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
Desperate times call for desperate measures seems to the mantra of the day in Labour HQ. First a foreign office minister insisted that ceding the Chagos Islands was essential to avoid, er, war – and now Labour MP Stella Creasy has invoked Paddington Bear to stand up for illegal migrants. You couldn’t make it up…
Just when you think Labour’s Chagos saga can’t get any stranger, it does. Now foreign minister Stephen Doughty has claimed that ceding the archipelago to Mauritius is necessary to avoid sparking war. Writing in the Times today, Doughty has rather bafflingly insisted that there is a risk foreign powers like China or Russia could exploit
And there we have it. Baroness Gray of Tottenham has entered the House of Lords. Sir Keir’s former chief of staff Sue Gray has today become a Labour peer after a whirlwind seven months under Starmer’s government. The political peerages document dropped in December after the nominations from the PM, Kemi Badenoch and Sir Ed
Another day, another positive poll result for Reform. The latest Westminster voting intention poll from YouGov shows Nigel Farage’s party swooping into first place – again. More than a quarter of Brits would vote for the Reform crowd if there were a general election tomorrow, with the party up a point since last week and
It was a late-night showdown in the Commons yesterday evening. The terrain? Labour’s Border, Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. But while the legislation was passed – by Pyongyang-style majorities – on the back of Labour votes, a row has now broken out over whether the Tories or Reform were more effective in their opposition. Nigel
The BBC is back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. As the trial between the Scottish nurse Sandie Peggie and NHS Fife continues – after Peggie’s suspension over questioning the use of female-only facilities by trans doctor Beth Upton – it seems that the Beeb can’t quite seem to work out how to
Back to the assisted dying bill. It has emerged that the legislation’s requirement for a senior judge to approve whether someone should be allowed to end their life has been removed over concerns about the toll it could take on Britain’s struggling courts. An amendment put forward by Kim Leadbeater, the bill’s sponsor, has now
Just what is going on at the BBC? It was only a fortnight ago that Laura Kuenssberg was ‘hacked‘ ahead of the launch of her new show. And now it is the turn of a second Beeb bigwig to suffer the same fate, apparently at the hands of another crypto scam. Nick Robinson, the star of
Another day, another Labour drama. Now a second parliamentarian involved in a rather distasteful WhatsApp group has been suspended after former minister Andrew Gwynne was sacked at the weekend over his rather strange message exchanges. It transpires that Oliver Ryan, MP for Burnley, has this afternoon had the whip removed after it emerged he was
With Sue Gray gone, one might have expected the Labour government’s infighting to have subsided. But there is a new public enemy now: Richard Hermer KC. The Attorney General has caused quite the commotion during his time in the top job, with questions raised over his links to Sir Keir Starmer’s controversial Chagos deal, his
Is Labour on a legislative go-slow? In recent weeks, Mr S has noticed a theme from conversations in the corridors of power. Across the House, MPs are increasingly noticing the number of ‘one-line’ whips they are on in parliament. This refers to diktats issued by the party whips: a one-line whip means that MPs don’t
Dear oh dear. In the last hour, Sir Keir Starmer has appointed Ashley Dalton MP to replace Andrew Gwynne as health minister – after the latter was sacked and suspended over the weekend over some rather offensive message exchanges. But it would appear that Dalton is not without her skeletons either. Mr S can reveal
Congratulations to Andrew Gwynne who wins the ministerial sack race of 2025. The Labour MP for Gorton & Denton was tonight sacked as a health minister after the Mail on Sunday revealed his vile WhatsApps. After a 72-year-old local resident got in touch with Gwynne’s constituency party to complain about her bin collection, the MP wrote a suggested
Well, well, well. Rachel Reeves has spent much of her seven months in power banging on about budget blackholes and spending cuts, vowing to use the Treasury’s ongoing spending review to find more ways to cut costs. The Chancellor has asked government departments to find 5 per cent ‘efficiency savings’ to help set their budgets
To Scotland, where the SNP is hard at work vetting its candidates for the 2026 Holyrood poll. But in typical Nat fashion, the rather non-transparent process has prompted questions about how thorough the whole thing really is – after it emerged via party insiders that both Nicola Sturgeon and Colin Beattie of Operation Branchform fame
Another day, another Labour U-turn. Now it’s Ed Miliband in the spotlight, after the Energy Secretary appeared to row back on his Heathrow runway stance this morning. Speaking on the Beeb’s Radio 4 Today programme, Miliband has now insisted that the new development would not come at the expense of his precious net zero targets
Back to the assisted dying bill, which has been at the centre of controversy since it came into being. As Mr S noted this week, its committee stage was rather odd – with one Australian MP witness even using the evidence session to argue that ‘voluntary assisted dying is a form of suicide prevention’. Er,
Oh dear. It seems that the new Labour government is rapidly developing a reputation for rudeness. Whether it’s Bridget Phillipson’s charm offensive backfiring or Angela Rayner enraging Grenfell survivors, few in the cabinet appear to be winning friends across the spectrum. And now Mr S brings news of another instance involving one of Keir Starmer’s
When it rains for the Labour lot, it pours. It has emerged that Sir Keir Starmer’s party has become so unpopular among its own base that it has lost more than one in 10 members since the general election – and in recent months has seen one member quit every 10 minutes. Dear oh dear…
Well, well, well. It seems the Good Law Project, founded by Jolyon Maugham of fox-killing infamy, may be rather struggling to find supporters. Who’d have thunk it? The do-gooder group is eager to fill its vacancy for the prestigious position of EU Campaign lead – but it would appear it can’t seem takers for the
