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
Oh dear. After weeks of unedifying rows over Europe’s vaccine procurement disaster, two top Brussels’ officials are now embroiled in a new diplomatic incident. On Tuesday, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Charles Michel paid a trip to Ankara to meet with Turkish leader President Erdoğan. Unfortunately the three hour long discussion on
Corbynista Laura Pidcock has always had something of the reverse Midas touch when it comes to politics, managing to lose both her council seat in 2017 and then her safe parliamentary constituency in 2019. Now it seems Pidcock’s run of form has even extended to her long time partner Daniel Kebede who works for the National Education
The team behind London’s Crossrail are well used to attracting negative publicity. Last summer it was reported that the new Elizabeth line will open more than four years late and over budget almost £4bn than originally planned, having been originally due to start operating in December 2018. Now though the infrastructure wonks appear to have made a
Trade union Unite are back in the news again after a brief hiatus following the end of the Corbyn melodrama last year. Outgoing general secretary Len McCluskey is facing questions about the £98 million of members’ money spent on building a four star Marriott hotel complex and conference centre in Birmingham which will house union
Last month the Downing Street Twitter account released a sixty second trailer for a forthcoming film heralding the triumphant success of Britain’s vaccine story. Titled: ‘A Beacon of Hope: The UK Vaccine Story’ with the tagline ‘Extraordinary. Unexpected. Fantastic’ the brief clip featured Chris Whitty, Patrick Vallance, Jonathan Van-Tam and other familiar faces from the
An opposition struggling to hold the government to account. A leader failing to win over the electorate. Poll numbers going in the wrong direction. Not Sir Keir Starmer and Labour but Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Tories. On the heels of Ross’s badly-received performance in last week’s BBC Scotland debate, a poll for Ipsos-MORI shows
What do you get for the man who has everything? Newspapers, banking, venture capital, think tanks and speaking engagements – former Chancellor George Osborne has done it all since he left Parliament in 2017 and earning himself a considerable fortune in the process. So it seems only right that the former Evening Standard editor has now
Tonight the Scottish National party released its latest party political broadcast on Twitter. Featuring a young red-haired woman sitting on a stool, striding around a stage, it flashes various images onto the back of a screen complete with melodramatic background tones. Ignoring the Scottish government’s own record of the last 14 years on health, education,
Last month Mr S was first to report that Downing Street veteran James Slack was off to the Sun after four years in No. 10. Slack, who survived the transition from May to Johnson but had only served as Lee Cain’s replacement since January, was well-regarded from his time as the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson
Alan Duncan’s diaries are currently being serialised by the Daily Mail ahead of their release next Thursday. As a long-serving MP of 27 years who knew four successive Tory premiers, who lent Major his leadership headquarters, was part of May’s Oxford generation and worked alongside both Cameron and Johnson, surely such chronicles would be brimming with brio
As a young man, Barry Gardiner planned to become an Episcopal priest, serving as secretary of the Scottish Christian Movement. Fortunately for the country however, Gardiner decided that first academia and then politics were his true calling, rising eventually to the giddy heights in government of being Gordon Brown’s special representative on forestry and then Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow
It has been a difficult few years for Remainer campaigner Femi Oluwole. Having failed to stop Brexit, secure a second referendum or prevent the Tories winning a majority in 2019, you might have thought the last four years would have chastened the ‘Our Future Our Choice’ founder. Not a bit of it. Oluwole, 31, is now turning his
Monday will officially mark a ‘Year of Keir’ as Starmer celebrates the first anniversary of his election as Labour leader. It’s been 12 months of frequent clashes with the party’s once powerful left faction including the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey, the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn and the decision to abstain on the ‘spy cops’ bill. Moderates meanwhile grumble about
Christians are celebrating their second locked down Easter this weekend. If Mr S wasn’t a model of Christian charity, he’d quite like to remind certain people of this fact, especially those irritating folk who last year insisted that locking down just before the Muslim festival of Eid was somehow an attack British Islam. Perhaps not everything is motivated
It is Good Friday today but a bad one for Labour frontbencher Charlotte Nichols. The 29-year-old Warrington North MP was elected in 2019 and despite her Corbynista credentials was named shadow minister for women and equalities by Keir Starmer in November. Six months on, Starmer may be having cause to regret such a rapid promotion
George Eustice has had a rocky relationship with farmers since taking over as environment secretary last year. Trying to balance agricultural interests with Boris Johnson’s vision of ‘Global Britain’ has proven a difficult challenge at times, with Eustice facing flack over the lack of food safety protections in the Trade Bill and criticism over his
Xi Jinping’s overseas diplomats have attracted much controversy in recent years for their aggressive use of ‘Wolf Warrior’ tactics to denounce criticism of China on online platforms. But while past trolling incidents have sparked anger or dismay, the rest of Twitter was left baffled by the Chinese Embassy in Ireland’s most recent foray into statecraft-by-social media.
Oh dear. Onetime Labour leadership hopeful Clive Lewis, the soft left’s answer to Richard Burgon, has waded into the Sewell Report row with his usual tact, guile and diplomacy. Responding to an Independent headline which read: ‘No proof of institutional racism, claims key report’, Lewis, a former shadow defence secretary, tweeted a picture of a
Sadiq Khan is all set to win by a landslide in London, so why not allow a failed election candidate a moment or two in the sun? Mr S was intrigued to see Georgian Democrat Stacey Abrams pop up on his timeline this afternoon in a classic Twitter ‘Get out the vote’ campaign message. Steerpike
Tonight President Macron announced a wave of new national lockdown measures across France, following reports that more than 5,000 people across the country are now in intensive care. In a television broadcast he said that schools would move to remote learning from next week, that a 7pm curfew would now be in place and that