée of their own. Steerpike’s man with a microphone reports that MPs were invited to a select singing bash. Ahead of her speech today
In the heady days of 2017, all seemed rosy for left-wing news website like the Canary. Founded in 2015 to ‘diversify the media’ the hyper-partisan outfit rode the wave of Corbynism to its height just after Theresa May’s snap election. Its editor Kerry-Anne Mendoza appeared on Newsnight; revenues hit £250,000 while staff boasted of 3.5 million unique
