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 the last day of the Liberal Democrat conference today, which means that leader Jo Swinson will deliver her keynote speech to excited delegates at the seaside town of Bournemouth. Normally, political parties arrange for a photoshoot ahead of the final speech of conference, so that various MPs and bigwigs are snapped walking triumphantly into
Oh dear. Relations between Boris Johnson and Michael Gove could become a bit awkward this week after an extract from David Cameron’s memoirs published today in the Times revealed that the current PM asked Cameron whether Gove was “a bit cracked”. Johnson apparently inquired about the mental wellbeing of his now close cabinet colleague after Gove
Boris Johnson has just cancelled a press conference after being booed in Luxembourg, but was the Prime Minister set up? Luxembourg’s leader Xavier Bettel took a dig at Boris Johnson as he gave a short speech next to an empty lectern. Bettel said he ‘wanted to thank Boris Johnson’ as he pointed into thin air: But
Jo Swinson has said she will never forgive David Cameron for calling the EU referendum in 2016. ‘I think so many of the problems that we are facing right now stem from David Cameron’s shocking misjudgement in putting the interests of the Conservative party ahead of the national interest,’ the Lib Dem leader told her party’s
When Jo Johnson quit government, reports began to circulate that his wife Amelia Gentleman – the Guardian journalist – had put pressure on him to leave frontline politics and thereby not serve in his brother Boris Johnson’s government. The Sun reported that Gentleman had grown tired of ‘seeing Boris presiding over an increasingly fractured government,
What is going on at The Guardian? They don’t like David Cameron, fair enough, but an editorial published earlier on this evening attacked him for only experiencing “privileged pain” following the death of Ivan, his six-year-old, severely-disabled son. Its leading article, published at 8.40pm – and presumably in the print issue tomorrow – had this to say:-
There are plenty of ways to go about winning an election if you’re fighting to become an MP, from coming up with a winning electoral strategy, to tapping into a burning local issue. The one thing you probably shouldn’t do though is start off by insulting your local constituents. The North Devon Liberal Democrat candidate
Supporters of Brexit are often accused by their political opponents of having an unhealthy obsession with the past, and wanting to take the country back to an age when the British Empire spanned a quarter of the globe. But, if the Liberal Democrat conference is anything to go by, it appears to Mr S that it
So far, things have gone very smoothly for Jo Swinson since she was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats. The party has managed to increase its numbers in parliament and coalesced around a new hardline Remain position of revoking Article 50. Yet, there were signs today that all is not well with some Liberal Democrat
It’s only been four days since John Bercow announced that he will retire as Speaker of the House of Commons, yet it seems that the bellicose MP is showing no sign that he’ll spend the rest of his tenure keeping quiet, or defending the impartiality of his role. Last night, the Speaker had a break
Oh dear. Boris Johnson’s decision to withdraw the whip from the Tory Brexit rebels continues to send ripples through Westminster. While Chief Whip Mark Spencer has laid out the appeals process to the rebels, many of their colleagues remain unhappy about the decision to remove them from the party. Now things have taken a turn
This afternoon, Lib Dem MPs gathered outside a freshly vacated parliament in a defiant attempt to bag a photo opportunity of them looking stern. The impromptu press conference came after the Court of Session in Scotland declared Boris’s decision to prorogue parliament ‘unlawful’ earlier this morning. Nevermind the fact that the case, having already been
It was announced last night that the government’s recently appointed ‘anti-Semitism tsar’ John Mann would be given a seat in the House of Lords. Mann resigned the Labour whip over the weekend after 18 years as an MP, blasting his former leader as unfit to govern following the party’s risible attempts to remove anti-Jewish members.
Early this morning at around 2am, the Commons witnessed some of the most extraordinary behaviour seen in the Chamber in living memory, as MPs attempted to protest the prorogation of parliament. Below are the strangest moments from the morning: 1. Labour MPs attempted to stop the Speaker John Bercow from leaving his seat as he was called
Now that John Bercow has announced his imminent departure, an inevitable political bun fight will surely follow. The outgoing Speaker told colleagues that he would be stepping down from his post by 31 October, the day the UK is supposed to leave the European Union. The move comes after the Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom told
David Cameron notably came under fire from all quarters when his Resignation Honours list was released in 2016. The former PM’s attempt to dole out knighthoods and honours to his nearests, dearests and even hair stylist, was roundly condemned as the ultimate example of Westminster cronyism. None though were more offended at the time than his
In a long, winding, and emotional speech in the Chamber this afternoon, John Bercow informed MPs that he would be resigning his position as Speaker of the House of Commons by 1 November. Bercow promised to either resign at the end of the parliamentary session if MPs backed the government’s plan for a general election,
As the Labour party currently decides whether it wants to fight a general election, many observers are still trying to work out (three years after the referendum) what the party’s actual Brexit policy is. Does Labour want to Remain? Does it want to fight a second referendum? And if there is a second referendum, what
On Tuesday, the former Conservative MP Rory Stewart won GQ’s Politician of the Year award. It was probably the best part of the week for Stewart, who has had the Conservative whip removed and been roundly mocked after posting a series of photographs on Twitter, in which his typical grinning selfie smile disappeared when he was next
Boris Johnson was dealt a bitter blow this morning. Not only did the Prime Minister suffer his first ministerial resignation, a mere 43 days in to his premiership, but it was his own brother Jo who wielded the dagger. The former universities minister, who signed up to Boris’s government in July, dramatically announced his resignation
