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
The Labour soap opera rumbles on. Just as Keir Starmer appeared to be moving past the turmoil of his botched reshuffle with a very public Commons walkabout with Angela Rayner, relations in the party have kicked off once again. Starmer’s parliamentary private secretary Carolyn Harris MP has resigned over allegations that she spread baseless rumours about Angela
Since the conclusion of Brexit, former EU negotiator Michel Barnier has been keeping himself busy, releasing his own ‘secret journal’ of the talks and wading into the Jersey fishing row to claim ‘the British are behaving like buccaneers.’ For years the former French foreign minister was the toast of Britain’s Remainers, meeting Anna Soubry, Dominic Grieve and Chuka
Westminster is synonymous with the word ‘Dimbleby’, the surname of Britain’s premier broadcasting family. It was here that patriarch Richard cemented his reputation commenting on George VI’s lying-in-state in 1952 and where his two sons Jonathan and David both made their careers on countless BBC and ITV political programmes and all night election specials. But since
While the Conservatives in Cornwall may celebrate winning control of the council in last week’s election, they had one notable setback: Liberal Democrat Thalia Marrington won the Mousehole, Newlyn and St Buryan division, which has been Tory for as long as anyone can remember. What did it take for the Tories to lose England’s biggest
Left-wing figures are picking over the carcass of the Labour party this morning, after the party performed poorly in Hartlepool and in the local elections across the north and Midlands of England. With the Labour candidate for Hartlepool admitting this morning that he doesn’t know what Labour stands for, a fight is now on to
With dozens of Labour councillors defeated across the country, the recriminations and inquests have already begun. Various reasons have been suggested for Tory gains across the Red Wall including the vaccine rollout and Boris Johnson’s own personal popularity, with Labour’s leadership using the occasion to (attempt) a reshuffle of its top team. One defeated Labour
The London election results have finally been declared and it turns out the poll were not lying: Laurence Fox is not to be the capital’s mayor. The onetime actor lost his £10,000 deposit last night after managing just 47,364 votes or, as he preferred to call it, ‘a football stadium’s worth of voters.’ This was
As the dust settles from Scotland’s elections and the war of words heats up over a future referendum, one thing is perfectly clear: Alex Salmond’s Alba party has been a monumental failure. The former First Minister, whose disastrous party launch six weeks ago set the tone for what followed, failed to be elected as one
Having claimed earlier in the week that would he take ‘full responsibility’ for Labour’s election results, it took until 4 p.m. for Keir Starmer to emerge and face the media on what went wrong in Hartlepool. In contrast to a jovial Johnson who got to do his piece to camera in front of a twenty
Oh dear. Labour’s loss of Hartlepool on a 16 point swing to the Tories has not gone down well with Keir Starmer’s most vocal critics. Lloyd Russell-Moyle was first out of the blocks this morning, tweeting shortly after midnight that ‘Good to see valueless flag waving and suit wearing working so well… or not?’ Fellow
How well has the EU dealt with the pandemic? According to Ursula von der Leyen, the bloc’s performance has been world beating. In an address yesterday, the Commission president lauded her own performance while claiming that the EU had proven its detractors wrong. During her so-called ‘state of the union’, she said: We all heard the
This morning Labour are in damage limitation mode after the party’s candidate in the Hartlepool by election conceded defeat. However, not everyone has got the memo. Step forward Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the onetime shadow minister for natural environment and air quality who quit Starmer’s frontbench in July last year. The Brighton left-winger did not even wait
Last month Steerpike revealed which politicians are set to release books after putting their respective lockdowns to good use. But it appeared Mr S missed one looming literary attraction – the release of Michel Barnier’s forthcoming memoirs about the Brexit talks. Barnier, who held the role of the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator between 2016 and 2021,
Voters in Scotland have a lively choice of parties in today’s elections to the Holyrood parliament. In all, there are 25 vying for either or both of each elector’s two votes (proportional representation, innit). As a public service and to mitigate confusion, Mr Steerpike offers this explanatory note on the Scottish political landscape. First, there’s
It has been a tough few weeks for David Cameron. The former Prime Minister’s brief lobbying career appears to have come to an end with the collapse of Greensill capital while his long-awaited UK-China investment fund is still ‘yet to be established’ four years after being announced. Still, at least he can always relax with
The Church of England has spent much of 2021 grappling with how it handles race relations. In the wake of one Anglican ordinand claiming in February that ‘The cult of Captain Tom is a cult of White British Nationalism’ the Church has had to contend with revelations about the use of Non Disclosure Agreements in silencing allegations of
Sunday’s anti-climactic finale looked set to be the biggest Line of Duty let-down for fans of the hit BBC series. But now one of the drama’s stars Martin Compston has waded into the Scottish independence debate and urged his fellow Scots to vote SNP this Thursday. He says that the ‘Tory government in Westminster’ some 325
Ever since the Brexit vote in 2016, there has been a committed group of activists and politicians convinced that only Russian meddling could possibly explain why the British people decided they wanted to leave the EU. The political equivalents of Hiroo Onoda – the Japanese soldier who refused to accept the second world war was
Westminster is something of a ghost town this week as MPs, staffers and wonks all fan out across the country to pound the doorsteps ahead of polling day. With Parliament prorogued and the airwaves dominated by talk of the Red Wall, there is precious little to amuse those poor souls still remaining in SW1 ahead of the
The SNP wants a second independence referendum. Boris Johnson has ruled one out. So what happens if the Scottish nationalists get a majority at Thursday’s Holyrood elections? Nicola Sturgeon has indicated that she will hold a vote — with or without Westminster’s legal consent. So Mr S decided to ask the Cabinet Office and the Scotland Office