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
Things got a little heated in the House of Commons last night after defence secretary Ben Wallace gave short shrift to fellow Tory MP and ex Royal Anglian Regiment reservist Lieutenant Mark Francois. All hell broke loose after a war of words over the Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget blackhole. Scot’s Guard’s own Captain Wallace pointed
It has not been a great nine weeks for the European Union. Readers both inside and outside the supranational bloc will have been horrified at the dithering, disinformation and mixed messages of the commission and its national leaders, now considering an export ban to stop vaccine orders to the UK being honoured. The French position on the Oxford jab
BBC Director General Tim Davie was grilled today by the Commons public accounts committee and for Tory MP James Wild there was one item top of his agenda: flags. It follows last week’s sniggering incident in which two BBC breakfast presenters appeared to poke fun at Robert Jenrick’s Union Jack. Wild asked Davie: ‘In your own report
While the rest of SW1 was distracted this afternoon by the findings of the Hamilton report, Mr S tuned in to see Theresa May appear before the National Security Strategy Committee. The former PM remains the master of the withering putdown, as poor Gavin Williamson will have discovered to his cost on watching the meeting back.
Ahead of James Hamilton QC’s report this afternoon and the expected verdict of the Salmond inquiry committee tomorrow, Steerpike went back through the archives to find this clip from Holyrood in January 2019. Will the committee and the QC agree with the First Minister?
Oh dear. Appearing on BBC Two’s Politics Live this afternoon, Labour left winger Nadia Whittome refused to condemn the violent protesters in Bristol last night that left 20 policeman injured including two in a serious condition. Despite being asked four times by presenter Jo Coburn, Whittome would only say ‘I’m not going to get into condemning
Last week reports emerged that the Daily Express is due to drop its famous crusader masthead, in place since the days of Max Beaverbrook and his Empire free trade campaign. The right-wing Express has already dropped its strapline ‘the world’s greatest newspaper’ in 2018, shortly after being bought by Trinity Mirror now renamed as Reach. Reports of
Having been appointed as the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson way back in February 2017, James Slack has earned himself the reputation of being one of the most trusted operators in Westminster. One of the few old hands to make the transition from Theresa May to Boris Johnson, Slack found himself being shuffled in January to the
To slip once may be regarded as a misfortune; twice looks like carelessness. But three times? Well that looks like US President Joe Biden going up the stairs to board Air Force One… Biden was getting on Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews today, as he heads to Atlanta following the massage parlour shooting this
Flags are suddenly all the rage in British politics, with scarcely a day going by it seems without a fresh row over the Union Jack. First a leaked Labour report last month on how to win back voters was splashed on the front page of the Guardian along with its recommendations that Labour make ‘use of the
After being accused last night of misleading the Scottish parliament, Nicola Sturgeon’s daily Covid briefing was high on Mr Steerpike’s watch list today. Alas upon tuning in, viewers were greeted with the sight of Jeane Freeman, the country’s health secretary (under fire for quite different reasons) rather than her embattled party leader. Asked by Sky
In recent years Britain has become something of a Bermuda Triangle for the New York Times. Since voting for Brexit in 2016, the UK has become reimagined in the reporting of the Gray Lady’s esteemed reporters. It is a strange, desolate place, where locals huddle round bin fires on the streets of London, gnawing on legs
It has been difficult to keep up with all the the twists and turns of Europe’s vaccine procurement programme these past nine weeks though Mr S has tried his best. Few countries have vacillated on the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine more than France, where last month nearly 1 in 4 said they would not be getting the
Since his election as Labour leader Keir Starmer has pledged to take a ‘zero tolerance’ stance on anti-Semitism, in a bid to mark a break with Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure. So Mr S was disturbed to learn that not one but two Labour councillors suspended for anti-Semitism last September were yesterday readmitted to the Haringey CLP
Nicola Sturgeon came under fire at First Ministers’ Questions today, with Ruth Davidson interrogating the SNP leader over David Davis’ bombshell on Tuesday night. Davidson asked if, as Davis claimed, a legal document was suppressed by government officials in the course of Mr Salmond’s judicial review in late 2018. Sturgeon replied that by reading out ‘his
The BBC is attempting today to break out of its London-centric mindset. The new Director General Tim Davie told BBC staff in a call this morning that the corporation will move 400 jobs out of the capital, and promised to make programmes that are more relevant to people who live outside the M25. Mr S
This week’s Spectator looks at the role Sir Keir Starmer has played in granting the government extraordinary emergency powers to deal with the rise of Covid. The Labour leader appears happy to maintain such restrictions on the right to protest and even tried to bolster his credentials on law and order by backing under fire
Few government agencies have had a worse pandemic than Public Health England (PHE) whose mission is ‘to protect and improve the nation’s health and to address inequalities.’ Criticisms levelled at PHE over the past 12 months include failing to expand diagnostic testing and contact tracing, discouraging the use of face masks, failing to share infection
The Joe Biden administration, headed up by a proud son of Ireland, has spent St Patrick’s Day briefing reporters in Washington that it will not be taking a side in the latest Irish border dispute. The new President spoke with the Irish Taoiseach on Wednesday in celebration of the two countries’ history — just as the
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon appeared to be in a poor mood today, after David Davis used parliamentary privilege in the Commons last night to make a series of allegations against the Scottish government over its handling of the Salmond investigation. After the ITV journalist Peter Smith asked Sturgeon about the new allegations at the Scottish