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
Poor Grant Shapps. Having hopped on a flight to Spain on Saturday morning, the transport secretary discovered that his family’s holiday hotspot would be placed on the government’s Covid quarantine list from midnight. Shapps tells the Sun that he has spent the last 48 hours of his summer hols locked in emergency calls with industry bods and transport
Who would have thought a Prime Minister that once railed against the ‘continuing creep of the nanny state’ would be the one to launch a war on fat? Boris Johnson spent much of his journalistic life before No. 10 criticising the paternalistic instincts of policymakers. Yet now he is promising new laws to help ‘reduce the temptations that
Given this year’s Tokyo games had to be called off because of the Covid pandemic, you would think those sitting around at Olympic HQ might have a bit of spare time to brush up on their history. Judging by the official Olympic Twitter account, it would seem not. Some social media whizz-kid decided to put together an
Usually, MPs think debate is quite an important part of their job description – after all, the entire purpose of the House of Commons is to pit the opposition against the government of the day, to scrutinise their decisions, and in doing so make better policy. That appears to have passed the Labour MP and Corbyn
Last month, the New York Times published an opinion piece by the US senator, Tom Cotton, calling for the army to be used to quell rioters during the Black Lives Matter protests. Despite this proposition being supported by 52 per cent of Americans, the paper’s staff were not happy about its publication, and many publicly
Who would have thought that a man worth a reported £3 million would need a donation page? Apparently, his supporters do. After suggestions that Panorama journalist John Ware could take legal action against the former Labour leader, Corbynites have taken it upon themselves to set up a fund to help Jeremy in case of a legal dispute. The
#BorisFarewellTour. That’s the hashtag that has been trending on Twitter all morning as the Prime Minister headed north of the border to try and salvage the Union. His journey around Scotland began this morning in the Northern Isles of Orkney to a less than enthusiastic response. So how does a leader go about a tour
As MPs head home for the holidays, Keir Starmer goes into the recess having put clear water between himself and his predecessor. As well as apologising to anti-Semitism whistleblowers, Starmer declared at Prime Minister’s Questions that the party was under ‘new management’. That management appears to be landing well with voters – with Starmer leading over Boris
If anyone thought the Labour party was through with the psychodrama of the Jeremy Corbyn years, they would have been bitterly disappointed by proceedings at the High Court this morning. In court, the Labour Party officially apologised for its own treatment of whistle-blowers involved in a BBC Panorama investigation into the party’s handling of antisemitism cases,
Dame Vivienne Westwood took part in an unusual protest on Tuesday, to try and prevent the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. To raise awareness for Assange’s plight, the 79-year-old fashion designer spent part of the day suspended in a cage outside the Old Bailey, dressed in a yellow suit to symbolise the canary
Why might a top medical adviser be dropped from the government’s daily coronavirus press briefing? This was the question that MPs were keen to answer after England’s chief nurse gave evidence to the public accounts committee on Monday. Ruth May, who was interrogated by the committee chair Meg Hillier, failed to appear at the daily Downing Street
On Saturday afternoon, Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds released a charming picture of their baby son, Wilfred – the first publicly released picture of the child since he was born in April. The PM and his partner were on a Zoom call in Number 10 to thank the midwives of University College Hospital for delivering
Earlier this month the BBC came under intense fire after it released a clip from its podcast ‘No country for young women’ in which guests were asked: ‘How can white women not be Karens?’ On the show, the academic Dr Charlotte Riley explained that ‘Karens’ are women who are unwilling to accept that their whiteness
Oh dear. When Chris Grayling was axed from Cabinet, he appeared to secure a consolation prize from No. 10: a role as chair of the intelligence and security committee. Downing Street backed Grayling as its candidate and with a Tory-weighted committee to pick their chair, he appeared to be a shoo-in. Alas it wasn’t to be.
Matt Hancock appeared to have no time for Donald Trump’s boasts this morning when asked about the US President taking credit for the U-turn on the use of Huawei technology in our 5G network. Asked on Sky News whether he believed that the decision to scrap Huawei’s involvement was down to Trump, the Health minister replied
The government has announced that wearing face masks while shopping will become mandatory from 27 July. It’s fair to say though that some Conservative backbenchers aren’t best pleased about the decision. ‘Nothing would make me less likely to go shopping than the thought of having to mask up’, Tory MP Desmond Swayne rallied in the House
Layla Moran’s Lib Dem leadership bid has taken something of a hit in recent weeks. The Oxfordshire MP has been the subject of a slew of coded criticisms after she said that under her leadership the Lib Dems would be ‘even more radical than Labour’. Both Tim Farron and Vince Cable came out against her
The government’s messaging on the coronavirus has left a lot to be desired in recent days – with confused statements on the easing of lockdown and the efficacy of face masks becoming the norm. Now it appears that even the government’s own ministers are struggling to keep up. On Monday, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland was
This week, former Chancellor Philip Hammond delivered a stark warning to Boris Johnson’s government about China. Speaking on Radio 4, the former Tory MP suggested that Britain should avoid weakening trade links with the world’s second largest economy, and instead be ‘frank’ in private about our ‘strong differences of opinion’. It was a strange intervention
A handful of Huawei executives testified in front of the Commons’ Science and Technology Committee on Thursday morning, to discuss the UK’s network infrastructure and the recent moves to reduce the firm’s role in our 5G network, over security concerns. Presumably the Huawei representatives were hoping to convince the committee and the wider world that
