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 may not seem long ago that the Tory leadership candidate Matt Hancock was positioning himself as a key opponent of the frontrunner Boris Johnson, and saying ‘f*** f*** business’ in contrast to Johnson’s alleged ‘f*** business’ remark. A key thing has changed since then though: with Johnson’s victory looking increasingly likely, Conservative MPs have
It’s starting to feel like Ivanka, the daughter of the US president Donald Trump, can’t quite wait to take over the reins of power from her father, even if she isn’t an elected politician. The businesswoman turned President-whisperer had already raised eyebrows at the Osaka G20 summit this week, when she became the only spouse
Last night it was suggested that when Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary, he was caught on camera by a BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary saying that the French were ‘turds’ for their intransigence during the Brexit negotiations. According to the Daily Mail the Foreign Office then allegedly lobbied the BBC to remove the offending line from the documentary when it aired
Tom Penn and Eve Leigh, the next-door Remainer neighbours of Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds who recorded their late-night row, managed to spark a lively debate about the balance between public interest and privacy when they passed the recording on to the Guardian shortly after the incident last weekend. It appears though that the Brexit
Has the excitement of pitching to be the next leader of the Liberal Democrats gone to contender Ed Davey’s head? Yesterday, the potential successor to Vince Cable was forced to apologise for his violent language, after he said a Remain alliance should ‘decapitate’ the ‘blond head’ of Boris Johnson in an opinion piece for the Times.
Chris Williamson is back in the Labour party. The controversial Corbynite MP was suspended from Labour earlier this year following comments he made about anti-Semitism in the party. But now after an internal investigation, Williamson is once again a Labour MP. Williamson was slapped with a formal warning after he was filmed at a Sheffield Momentum event
When Boris Johnson was asked by TalkRadio yesterday what he did to relax, and he embarked on a confusing ramble about his secret passion: making models of buses and painting them, few thought it was a sign of the former London Mayor’s famed erudition. https://twitter.com/rosskempsell/status/1143491303466053633 Indeed, many seemed to think that Boris’ strange rant was
Boris Johnson has had a tricky time being quizzed by journalists over the past few days, as he’s been grilled about his Brexit position, his negotiating stratgey, his late-night row with Carrie Symonds and his history of consuming (or not quite consuming) Class-A drugs. But it seems as if the former Foreign Secretary was floored
Boris Johnson has come out of hiding but it seems he is still doing his best to dodge scrutiny. On LBC this morning, Boris was quizzed repeatedly about how a picture of him in the Sussex countryside with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds found its way into the media. And 26 times, he refused to answer.
Can veteran Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow stop putting his foot in his mouth when it comes to race? The channel has already been forced to apologise this year after the presenter observed live on television that he had ‘never seen so many white people in one place’ when covering a Brexit rally in
There are few stranger relationships in Westminster than the close alliance of Boris Johnson and the campaigner, author, and self-described ‘Chief Fanny defender’ Nimco Ali. According to Ali, she first met Boris Johnson in Putney eight years ago when they bumped into each other on the high street, as she was campaigning about FGM. She asked
The current competition to become leader of the Conservative party and prime minister may be dominating the papers at the moment, but it’s clear that some parties are already thinking about the next race to Number 10. Mr S understands that the Brexit party are stepping up their preparations for a general election this week,
Britain has become rather used to hysterical prognostications about the threat of a no-deal Brexit from our MPs ever since we voted to Leave in 2016 – with some parliamentarians suggesting that supermarkets will be left empty and drug supplies will vanish if we don’t get a deal or extension by October 31. But Labour’s Rupa
As the battle for second place in the Tory leadership contest has heated up in recent days, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has shown himself more than willing to go on the attack against the frontrunner Boris Johnson – to prove that Hunt should be the MP to face him in front of Tory members. That
For a long time George Osborne was more likely to be found taking snipes at his one-time political rival Boris Johnson than supporting his political efforts. In 2016, the former chancellor mocked Johnson by saying that were he to go for the party leadership he would not ‘fumble the ball’ – a thinly-veiled attack on Johnson’s
The race for the Tory leadership race is on. More than a dozen candidates put themselves forward but to make it to the final two those seeking to replace Theresa May must persuade fellow Tory MPs to back them. Here are the latest tallies of who is left in the contest – and who is
After the second round of voting in the Tory leadership race earlier today, which saw Dominic Raab booted out of the contest, it seemed as if renegade challenger and International Development Secretary Rory Stewart had all the momentum heading into the televised BBC leadership debate tonight. But, while Stewart may be winning over his colleagues
It seems like half of Twitter has fallen in love with Rory Stewart and his whirlwind campaign to become prime minister. But recently, it’s not just centrist swing-voters who’ve been swept off their feet by the International Development Secretary. Certain figures on the pro-no deal side of the Brexit divide now seem to have fallen
So far in the Tory leadership contests, the candidates have spent a lot of time bashing the frontrunner Boris Johnson. However, with Johnson a sure thing for the final two, the real contest is currently between the other five leadership contenders, hoping to win second place to get on the members’ ballot. Hearing that battle cry,
When you consider that Theresa May’s unwise decision to campaign for a ‘dementia tax’ almost single-handedly cost her the general election in 2017, you would think that the current Tory leadership candidates would be very careful about alienating older voters ahead of any upcoming membership vote. Jeremy Hunt, though, seemed to take the opposite tack
