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 was Opposition Day in the Commons yesterday, with the SNP plumping for a debate on Covid contracts – a bold choice given the £500 million approved by Holyrood without scrutiny. For leader Ian Blackford however it was a golden opportunity to rail against Westminster’s ‘endemic cronyism during a global pandemic, the misuse of funds, and
It was just three weeks ago that Steerpike pointed out that Labour MP Naz Shah was being billed to speak at a charity fundraiser alongside a controversial imam. Now it seems the shadow minister for community cohesion has caused yet further headaches for her leader thanks to her speech on Monday on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Just
Speak to battle-scarred Tory veterans of the 2017 snap election and they’ll regale you with horror tales about animal sentience. A little-noticed vote to reject the inclusion of the subject in the Withdrawal Bill quickly blew up into one of the major election issues, with the Independent running viral articles on the subject with inflammatory headlines
The appearance of Dominic Raab before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee yesterday got somewhat overlooked in all the drama about lockdown and football. While the session was fairly routine, with Raab largely able to bat aside questions from committee chairman and No. 10 nemesis Tom Tugendhat, it will mostly be remembered for a moment of sheer vacuousness
Government flats have been in the news a fair bit recently. Much ink was spilled over the £88,000 Boris and Carrie shelled out to interior designer Lulu Lytle to do up the Prime Minister’s flat at the end of last year. But now it seems the Johnsons got off lightly, judging by the current exorbitant rate going for
Jon Ashworth is one of the great survivors of the Labour front bench, having held the shadow health brief for some four and a half years under successive leaders. But given this morning’s media round, how much longer will he be remaining in post? Responding to the government’s announcement yesterday of the end of social
Most eyes in Westminster are on the future, ahead of next week’s looming July 19 unlocking. But for one man at least, attention is focused on the past and how the world became engulfed in the Covid quagmire. Matt Ridley, the journalist, businessman and member of the House of Lords, has been using his pen throughout
It’s been a busy afternoon in Westminster, with both Boris Johnson’s press conference and Sajid Javid’s Commons statement absorbing the attention of SW1’s finest hacks. In the New Labour era, such a smorgasbord of headlines would be what cynical spin-doctors call: ‘A good day to bury bad news’ – with all eyes elsewhere, it’s the
As July 19 looms ever closer and the football appears to be (finally) coming home, it appears that not even Tory MPs are exempt from experiencing the feel good factor. There was a boisterous mood in the Commons today as parliamentarians returned to hear the newly appointed Health Secretary read the last rites for the two
Throughout the pandemic, few things have been certain but Devi Sridhar’s omnipresent opining is one of them. The Scottish Covid advisor has rarely been off our screens during the pandemic, becoming something of a pin-up girl to the SNP for her repeated jibes at the Westminster government, her demands for more power which Holyrood already
Politicians have a long history of embarrassing themselves on trips to foreign lands. Boris Yeltsin famously offended his hosts in Ireland in 1994 when he refused to get off his plane at Shannon airport. The Russian president suggested afterwards that he had simply ‘overslept’ – an excuse the Irish Press suggested should be taken with
It’s not been a great week for James Dornan. On Saturday the SNP MSP was forced to apologise (again) for suggesting Lothian Buses’ decision to cancel travel services over anti-social behaviour was linked to St Patrick’s Day, with the implication that the company blamed Catholics for the problem. Then on Wednesday Mr S showed the lengths the Hate-Finder General
We don’t hear much of Laura Pidcock these days. The onetime Corbynista rising star was unceremoniously dumped by her North West Durham constituency at the last election, having managed to turn it from a Labour safe seat into a Tory gain in just over two years. Denied a voice in Parliament and with media appearances
It’s been a bad week for marriages in Westminster. First the revelation of Matt Hancock’s affair with adviser, friend and Pinterest lover Gina Coladangelo led to the ex-Health Secretary splitting from wife Martha. And now today, the minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove has revealed he and his wife Sarah Vine are divorcing after
Labour’s Kim Leadbeater may be celebrating her triumph in Batley and Spen (though not as much as her leader Keir Starmer) but the by-election was another setback for George Galloway’s efforts to get back into parliament — any parliament. The serial candidate hasn’t been an MP since 2015 and Batley was the 15th time he has
After a long and often unpleasant campaign, the Batley and Spen by-election is over, with Labour managing to cling on to the seat. Labour’s candidate, Kim Leadbeater, won a paper-thin majority of 323 votes over the Tory candidate, with George Galloway trailing around 5,000 votes behind Labour. Galloway was certainly not happy with the result
At long last, the bloody, bruising and bitter Batley and Spen by-election is at an end. After eight weeks of campaigning, replete with controversy and allegations of harassment, the results will be finally declared at 5am on Friday morning in this Labour held-seat facing a stiff Tory challenge. If Keir Starmer’s party loses tomorrow it
Yesterday the US comedian Bill Cosby left prison, after the Philadelphia Supreme Court overturned his conviction for sexual assault in 2018. The 83-year-old Cosby had served two years of a three-to-ten-year sentence, before his verdict was overturned on Wednesday because of a ‘process violation’. For a brief moment yesterday though, it appeared that the story
Dilyn may be top dog in Number 10 but these days there’s only breed of choice for the aspiring Tory: a fox red Labrador. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is photographed in today’s newspapers clutching his new eight week old puppy Nova. And while his next door neighbour Boris Johnson has an (appropriately) badly-behaved, chaotic and randy
It’s by-election day in Batley and Spen tomorrow. The only constituency polling done in the West Yorkshire seat suggests that the Tories stand a good chance of grabbing it off Labour, with the intervention of George Galloway threatening to turn the seat blue for the first time since 1997. In recent weeks there has been much commentary
