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
Earlier this week Mr S brought you news of the latest interminable row splitting the Lib Dems: what to do about Vince Cable? The ex-leader has alienated his party’s youth wing with his comments about the Chinese Communist party and Beijing’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims. Cable has denied that genocide is taking place in Xinjiang and also defended the Hong Kong
The antics of Scottish Covid advisor Devi Sridhar have been one of the few bright spots throughout the pandemic. During the last fifteen months, Sridhar has become something of a pin-up girl to the SNP’s online army of so-called ‘cybernats.’ This has been due to her repeated jibes at the Westminster government, her demands for more power which
Since being formed in May 2018, the eco-warriors of Extinction Rebellion have done their best to endear themselves to commuters across the country. Known for their outlandish stunts, apocalyptic rhetoric and garish attire, members of the movement have deployed new forms of non-violent civi disobedience – much to the irritation of those whose roads and bridges they blockade.
It’s not just the hospitality sector struggling to recruit this summer. Steerpike has been amused to see a number of job postings appear on the ‘Working for an MP’ website in recent months for the exciting opportunity to work for the member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Margaret Ferrier. Ferrier of course has been suspended from the
Tensions between Westminster and the devolved parliaments have been a constant feature of the Covid pandemic. Up in Edinburgh, the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has made full use of the crisis – hinting constantly at closing the English border and peppering her daily press conferences with pointed jibes at London. Such actions are of course merely
Earlier this week, Mr S brought you the BBC’s internal guide to talking about climate change and how to win audiences over to the ‘correct’ side of the issue. Now he can report that the Corporation’s commissars of language appear to have also redefined what it means to be gay. That redefinition comes in the BBC
It may be recess but diplomacy does not stop. Last week Boris Johnson welcomed one of the main Belarusian opposition leaders Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to Downing Street to show his support for the cause. According to a No. 10 readout of the meeting, the Prime Minister claimed that the British people shared with Belarusians ‘fundamental values such as
It’s not just David Cameron who has been making a mint from his time in No. 10. The BBC’s revelations yesterday that the Old Etonian earned around £7 million from Greensill came just days after Theresa May’s eponymous company published its first set of accounts since being incorporated in November 2019. Cameron’s successor has chosen to focus her
It’s A-level results day today as students across the country eagerly await their results. But for Gavin Williamson the day began with a morning media round worthy of an F as the education secretary repeatedly refused to tell LBC host Nick Ferrari what he got in his own exams. The South Staffordshire MP seemed to
Shame, opprobrium and multiple select committee grillings – was the disgrace of Greensill worth it for David Cameron? The answer would now appear to be yes, judging from documents obtained by the BBC ahead of a Panorama special programme tonight on the story of the company’s collapse. According to the Beeb, Cameron made about £7 million
Climate change is once again dominating the news agenda. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that even if emissions are cut rapidly, the effects of global warming will be felt across the world. The report – which Boris Johnson has declared sobering reading – leads the news today, with the BBC dedicating seven stories
Oh dear. This afternoon an anti-vaccine demonstration marched on what they thought was BBC Television Centre in apparent protest at the media’s supposed complicity in supporting vaccines, Covid certification and lockdowns. Unfortunately for the protesters, the Corporation actually left the building in White City some eight years ago. Since 2013 the site has instead boasted
It seems like just yesterday that Vince Cable was the most popular Lib Dem in the land. Back in the heady days of the late noughties, Cable was regarded as the supposed seer who foresaw the banking crisis; a ‘safe pair of hands’ whose memorable jibe at Gordon Brown’s transformation from ‘Stalin to Mr Bean’ provided much mirth to
It’s not been a great year for the LGBT rights charity Stonewall. In May founding member Matthew Parris accused the organisation of trying to delegitimise anyone who did not agree with its views after a free speech row at Essex University. Stonewall was alleged to have misrepresented the law in its advice to the institution
Last week Mr S reported that – following months of deliberation – the BBC had (finally) decided to uphold a complaint about a controversial blog post written by its LGBT correspondent Ben Hunte. The case in question concerned a court verdict in December in which senior judges ruled against children being given access to drugs that would allow
Throughout the summer Nigel Farage has kept up his focus on the migrant crisis in Dover. The onetime UKIP leader turned GB News star has spent much of the last six weeks denouncing the efforts of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) which he has dubbed a ‘taxi service for illegal trafficking gangs’ for picking up
This week, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which sets the UK’s vaccine policies, recommended that 16 and 17-year-olds be offered the Pfizer vaccine – leading to speculation that the jab could soon be offered to even younger age groups. Speaking at a press conference on the issue yesterday, the deputy chief medical
Who is on top of the gold medal table at the Tokyo Olympics? China? The United States? According to former European parliament Brexit chief Guy Verhofstadt, it is, in fact, the European Union that is triumphing at the games. While you have to go down to seventh place in the Olympics leader board to find an EU country (Germany), Verhofstadt
At the beginning of the year Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was forced to hastily cancel a diplomatic trip to Europe, reportedly after top EU officials refused to meet with him following the storming of the US Capitol building. In the aftermath of the event, Luxembourg’s foreign minister suggested that Trump was a
You might have thought the hire wire act of balancing Britain’s overseas interests would be keeping the Foreign Secretary fully occupied this summer. But now Dominic Raab has added skydiving to karate and boxing in his bag of tricks, having signed up to do a sponsored freefall for charity in October. A letter has now gone out to Raab’s parliamentary