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’s been an eventful week for UK-US relations. Twitter CEO Elon Musk has spent much of it berating the Labour government over Britain’s grooming gang scandal, calling first for Home Office minister Jess Phillips to take the place of far-right activist Tommy Robinson in prison before going on to say that Prime Minister Keir Starmer
All is not well in the Royal Society of Literature. It now transpires that the bosses of the prestigious 200-year-old organisation have resigned after a rather tumultuous year – and ahead of an AGM that could have seen a vote of confidence called by outraged former chairs, presidents and directors. The reason for the widespread
It’s all change at Meta HQ. As Mr S reported last week, former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg – who has served as one of Mark Zuckerberg’s senior execs at the company since 2018 – is now on his way out. Taking, ironically, to rival platform Twitter, Clegg wrote that it was now ‘the right
The focus on Britain’s grooming gang scandal is very much here to stay. Calls for the government to hold a national inquiry into the matter are intensifying and the Labour government is coming under increasing pressure from opposition politicians in the wake of Elon Musk’s rather heated social media posts on the issue. Victims Minister
It’s not been a great start to the year for Sir Keir Starmer’s army. As if poor poll ratings and sporadic online attacks by Elon Musk weren’t causing enough problems, now the Labour party has landed itself in more trouble. The UK Labour party’s TikTok account was found to have released a rather bizarre video
Dear oh dear. There’s more bad news for the Labour lot as new polling by More in Common for LBC has revealed that a quarter of those who backed Sir Keir Starmer’s party in last year’s election now regret their decision. After the events of the last six months – from freebie fiascos to cronyism
After Elon Musk continued to lambast the Labour lot over the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer this morning used a press conference to hit out at the tech billionaire and defend his Home Office minister Jess Phillips – who the Twitter CEO said ‘deserves to be in prison’. The PM fumed today that ‘Jess Phillips has
Back to the curious case of Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate who also works as the government’s City minister. Sir Keir Starmer revealed this morning that the Labour minister – who has also been tasked with the job of tackling financial crime and corruption – has now referred herself to the
To Scotland, where outrage is spreading after news that a former sex pest politician has landed a top charity job. It transpires that disgraced ex-SNP MP Patrick Grady has been appointed to a senior role at a Scottish government-funded charity – while his victim claims Grady’s actions ‘ended’ his career. Good heavens… Mr S would
Elon Musk has had a busy weekend, blasting the UK government over Britain’s grooming gang scandal and even turning on Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in the last 24 hours. It may be a new week, but Musk’s focus remains very much on the British Isles, with the US tech billionaire this morning taking yet
Well, that didn’t last long. Just 19 days after Nigel Farage and Elon Musk were snapped beaming together at Mar-a-Lago, the bromance is already over. Sad! It seems that the Tesla billionaire didn’t take too kindly to Farage’s (mild) rebuke of his call to release Tommy Robinson from prison. Just hours after Farage praised Musk
Oh dear. Is there trouble in paradise? For a few weeks now, Nigel Farage has been basking in a transatlantic glow thanks to the support of his buddies Stateside. The Reform party leader’s meeting with Elon Musk last month led to concern in both Labour and the Conservative party that the world’s richest man will
Parliament returns on Monday – and not a moment too soon. For one of the barmy Starmer army has found themselves splashed all over the newspapers this weekend, with the Tories now scenting blood. The Financial Times reports that City Minister Tulip Siddiq was given a two-bedroom flat near King’s Cross, free of charge in
The advent of the new year brings with it a fresh sting: the introduction of 20 per cent VAT on private school fees. Labour repeatedly argued that the move is necessary to improve standards in the state sector. But this week the Telegraph revealed that the Treasury has made no plans to ringfence the funds
It’s been quite the 24 hours in British politics. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has spent much of it lambasting Labour on Twitter/X over its decision not to hold a government inquiry into child abuse in Oldham. But has he now gone too far? The Tesla founder has posted numerous claims calling for the
There have been better weeks for community relations in Britain. So what better time for Mr S to report the news that ministers are still planning to press on with a definition of Islamophobia? Back in opposition, Labour supported the adoption of a definition of Islamophobia, drawn up by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British
Another one bites the dust. Now it transpires that the former Conservative MP for Dudley North, Marco Longhi, has defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party ahead of its regional conference in Leicester this evening. How very interesting. The ex-Tory announced his move this afternoon, lauding the Farage-founded group – which he dubbed ‘the People’s
Another day, another Labour drama. Now it’s Independent MP Rosie Duffield making waves after giving a rather revealing interview to TalkTV. The animosity between the former Labour politician and the current party leader has spanned years, with public disagreements over women’s rights, policy decisions and sleaze scandals. Are there any circumstances in which the left-leaning
You might have forgotten about Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch’s Twixmas Twitter spat, but the Reform UK leader certainly hasn’t. Mr S would remind readers that, during the Christmas period, a fight on the right broke out between the two party readers after Reform announced it had officially overtaken the Conservatives’ membership total – which
To the Montecito monarchs who, no matter how much they protest about the press, just can’t seem to stay away from the spotlight. Not content with her failed podcast Archetypes – which one Spotify exec fumed should have been called ‘the f***ing grifters’ – or the couples’ documentary, rather creatively titled ‘Harry and Meghan’, the