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
After last year’s A-level results day debacle and the ongoing saga about catch-up funding, Gavin Williamson is one of the bookies’ favourites for the Cabinet chop. The incumbent education secretary has suffered some brutal headlines in the last 12 months and appears to have stumbled on the culture wars as his best bet for ministerial
Few trends are as little remarked upon in British politics as the strange death of rural Labour. Back in 2001 the party held more than 100 seats in rural England and Wales; today the figure has slumped to just 17. Whereas once both comfortable shires and working class countryside constituencies were red on the map, now
The imminent departure of Labour’s communications team appears to have done little to galvanise its flagging social media game. Party staffers yesterday released a new campaign graphic on Twitter, labelling the government’s proposed liberalisation of planning laws a ‘Developers’ charter’ accompanied by the old jibe at ‘Tory party donors.’ Some online were quick to point
Back in October, international trade secretary Liz Truss held the first meeting of the reconvened historic Board of Trade after decades in abeyance. The appointment of former Aussie PM Tony Abbott among others to this once great commercial champion prompted a paroxysm of fury from the usual suspects, with Truss’s shadow Emily Thornberry dubbing him a ‘Trump-worshipping misogynist.’ But
The final fortnight of the Batley and Spen by-election has turned ugly up in West Yorkshire. Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges quoted an anonymous Labour official claiming that ‘We’re haemorrhaging votes among Muslim voters and the reason for that is what Keir has been doing on antisemitism… he challenged Corbyn on it
He was once best known for his expansive, rambling blog posts but now Dominic Cummings appears to have a new favourite form of medium. Boris Johnson’s former chief special adviser announced a fortnight ago he was joining paid-for newsletter site Substack, launching his first incendiary post last Wednesday by sharing screenshots in which his former
Next Thursday is election day in the Batley and Spen by-election and with polls showing a six point Tory lead, it’s no surprise CCHQ has been stepping up its ground game there. Boris Johnson was deployed on Friday to visit the constituency, taking in Batley’s largest employer, Fox’s biscuit factory, the home of kids’ favourite party
To many in Brussels, the French statesman is already a saint. But now Pope Francis has decided to put Robert Schuman — the foundering father of the European Union — on the path to sainthood. A decree has been issued by the Vatican recognising his ‘heroic virtues’, the first step in the formal process of canonisation. Two miracles
John Bercow has once again broken with convention. The former House of Commons Speaker has defied three centuries of tradition by announcing a return to party politics post-speakership with an ‘extraordinary broadside‘ against Boris Johnson. His reason for joining the Labour party – or making the move official, as Tory wags now quip – is primarily
Oh dear. It was just two weeks ago that Labour’s Naz Shah found herself in trouble for attending a pro-Palestinian rally in Bradford at which a speaker made antisemitic remarks in Arabic. Now the shadow minister for community cohesion appears to be again tempting fate after a scheduled appearance next month at a charity dinner
The No. 10 media operation has become notorious for releasing announcements late on a Friday night when most hacks have already filed their stories. Now it seems Labour is learning from the masters of the dark arts, having finally pulled off a successful media strategy – revealing the resignation of its most senior communications official
Following this morning’s shock by-election result, gloom and despair are gripping much of the Conservative party in the South of England. But one ex-Tory Cabinet minister was in brighter spirits today, with former Attorney General Dominic Grieve popping up on BBC News to explain why his onetime colleague turned Brexit nemesis Boris Johnson is to blame
They say you should keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. If that’s the case, there must be an awful lot of people who are close to the health secretary, Matt Hancock. Hancock has not had the best of weeks. On Wednesday, Dominic Cummings released a series of WhatsApps which appeared to show
Last month’s Queen Speech was noteworthy for how little it contained, with the only rabbit out of the legislative hat being (appropriately enough) the Animal Sentience Bill. But now the proposed legislation, which would give vertebrates a legal right to feel happiness and suffering, has started to attract serious scrutiny as it enters the committee stage of
Political rhetoric is fairly blunt in the west of Scotland but it seems one SNP councillor has gone too far. Tony Gurney, who represents the Nationalists on North Ayrshire Council, has been hauled over the coals for using a four-letter word: Tory. At last week’s council meeting, Tory — sorry, Conservative — councillor Todd Ferguson
Few MPs in the House of Commons have been as eloquent on either side of the lockdown argument as Charles Walker. The MP for Broxbourne returned to the chamber yesterday afternoon to take aim at the scientists sitting on Sage — the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. Walker — who has accused Boris Johnson of treating
Just minutes before Prime Ministers’ Questions, Dominic Cummings did what he does best: fire off another salvo in one of his long-running feuds. The former chief special adviser took to Substack to hurl another 7,249 word grenade at his onetime Tory colleagues and while it’s the screenshots of Boris Johnson calling the testing situation ‘totally fucking
Since his eight hour long testimony to a joint select committee last month Dominic Cummings has been unusually quiet. The Vote Leave maestro has declined interview requests after levelling a litany of accusations at Boris Johnson and his government, leaving Matt Hancock and others to defend their record in various studios and parliamentary appearances. Now though he has
Members of the Supreme Court have had something of a wary relationship with ministers in recent years. Since the landmark Gina Miller verdict in January 2017 and then the unanimous prorogation case in September 2019, there have been various Tory rumblings in Westminster about moves to abolish, reform or simply rename the highest court in the land.
It appears there was a nasty atmosphere down on Whitehall yesterday, where an anti-lockdown demonstration took place. Footage has emerged today of the BBC Newsnight presenter Nick Watt being pursued by an unpleasant mob at the event, with a group screaming at the journalist and calling him a ‘traitor’. Eventually, Watt was forced to run
